The final full week of 2025 came quietly and joyously to a close with Christmas day being the highlight, of course. I am very much looking forward to bidding the year adieu next week and embracing a new one. I’m sure a lot of you probably feel the same way as well. I am hoping and praying for change in the upcoming year. Good change.
I hope you all enjoyed a wonderful Christmas, for those of you who celebrate. It was a very lovely day for me – quiet, thoughtful and relaxed. I spent time in the kitchen preparing a wonderful meal and dessert so I was pretty happy about that. I was surrounded by love and spoiled with a handful of meaningful and useful gifts that I am quite excited about.
Discussions this past week revolved around future plans, hopes and dreams and making them into realities. If this past year has taught us nothing else, it has given us a sense that we need to make the most of what we have and truly improve and enrich our lives in spite of outside influences and all of the ugliness out there in the world. We need to protect ourselves, each other and do all that we can. It almost feels like we need to build a special bubble to surround us and keep us safe. We need to keep the ugly away. Does that make sense and are any of you feeling the same way?
As I have already mentioned, I chose Focus as my word for 2026 and as we were talking they all agreed that it needs to be their word as well so I have comrades in arms, so to speak. We will all be working hard to make tangible and intangible improvements to our lives in the coming months and supporting each along the way. For some of us it is to eliminate debt and boost savings, cutting back on expenses, making a job change, making a relationship change, beginning a mental health journey, decluttering and making home improvements, planting a garden and so forth. It sounds like we have a lot to do. For me, it will be focusing on maintaining my mental and physical health and growing stronger while improving my quality of life.
I want to invite you to join us as well. You are all welcome to be a part of our community. After all, that is what this blog is all about. Building a community. What are some of the changes you would like to make in 2026? How do you want to make improvements? Are you ready for a new year and a brand new slate? I am! We can do totally this! Let’s do it together.
My goals for the coming year involve mostly taking care of my mental and physical health, although I do have projects around the house I will work on. I would also love to decrease the amount of time I spend on social media, which I think adds to the general stress with all of its comparisons and misinformation. I believe we should carefully and mindfully curate the outside world that we let into our days. We have the choice to decide what takes up space in our heads.
ReplyDeleteI wholeheartedly agree with that! I like your goals.
DeleteI hope 2026 will be a good year as the past 2 years have not. In February I have major back surgery to hopefully give me my quality of life back. For a long time my QOL has been very poor. Living in constant pain has completely untethered me as a human. Barely getting through the day and having to test in bed on heat when home has been the most depressing and isolating time in my life. If this surgery gives me 50% of my life back I will take it. I do not get paid while off and I am a low income earner so I am very stressed about this huge financial obligation. If push comes to shove I might go back to work early. After healing from surgery I am going on a GLP1 medication for weight loss but more importantly for the evidence of cutting my risk of Alzheimer’s and making my brain more clear. My beautiful mom has Alzheimer’s as did her sister who died at the age of 70!five years ago. Loosing weight and changing eating habits and hopefully be able to exercise should all help lessen my risk of the disease. I become an empty nester in August and my daughter is ready to fly and I am to. She is going to do amazing wherever she goes. Then there comes the deafening silence in the house I never thought I would hear. I will be listening. No one to cook for, no one to talk to. Missing her presence makes me cry all night and day. How do I move on? How do I create a new life for me? How do I walk this road with my mom? My mom is my right to die. She is my everything. I am loosing her day by day. I am the emotional sibling. I do not know what to do without her. My sadness is at an all time low. We might not have Christmas at moms next year. She could be in assisted living by then. My mom has never hugged her children or verbally say I love you. I know she loves me, but I want to fall in her arms and just be hugged and have human touch that I have not had in a very long time. I want to crawl in her bed and lay next to her and just tell her everything just like I did when I was a little girl. Grief comes in waves and drowns me like the wild ocean waves. But the only person who can save me is my God. So 2026 is very uncertain and it is going to be very hard on all levels, but I need to get up everyday for myself look in my mirror and pray that God blesses my day. That is all I can do.
ReplyDeleteYou are carrying the weight of the world right now along with your physical pain and health issues. I pray that your surgery will be successful and give you the relief you need to live a good life. Please consider a therapist to talk with and guide you as you have so much on your plate at this time. I cannot tell you enough how helpful this can be when you feel alone and overwhelmed. Your faith and prayers will carry you a long way, but it also helps to have someone else to help you along the way as well. Take care and God bless you!
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