Goal Setter, Go Getter

Welcome, and thank you for joining me on this final fling for 2021. To be clear, this really is just a wee chat. There’s no agenda here. I’m not aiming to convert you to cloth nappies (parent or not) or making a dig at my employer for refusing to consider flexible working. I’m also not experimenting with present tense or first-person narration. If you get all of those references then we really have been on a journey together. In that journey I’ve really shown my hand and you’ve cheered me on sometimes anonymously with a little ding-a-ling on my phone to say that a mysterious stranger has visited my blog. And as I prepare to say goodbye to 2021 and embrace 2022 I am simply finishing what I have started to make way for something new. 12 posts, 12 months – completed it mate.

But what was the fucking point I hear you ask? Well, what I’ve learnt through this exercise, more than where to place a comma is that I’m not very good at pausing. Rest doesn’t come naturally to me and so regardless of how trivial the goal is - working towards it is good for me. And I’ve also learnt that in order to achieve a goal, I need to focus on what I get rather than what I lose. Giving and getting sings to my heart whereas giving up or losing fills me with sadness.

I’ve gained confidence, I’ve practised a skill and I’ve built a little portfolio. It’s not the portfolio I want, but that’s a challenge for another year. I’ve survived a whole calendar year of motherhood and I’ve loved it. It has been So. Fucking. Hard at times. I remember when the pandemic was relatively new and I was medium pregnant and I wrote an ambiguous Instagram post (as I am prone to doing) about Mother’s Day.

“When everything is going truly tit’s up, you never know what’s round the bloody corner.”

I am so grateful that 2021 was a good corner for me, for my little family. But 2022 has to have a slower pace to it. You can’t be moving 550 miles to a house you’ve never seen, to a village you’ve visited twice and starting a new a career as a youtube tiler every year. And I’m definitely scared of that slower pace. I can’t quite rest on a snappy set of actions that equal chill. So for now, I’m going to start a new job, launch a business and find time to write 6 short stories. Drink 8 gallons of water everyday, 40,000 steps, cook all of Atticus’ meals from scratch and learn how to rewire the house.

2022, I have never started a year feeling less ready. And yet it is happening. I am in you and I don’t know who is going to come out of you.