New Year... New Me?
A.K.A. I'm making a vision board and realizing there's not much I want to change.
I am a vision board girlie. It started in elementary school, where we’d make collages and word-maps (if that’s the right term) of things we want to be. Coupled with resolutions, of course, because for some reason the western world is obsessed with making a list of things to achieve in the coming year, even though almost no one sticks to them. Anyways, my love of vision boards eventually waned as high school and college became more demanding and January became a month where all I had to do was rest and prepare for the coming semester.
Now, as an adult, after COVID and a few much-needed crafting days with my friends, I’m back on the vision board grind. The only thing is…my board is way more scarce than last year.
A Look Back
My theme for 2024 was balance. My work and person lives were completely out of whack, which was frustrating as I was newly married and wanted to have the time to relax at home, doing things I wanted like reading, knitting, journaling, writing, spending time with my husband and cat, and generally taking care of myself. Yet I was so exhausted from day after day of waking up at 5:30, going to the Jewish preschool/day school I was a teacher at, and oftentimes leaving to go home around 5, which meant getting home by 6 due to Minneapolis traffic. My co-teacher was going through an awful custody battle and actively grieving her father, as well as being in her first year after Chemo, finally cancer-free. I’d walk into my classroom to begin prepping and start chatting, only for it to turn into an un-invited vent session. By 8:30, I was exhausted emotionally, and that made me tired physically. Add on top of it the twelve three-year-olds I taught and how most of them became older siblings in my class, and things were never calm.
So, I made a conscious effort to separate work and personal time. My husband and I made intentional time each week to spend with one another. I got into a yoga and meditation routine that, when we moved in October, ended up getting disrupted, but as the year finishes out I have it back. I flew to Indiana for my cousin’s wedding and ate amazing food. Our house smelled of incense and coffee almost 24/7. I began working out consistently. I prayed more and read thirty-three books. Still, however, my mental and physical health was declining due to the stress of the job I loved. So we moved. I quit in August with a tearful goodbye, and two months later we moved north, where shifting into a self-care and work routine was easier, since I’d already put much more time into it.
All in all, while I didn’t complete everything on my 2024 vision board, the spirit of it all was with me. And for that, I’m happy.
The Year Ahead
As I sat down on Sunday to curate my new Pinterest board and collage it together into the image above, I found things to be much more difficult than last year, so I started with what I want to keep up. A good relationship with my husband, my spiritual life, my workout and yoga routines, and so on are all holdovers from last year, and I’m sure they will be for the rest of my life. Then, I looked at what I knew this year would hold: summers on the lake, lots of reading, and a trip to Roatán with my in-laws.
The rest is filled with vibes and a few more lofty goals. As an adult with a degree from a few years back, I still have college debt I’m paying off. I have a car loan. I will soon have a mortgage. So as much as Financial Freedom seems out of reach, I’ve put it on there in the hopes that I’ll be able to get at least a good chunk of my debt taken care of this year. I want to maintain my health. Since moving cities and jobs, I’ve had less chronic pain flare ups and less anxiety attacks, which for someone with lifelong clinical anxiety is a huge step. I hope to be able to keep that going. Especially as my family is one with a history of various chronic conditions and great, dramatic medical emergencies, I’d like to keep that at bay this year. And beyond all that, I want to have comfortable, cozy, positive vibes even as the year ahead is full of various uncertainties.
I’m honestly glad my new vision board doesn’t have too many major goals. Great desires and full life changes are no longer in the cards for me, and I’m grateful. When life slows down and things fall into place, people often feel bored or lost. It’s why consumerism is a big deal—that rush of getting a new thing, going somewhere, changing your aesthetic, etc. is all a way to recreate that shift, those events. But falling in to a peaceful, safe, consistent life?
It may not be the desire for some, but it’s all I’ve ever wanted.