Starting 2021 the right way

 

Start of 2021 and I’m strangely missing the “New Year, New Me!” social media bombardment.

This seems a displaced start to the new year.

Considering we’ve come from 2020 and we are still going through the upheaval of Covid in our lives it really isn’t a surprise.

It feels like we’ve inadvertently dragged 2020 into 2021.

I'm surprisingly quite happy the new year has started.

I’m not one for “new year, new me” stuff. I’ve always been one who just carries on with the flow. It is, after all, just another day, of another month into another year.

But I need this year to be different.

I’m not talking about Covid.

Covid life is going to be around for a while. Our lives are going to be interchanging and interconnected to covid news until at least the summer.

My attitude however needs changing.

I am a fighter. I will take on and fight any obstacle that comes my way. It keeps me going.

Last year started so well.

We personally had come off the back of a hellish 2019. We fought against wrongful accusations, against injustice and inappropriate behaviour. We fought the system and we won. It took us to hell and back but we did it.

We then started the year fighting for the children and access arrangements; a consequence of the previous years difficulties. Once again, we won.

We then started a fight against inaccessibility locally. We took to change our High Street for the better. We started that fight and we achieved so much until Covid stopped us.

We then had 4 children with complex and interchanging special educational needs at home.

As above I was fine. I relished in the fight.

Home Education wasn’t really a fight. I was in my element and I just did my “teacher thing” and I genuinely believe that we all thrived in it.

Then we all adjusted to covid life post lockdown. There wasn’t really a fight needed. So I stopped.

I’ve watched people around me achieve amazing things during and beyond lockdown. Some started new businesses, others took on home education after weeks of tears and frustration and some have taken up new hobbies or made old hobbies thrive.

I didn’t. I just stopped.

Prior to lockdown I signed back up to Genes Reunited to carry on my old family tree and genealogy research. I am part of a Kitney Facebook group and after 4 years of inactivity it became active again. So I signed up with the intent to start again.

Nope. I did it when I was asked a question in the group but didn’t go into it any further.

I had actively asked for art equipment last Christmas so I could carry on and focus on my artwork. Lockdown should have provided me with the time, opportunity and action to create more.

No. I only created 2 pieces of art last year; one was done before lockdown and the other a few weeks into lockdown.

I had plans to read more books, to write more blog posts here, to start a new blog and get back to writing about faith and religion and had plans to be more active and creative in the garden.

I didn’t do any of it. I stopped. I wasn’t struggling with lockdown, kids being home or the fear of being infected. I just stopped.

That isn’t me.

Of course, there are many positive things that I did do.

I started working for our church on their social media accounts as well as creating several interactive activities for our church community to do during lockdown. I was holding a Zoom Quiz night once a month which was really fun for family and friends. I managed to listen to around 40 audio books (is this sacrilege against actual books?) Oh and I got fat. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing as the food was always great.

The church related activities were good because they helped a generation who are computer illiterate to actually have “church” in a time when they would have otherwise missed out.

However, outside of that I don’t think I’ve done more than survive day to day. I know for many that can be an achievement in itself and I don’t want to take away from those people but for me, it isn’t a lot.

I usually feel like I can share a blog post of my art for the year, what we’ve done activity wise, how the children have progressed on XYZ or what I’ve personally achieved but I can’t this year.

It really bothers me. I COULD have done so much more.

Although this isn’t a “New Year, New Me" post this is definitely a post that makes me more accountable to what I do going forwards.

Does anyone else feel the same? Feel like you want to achieve more this coming year than last?