Word of the year

Some years I pick a word to define my years and some years I let the year pick the word. In 2016, the word became Grateful after Ben's diagnosis. In 2017, I choose Bravery and made it the Year of Being Brave. I learned how to swim, relearned how to ride a bike and started doing triathlon. It was a successful year in terms of fitness and trying new things. But then I let 2018 go and the word became Survival. And that is not good. It was not a good year personally, in terms of goals and BT's illness, and with my whole life in general. Every day I was just glad to have made it through the day. I threw a 40th birthday party and got no joy out of it. We went to Disney World and was miserable the whole time. My depression and anxiety took over everything and I didn't realize it until the year was ending. Several of the support systems I relied on quit for various reason unrelated to me but it turns out that was very bad for me mentally. Another support system experienced a major life change and that caused a few issues as well. No blame is involved and things just happen but it also made for a very bad year. BT also had a rapid downslide in his symptoms

One day talking to my best friend, I remarked that 2019 was also looking to be a very bad year. I realized later I was already writing off the entire year before it even started. So I sat down and wrote down 10 things I wanted to see or achieve in 2019. Mediating and being more mindful was at the top of the list. I've been using the Calm app on and off for a couple of years. So I've dedicated this year to doing at least 10 minutes of mediation every day. I find that mediation helps manage my anxiety and depression very well. There are also guided mindful runs on another app I use. I want to bring being more mindful into as many aspects of my life as I can.

I also recommitted to fitness because that was one of things that started to fall apart for me. I want to work on making sure all my relationships are healthy for me. I want to manage my relationship to Ben's ALS better. He is not doing well anymore and there is more and more for me, it feels like. We have to find a daily caregiver for him now. And that is another new and unwelcome change.  I want to try 3 new things this year. So I am trying to fix the blahness that resulted last year. I don't want to go out too hard though and burn out at the beginning of the year like so many people do. It's a marathon, not a sprint, after all.