Whatever Year You’re In, There You Are

“I’m going to write a blog post,” I just told Sona, as she settled into the couch for a quick cat nap before getting the boys.

“You remember how to do that?” she joked.

So, I’m upstairs, the sky outside greying, sitting in the final glow of our Christmas tree–which will hopefully be awaiting pick-up in the alley come tomorrow afternoon. I have 30 minutes before I need to prep dinner, and the almond-scented soft meringues, which I’ve been wanting to cook for months, are drying out in the oven. Fingers crossed.

For me, this is what trying to welcome in 2020–and letting some more light into my life–looks like: this blog post and those meringues.

Here’s the thing: 2019 and I just didn’t get on as I’d expected. It wasn’t until about 3/4 of the way through the year that I realized I was–shall we say–foggy? By but the end of the year, and especially in the midst of the holiday chaos, it became really clear: something has been up.

I’ve never experienced depressive episodes. Have I maybe battled back bouts of depression in the past? Likely. Can I identify with the can’t-get-out-of-bed-heaviness that depression narratives so often circle around? No.

Anxiety has always been my brand of mental illness.

But as 2019 drew to an end and I started to reflect on my year, a lot of which I can only remember through a haze, I realized that, sometime before summer, I started to slip.

Hindsight is 20/20 (see what I did there?), and for whatever reason, I didn’t bother doing the math. I saw all of the disparate symptoms–relentless sleepiness, inexplicable weight gain, frequent illness, general malaise, irritability, hair loss, low-level sadness, increased anxiety–but I didn’t assess the sum total.

Mostly, I knew I’d lost motivation to do anything–but especially the things that give me joy, and that probably should have been the telltale sign. At some point in early December, I crumbled into a ball in front of Sona, sobbing, “I don’t do anything I love anymore.”

I’d lost my joie de vivre.

I’d virtually quit blogging. I haven’t been enthusiastic or inventive in the kitchen. I’ve barely reached for my camera to document the boys’ lives this year. I abruptly stopped working on a writing project that was my primary focus at the beginning of 2019. I haven’t fussed over my Etsy shop or nurtured my photography business.

Ultimately, I stopped engaging any of my usual outlets for creativity.

I stopped doing the things that make me me, and while I don’t know if that qualifies as depression, I do know that it triggered–or was triggered by–something close to it.

A friend recently sent me a meme that said something along the lines of, “2020: But did you die tho?” In fact, I kind of almost did.

Back in March, while on a family trip to Antigua, a severe case of food poisoning morphed into a near-death case of diabetic ketoacidosis, landing me in the ICU for four days. I’m really quick to say that, as much of a setback as that was physically, it didn’t make much of an impact on me emotionally, but Sona has repeatedly said that she thinks that is when I started to slip into a funk.

I also suspect that my medical drama might have triggered another health issue, which I’m going to chat with my doctor about next week.

On top of all of that, I had an extremely flexible teaching schedule this past summer and fall, enabling me to teach online and work remotely more than usual. While everyone kept saying how “lucky” I was to have that kind of flexibility–and I know that I am–I knew early on that having more alone time than usual wouldn’t be good for me. I don’t do well when I have too much time to sit by myself and think. I tend to over-analyze everything and internalize guilt about having so much spare time, which sends me swinging on a really unhealthy pendulum.

On one side, I become hyper-productive, trying to compensate for my own insecurities about not contributing enough–to our family, the world, our bank account–by tackling never-ending to-do lists. On the other, I am positively slothful, somehow even further burdened by the expectations of what I should be doing with my extra time and, ironically, more apt to completely waste it. Thus, the guilt spiral perpetuates.

This is all to say that, as I write this now, three days into the new year, I can see some of the fog lifting. I’ve spent a couple of not-so-fun months reckoning with the hole I’d dug myself into, and the promise of the calendar turning over has given me the nudge I needed to try to claw my way out–placebo or no.

So, this year, my resolutions look a lot more like tiny promises to myself than lofty, externally-motivated goals:

Get back to writing.

Reach for my camera more often.

Be better at listening to my body.

Do the things that bring me joy.

Make the damn meringues.

And mostly, pay more attention to myself and where my head is at.

This is me. It isn’t a before. There won’t be an after. I don’t endeavor to go down a pant size or lose 50 pounds or, god forbid, give up carbs.

But I have gotten myself out of the house every day for a week. I’ve moved my body. I’ve made the doctor appointments I’ve avoided for months. I signed up for an advanced memoir-writing class that begins in three days. I’ve cooked some new meals. I put up Christmas decorations. I’ve let myself take naps without feeling any guilt.

I am showing up for myself–not shaming myself–and that’s what matters. My hope for 2020 is that all of us mommas–who are so good at mothering everyone else–don’t forget to mother ourselves, too.