Happy 2018!
I know I’m a couple of days early but, truly, we’re done with 2017. Really done. So much so that it already feels like 2018 in our house.
So I’m saying it now, while I’m still feeling the new-year happy vibe.
The tree came down yesterday with not so much as a moan from my two. In fact, they were actually excited to put it all away, having grown completely used to it over the last couple of weeks.
And I’d like to say it’s nice to have the living room back to normal, but I’m still picking up the remnants of Christmas – even more Lego, Sylvanian paraphernalia that I have promised I won’t hoover up even on a bad day, and crappy bits of Christmas-cracker junk – that lay scattered here and there. Although, to be honest, that’s pretty standard in our house. Or at least it has been this past year.
We’re already ‘going dry’. Husband seriously over indulged on rich food and excellent booze and has been suffering from what he calls “terminal heartburn” for what feels like years. He’s now stoically declaring his new leaf well and truly turned over.
In sympathy I haven’t touched a drop for three days which, considering we’ve both been off work for a week and it’s Day 10 of a wet and windy school holiday, is pretty bloody good going. It’s New Year’s Eve tomorrow so I might have a glass of bubbles or two, but he won’t, and we’ll never make it ‘til midnight, so there’s no danger of a shocking hangover.
Gone are the days of New-Year’s-Eve trauma. Panics over what to wear, where to go, how much money to get out of the cashy, booking taxis. And, quite frankly, thank god for that.
The kids will still be up at 6.30 whether we’re nursing hangovers or not.
I remember one particularly bad New Year’s Day (pre-children, of course), hyperventilating in Waterstones, Piccadilly, all thanks to having too good a New Year’s Eve. Cannot even imagine feeling like that and having to hold it together for the kids.
That’ll do. At least for a good few years.
Anyway, where was I? Yes, I’ll resume the no-drinking thing 1st Jan but that’s not my resolution for this year.
Nope, this year I resolve to quit ghosting it.
What am I talking about? It jumped out of the screen at me when I was researching some interiors blogs for work this week.
For some reason (can’t think why) compelled to read ‘How To Be Tidy : Advice From A Reformed Slob’, a post on a lovely site called Hunter’s Bohemia, I came to the first para, which commanded: Don’t ghost it.
Here’s what it said:
… It’s about retraining yourself, about not being blind to the stuff. The laundry. The shoes. The things that have migrated from all over the house and shacked up in small piles where they shouldn’t be. These days I won’t let myself walk past something that belongs somewhere else without taking it with me. Slowly but surely, it becomes habit and you find yourself needing less full day overhauls. It pays to be efficient when it comes to keeping a clean house.
Makes. Perfect. Sense.
And I’m going to carry that resolution into the whole of my life in 2018. Because I have been doing it for too long.
Ghosting it, I mean.
In fact, I feel like I’ve woken up from a very long, heavy, not-at-all-relaxing sleep that has consumed me for most of 2017.
I’ve been ghosting it all – life admin, this blog, looking after myself, keeping up with friends and, I must admit, parenting to some extent. I’ve been just about surviving. And right now I feel like I’ve just woken up.
Maybe (hopefully) the crazy cocktail of hormones I’m currently on is finally starting to work. For the first time in a long time I feel present. I feel conscious. I feel alive.
So Happy New Year to you all. Here’s to a healthy, happy, harmonious 2018.
And here’s to not ghosting it, but living it.
x
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