When does a new year start for us? And…why is it important. Due to a whole pile of things in my Nobody Life which happened in the Gregorian calendar of 2024, I definitely feel the need to start something new. Actually, what I really need is to NOT have another year like the one we have just left rather than have too much newness to cope with.
However, like it or not, my life is now very different to the one that I started with in 2024. I don’t have any parent alive anymore, I don’t have a Mum in Law, I don’t have an Auntie that was very much part of my life from being born and I don’t have a friend that I have known since I was a teenager. All gone. I also don’t have our paint manufacturing business which had been a huge part of our lives for twelve years or so. I currently don’t have a traditional job (yeah) and yet I am off sick (go figure). I also certainly don’t have my health.
Lots and lots of stuff – gone….POOUFF!
As I began the process of dealing with all the things that left me during 2024, the spectre that is Christmas began to loom large. Now, I would never describe myself as a follower of the Christian religion but like most of us Nobodies, I always go ahead with the ‘traditions’. I like the twinkly lights and getting everyone together to feast. But. You just knew a ‘but’ was coming didn’t you? As December 25th and December 31st came closer, I started to get the ‘it will be a difficult one for you this year’ comments. At this point, I could have headed into the gloom arena, wallowing in the thought that this will be the first without Mum and MIL, Auntie, etc. Instead, I started thinking about moving into a new phase. Of course I have grief, sometimes almost overwhelmingly. However, I also have a future BUT (another one), when does my new year and my new me actually start?
My pondering went like this; “should it be on the Winter Solstice? Should I use the Gregorian calendar? Is there another start date I could pick?” To be honest, it doesn’t really matter because I already write a Journal daily which also records some ‘stuff’ that happens as well as my feelings. For the record (the diary?), I started my ‘new year’ at about 17.00 (GMT) on the 25th December when all of our guests left me to collapse into a chair. I will spare you the details of the tears of pain, the use of two hot water bottles and my full dosage of pain relief to bring me back to being somewhere near lucid, However, as the pain subsided, I realised that I had moved into my new year.
I have, during this period, been reading ‘What I Ate in One Year’ by Stanley Tucci. This is a diary and other thoughts of what the fella Stan and his family ate. I don’t intend to review the book, at this point, but I did enjoy it. It did give me the opportunity to look at the concept of diary and/ or journal. As I already have my own diary (here and on www.ohkaywords.com ), I was interested in this published format. As a result (and because I haven’t been a very good diarist in the past months), I had an epiphany, I need to focus the diary stuff. Due to the fact that my health is pretty poor, I have picked health on which to focus.
On that note for the purpose of the diary:
I felt absolutely rubbish this morning. I think the fibromyalgia and psoriatic arthritis were fighting for supremacy. I drank a lot of tea and water. I have taken the tablets which do other things to me but, at least, make me able to function. I have managed to put 3lbs on since last week but they did warn me that the gabapentin I take can cause this ‘little’ side effect.
Need to get new PAC numbers as the ones I got in December have expired. This is urgent and increased my stress levels as I know the provider will be difficult.
I am off to swim and sauna. I will not give in to the pain. I have to do something none drug related to stay sane!
I cried into my goggles for the first two lengths of my swim as the depression really kicked in and no one could see me through the steam coming off the pool. From length three, the endorphins started to work their magic and I began to feel better. For note, despite the huge pain I was in, I increased the number of very slow lengths to 30.
I didn’t eat any processed food.
I was off the scale exhausted by 20.00 (fibro again, I think) but strung out going to bed by watching Traffic Cops and spotting where they were screaming around Derbyshire (and actually a bit of Nottinghamshire).