Is anyone else majorly struggling after the holidays? I see everyone and their sister fired up on Instagram, doing all the goals and resolutions and “fresh starts,” while I’m sitting here, still in my jammies, with yet another kid who was up all night puking, feeling more behind on life than ever.
The truth is, the holidays were kind of brutal for us this year. We had sickness after sickness roar through our house. We had a lot of sleepless nights, some heartbreaking losses, and a lot of hard, hard change. And right now, a few days into the new year? Well, I’m barely awake enough to piece together lunch for my kids, let alone plot out some grand New Year’s resolutions that will see me finally shedding the baby weight or accomplishing all of my dreams.
Part of me wants to give into the feeling that I have failed before the year has even began, but you know what? This is the reality of where I am at in my life right now, and that’s going to have to be OK.
Just because the year turns over into a fresh new calendar page, or just because your friends are all broadcasting their “New Year, New You” inspiration doesn’t mean that life has changed overnight. Miscarriage and job loss and sick kids and heartbreaks and chronic illness and marriage trials and all of the hard things that we face in life continue on. A change in the last number of the year doesn’t take away those things, and it’s perfectly OK to acknowledge that your “new” year feels anything but nice and new and shiny.
If you’re like me, maybe your new year feels exhausting already. Maybe it feels overwhelming. Maybe it feels like you’ll never catch up. Maybe it feels like you want to give into the feeling that you have failed before you’ve even started.If you’re like me, maybe your new year feels exhausting already. Maybe it feels overwhelming. Maybe it feels like you’ll never catch up. Maybe it feels like you want to give into the feeling that you have failed before you’ve even started.
But friend, I promise we haven’t failed.
Let’s give ourselves permission to ditch the resolutions and just focus on getting through. Maybe that’s not the most ideal way to start the year, but it might be the most realistic. There will be no grand plans to whip myself into shape, no shiny new planners to organize every aspect of my life, no promises to do more and be more and accomplish more.
Instead, I hope to just be.
I hope to be content with where I am at in life right now. I hope to recognize that there is a season for everything, and that the season of life I am in right now is coming with a few unexpected hurdles, and to get over them, I need to be kind to myself. I need to be OK with being less productive and maybe having the kids watch a little more TV than I would like and be OK with moving a little slower at the moment.
I hope to be OK with just surviving for now.
I know there are no guarantees in life and I’m a firm believer in chasing your dreams and working on your goals, but the older I have gotten, the more I am realizing that there is also wisdom in recognizing your limits and accepting where you are right now.
Someday, hopefully even soon, we will get back to kicking butt. But for right now, it’s OK to take a time-out and sit back and know that we have no resolutions or grand plans for the new year. We can happily cheer on our friends who are out there making it happen while we take a little time-out from hustling. From having a baby to getting through a pregnancy loss to dealing with sick kids to job troubles, there are so many ways we might be struggling right now.
And the only resolution we need in these times is to be kind to ourselves. We’ll get there. But for right now? All we really need to do is hang on for just a little while longer.