I don't really go for the whole "new year's resolution" thing. An arbitrary date change is not the best time to commit to doing something you don't really want to do. You should resolve to make changes when you decide those changes would be good things for you to do, not because the calendar says January 1. That said, I actually have some changes I intend to make this year. The timing of them is coincidental.
Part of this came about because my husband and our son were out of state for a week over the new year. I was home alone with our daughter for that whole week. I noticed that I didn't really have much trouble picking up around the house and keeping things clean. Our maid service was supposed to come the day they left, but her daughter got sick, and she postponed until the following week. Therefore, I was trying to keep things picked up so I wouldn't have to do it all in a rush when she came. Also, and this is the significant part, I discovered that I am more likely to do things when there is no one else around who could do them.
In addition, I had been feeling a bit discontented lately, and disconnected from my husband. We have been tossing around the idea of moving, and so I started thinking about what I would like if I were to live by myself and get my own house. Then I thought about what life would be like living by myself, and I noted that I would have to do all the cleaning by myself, which I'd probably be able to do just fine because it would be just me.
I dreamed about being able to get my own tiny house and decorate it like a castle and take it to events, and about having just a moderately-sized house with an art studio where I could do whatever I wanted. I even researched prices on RV's that I could turn into a castle and found myself thinking, "Why should I ask my husband about getting one of these? I can afford one by myself, and then I could do whatever I wanted with it, and he couldn't object, because it would be MINE instead of OURS."
And then a light bulb went on. I have spent my WHOLE LIFE trying to do everything in order to please other people. I never do anything without checking to make sure it is ok with anyone and everyone else involved. Living by myself would give me the ability to make my own decisions without having to worry about what anyone else thought. But having had this revelation, I realized that I did not need to live by myself to make that happen. I simply needed to stop relying on other people to give me validation and self-worth.
So my new plan is to pretend that OUR house is actually MY house, and that my husband is just visiting and cannot be expected to actually do anything, and everything is my responsibility. A happy side benefit to that is that I am fairly certain that this will also improve my relationship with my husband, because I will be not only keeping the house cleaner (which is often a point of contention between us), but I will be a more confident person in general. I will no longer be relying on my husband to "take care" of me, even subconsciously, which will remove some of his sense of responsibility from his shoulders, and I will feel like I have some control over my own life.
Another part of my new outlook came as a result of the horrible Newtown, Connecticut elementary school shooting. Our son is 5, and I knew how easily this could have happened here. For the next several days, my facebook feed was covered with news about the tragedy, so I learned all about it without ever reading a single article about it. I avoided reading about it because that kind of news is terribly upsetting to me, and I didn't feel like I could take it emotionally. However, I was still inundated with news about it because my friends kept talking about it. And then came the people, not even a week after the shooting, screaming about how no one should take their guns away. I could not believe how utterly insensitive these otherwise nice people were being. And shortly after that came all the people declaring that the reason the shooting happened was because "god was not allowed in schools." Utter bullshit.
My anger-ometer blew at that one. I could no longer contain myself and found myself turning into an angry atheist. How dare people blame me, even indirectly, for a crazy person killing children my son's age, simply because I don't want him to be force-fed religion in class?
I had an impassioned discussion with my husband, where I sat there in tears, NEEDING to see real changes happening politically in this country because what I was seeing was awful, and I simply could not take it. I found myself spending all of my time, even work time, arguing with strangers on the internet. The next day, after I had calmed down a little, I thought about my discussion with my husband and realized that I had an excellent solution to my problem: turn off the news. Since I don't watch the news on TV, nor do I read news articles unless they are posted on facebook, expressly because I find most "news" to be depressing sensational drama which upsets me, I realized the only way to put the filter back on my life was to start deleting people on my facebook.
Rather than unfriending everyone, however, I simply unsubscribed from the people who post anything controversial, regardless of which side they were on, so I can still visit their pages if I want to and see pics of their kids, etc., without finding myself engaged in debates with THEIR friends. My facebook news feed slowed considerably.
A happy side benefit to this was that I no longer spent nearly as much time on facebook, reading news articles that did nothing but make me angry, and getting daily updates on what people were eating for dinner. Instead, I was suddenly able to find plenty of time to catch up on the long list of projects I had planned. I made a dress for my daughter, a bathrobe for my son, carved a mold in soapstone and pewter cast a set of wind chimes, cleaned up my craft room, and got rid of a bunch of things that I no longer needed.
The third major change has to do with my work outlook. I have disliked my job for quite some time. I would like to quit and do something artistic, but unfortunately, the arts don't pay well and are remarkably unstable. I am also over 35, and I have children, which makes it difficult to get into the music industry, which is the only arts industry in which I have training. I am a decent programmer, but the idea of doing the same old thing at a new company just made me feel like crap. However, last week, my team lead at work told me that our company is having money troubles, and that I may find myself laid off soon.
Financially, I am not prepared to drop to part-time at my current job, and working in another industry would mean I would be earning much less than I currently do, with just as much time invested as I currently invest. I instantly found myself considering programming jobs, despite my previous aversion, because that's what would pay the bills.
I used to complain that I disliked programming because most of it is maintenance. Once the project is released, you're not "done." You still have to fix the inevitable bugs, change the way stuff works because the customer doesn't like it, etc. And we have been in maintenance mode at work for a couple of years, with no end in sight. It finally occurred to me that this was the reason for my discontent, not a dislike of programming. I don't mind writing code that does things. But I really hate being stuck in maintenance mode indefinitely.
I stuck with my old job because of the perk of being able to work from home. However, at this point, I'm thinking I might not mind going back to work in an office, as that would also keep me off of facebook. It has many disadvantages, but I suspect I would be able to get paid more at another company, which would make up for those disadvantages, at least temporarily, and perhaps other arrangements could be made at a later date.
In an effort to make another programming job more palatable, I had to tell myself that I need to not look to my job for fulfillment. It is just a job, which pays me money, so that I can afford to do the things that actually DO fulfill me. So many people do not have the luxury of a fulfilling job, so while it would be nice to do something that I found rewarding, I think I will have to give up on that idea, at least for now. Maybe eventually, that will change.
For now, I will start taking control of my own life, stop asking for permission for everything, and accept that while things may not always be ideal, I can make things work, and still have things to be proud of.
So congrats to me. Finally, at 36 years old, after having two children in my second marriage, I became an adult. :)
