New Years Pages

I am such a person. A person who has rushed out to buy herself everything necessary to Bullet Journal and felt the flush of embarrassment when her thirteen year old looked at her sternly and said “Now is not the time for jumping on Instagram bandwagons, Mum, now is the time to blog.”

Oh yes! Blogging. That’s what I was doing. And though I have been doing it for thirteen years I worry that I have quite forgotten how and find myself more willing to deal with the midnight burglars said to be prowling the streets of my locality than turning up for my own, lovely, precious, self-inflicted work.  I am too anxious. Too twitchy to be able to make sense of myself right now. And  anyways I thought I might find myself in a bullet journal. People say they are life-changing. Sensible people say such things! But oh what a rabbit hole of pretty pattern and pointless scribing it could it could be when a person should be blogging…

Anxiety is such a funny old woman. She pokes you with crooked fingers just when you are getting in to your stride. She whispers “Who do you think you are?” just as you are falling asleep and has a way with words that ties your good intentions into troubled knots. She will not be soothed with your endless cups of rose tea. Nor accept a little round of homemade shortbread and agree to keep her mouth shut. Oh no, not her. Not she who laughs at the elaborate baths you take, chin high in restless leg improving salts and stands mocking the dreams pinned to your vision board. Instead she tries to force you to start again. Oh heckity pie yes, there is nothing Anxiety likes better than a clean slate and before you know it she has got you believing that nothing, oh but nothing, not your work, your relationship, your body or any of the thoughts in your head are good enough and thus must be re-invented right here and right now. With no time to recover from the onslaught that was Christmas. No allowances for the kind of weather that really should have you doing nothing other than sipping soup under a cosy quilt. No excuses accepted at all.

Anxiety you see is the New Years best friend. She lurks around all December, allowing you your fun but come January 1st she pounces, stabbing you right there in all the bits you are trying to teach yourself to love. Twisting her dirty fingers into your scabs and telling you there is no time to dither, one simply must GET THINGS SORTED. And by things she means all things. Every thing.  And she will not rest until you have found the perfect planner. Signed up to the diet club. Thrown money on an improving course and chucked every last edible bit of Christmas out of the cupboards. Because she is a mean old bat. The kind of mean old bat who needs dealing with by sending her screeching in to the drowning rain when you simply refuse to do anything other than practice the kind of extreme self-care that January really calls for.

For yes, now is the time to snuggle. And kiss. And read. And binge-watch. Now is the time for good red wine (instead of festive plonk), warm rounds of Camembert  stuffed with garlic and rich chocolate brownies eaten straight from the oven. For starting difficult books and playing Monopoly. It is for baking cakes for kids coming in from the cold and nibbling late night slices of hot, thick buttered toast, just because you can. It is a time for healing from the slings and arrows of family forced upon you during the festivities, for booking holidays and inviting friends over for early suppers. It is a time for soothing your weary soul, mending what has to be mended and surviving evenings when you just can’t get warm.

Just the right time methinks to tell Anxiety to sling her hook. And take her Bullet Journal with her.