Two years ago, at the end of December 2019, I started keeping daily notes in Google Keep. I love the app because it's free and it syncs across my phone, ipad, and laptop. Yesterday I decided to look back at the last two years and read some of the things I've written and I realized I don't love the app. There is no way to categorize and find something easily {yes, there are different colours that can be assigned and there is a search function, but it's now how I want it, ok?}. So I decided to copy and paste everything into Word documents, one for each month, and store it all in my Dropbox. If there is an easier way, or a different app, don't let me know. This is how I'm doing it.
I'm only three months into 2020 with my note transfer, and already I'm annoyed with myself because I realized that I was complaining and feeling shitty about the same things I'm complaining and feeling shitty about right now, and that means I have not changed those things in the last two years. What's up with that? Complacency, that's what. So much easier to just complain and not do anything, than to actually do something.
I also remembered that I did the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge in 2020 and read over 40 books {I haven't gotten to the note with my final count yet, but I know it was over 40}. In 2021? I read exactly one book. One. And that book was Everything is Figureoutable by Marie Forleo. In fact, I just started reading it a couple of weeks ago and finished it last week. It was alright, and if you're new to life or business coaching, it's a good read. It made me realize that I know all those things that are in the book - I have been a certified life and business coach since 2005 - I'm just not doing any of them to address my own grievances.
shut down
It almost feels like I've been shut down mentally and emotionally for the last two years. There were short bursts of motivation, but if you eat enough chocolate and really commit to not dealing with it, even the most motivational motivation will eventually wane. And now, with a new year coming, it feels like it's the worst time to set resolutions and make changes, because that's just so cliche and won't work anyway, right? {The I'm-not-doing-this-now-because-everyone-else-is excuse is my favourite one.} I've always said I don't like resolutions and prefer revolutions instead but the revolution has been on hold for a while.
2021 in review
Once I start reading and transferring my 2021 notes I will know more, but for now the following events are what I remember:
We spent the first three months of the year at a remote ranch, which I enjoyed very much. The internet sucked, but the sunrises and sunsets were amazing, the peace and quiet was out of this world, and being away from civilization made my heart sing. Alas, it was not meant to last and we moved back to the little shithole of Merritt BC in April, due to my husband's health and his need to be closer to a hospital and doctor.
My husband got Covid in May, just after we had both gotten our first shots. It was scary. I've never seen him this sick, and he said it was worse than the major back surgery he had a year before that. For reasons I can't explain, I never got it. I took care of him and continued to live in the same 500 sqft place with him, and did not get sick. I wore a mask when I was near him and slept on the couch and sanitized everything he was close to, but that was it. Then, when he was cleared to be done with his quarantine, I had to stay inside another 14 days in case I had caught it from him and would still get sick. Not gonna lie, that felt a bit like a punishment because I completely missed lilac season.
In August we were on evacuation alert for the Lytton Wildfire for a week and it was nerve-wrecking. Seeing the plumes of smoke moving into the valley, the ashes falling, and the sky turn black was frightening. Luckily, once the fire was about 15 km from town the wind calmed down, the temperatures dropped, and after a week of living out of suitcases and ready to leave at a moment's notice, the evacuation alert was rescinded. We were lucky; a lot of people in the vicinity of Merritt lost everything and the whole village of Lytton burned down within hours, at the end of June - just a day before they reached the highest temperature ever recorded in Canada, at 49.6C.
In November I turned 50 and the week leading up to it was fabulous. My husband made all my favourite foods and took care of absolutely everything, all week long. He's retired due to his motor-neuron disease and always chips in and takes care of many things around the house, but that week he went all out, and I know it was not easy for him. Anyway - I remember sitting on the couch, knitting, and thinking "this is great; great week, great birthday with the kids, great gifts... I wonder what will happen next." And within about 36 hours our younger son called my cell phone at 3 am and said the police just knocked on his door and he was being evacuated because the Coldwater River had breached its banks and his apartment was flooding. Boom.
He lost everything in that flood, we were lucky. Our rental place is in a part of town that was not flooded, but we were evacuated for almost three weeks anyway because the sewer plant and drinking water supply for the entire town failed and everyone had to leave. Not everyone did though and everything turned into a total shitshow, not that I had expected anything else from this shithole. I am not sure I have it all processed yet and we are moving forward and moving on as we always do, but I remember sitting in the hotel room in Kamloops feeling lost, without having lost anything.
Those were some major milestones, right? {If that's what you want to call them.} Definitely memorable. And I wonder - are those the things that makes us feel like a year was a good one or a bad one? Do we remember the good as much as the bad stuff that happens - whether it's happening to us individually or collectively? I intend to find out, with the help of my daily notes.
That brings me back to not addressing my own grievances despite having all the tools to do it. 2022 is the year that I will. I will spend more time creating, will drink more water, eat more fruit and vegetables, and move my body every day. But it's not a resolution, I'm bringing back the revolution.