New Beginnings
Thu., January 1, 01:15 PM
More than a week since I last posted – not that I haven’t started half a dozen time, just that I didn’t like ’em after I started. I think I fabricated that constraint, so I’ll have to work through it.
Many years ago, when I kept a paper journal, I used to write a round-up twice a year: at New Year’s and at my birthday. Not only did I not want to do that this year; I didn’t even put together any kind of update to include with Christmas cards to my friends. I told myself I would write letters to those who enclosed a note for me, and I do intend to do that. I just haven’t got any basis for a long, upbeat description.
I once read a psychologist’s recipe for happiness: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. It turns out to be a reasonable yardstick to measure one’s own progress. Maybe that will work this time.
Something to do. No problem; I always have something to do. I don’t think there has been a time since I was a kid that I didn’t have something to do. It might have been an activity I really enjoyed for itself, or it might have been a step toward something else, for example, studying a subject I wasn’t crazy about as a prerequisite to one I wanted.
Something to love. That one’s easy too. Along with old friends, as well as extraordinary friends that I’ve met online, I’ve been blessed with three loving children. I am eternally grateful to Husband, who not only fathered them and took care of me while I was full-time mother. He also, by who he is, helped make them what they are. No, they’re not perfect; no one is. But my family is very special indeed.
Something to hope for. Uh oh, I think I’ve found the problem. Much of my life is static right now, and I can’t see that it’s going to improve anytime soon. The traveling to which I looked forward for much of my life is not going to happen. Retirement? Probably not for at least another couple of years. I’m using social security to help pay for my medical insurance – too young for Medicare, if it will be available when I’m ready. Although I’ll receive an additional $16 each month in social security in 2004, the insurance increase is about $80. The picture in my head? A hamster on a treadmill, running as fast as she can and going nowhere.
So all the things I’m hoping for at this point are not positives. It’s more like praying that the negatives don’t get any worse, that the war doesn’t escalate, that the economy doesn’t get worse, that our health problems don’t increase…
This is a very depressing message when I really wanted to wish everyone a happy new year, but maybe it can get better, not that I’ve gotten it out.
I have, over the past week, installed a number of new things, including a couple of telephones and a radio and a new optical mouse. (I like this; I don’t need the mouse pad, which kept falling off the desk.) It’s not a big deal, except that we all know that old women can’t do things like that. Hmph!
