It’s been quite a few weeks, and for that I apologize. There’s been a lot going on, on my end. There was a long hard January, a February that went by in a blink, and a March that was intense. I’m tired and I need a long nap. How was your beginning of the year? Like I said, mine was…hard.
It always feel like there’s a lot of pressure at the beginning of the year. Pressure to figure your resolutions, pressure to stick to them, pressure to start over, be a better person, etc etc. It just feels - hard. Starting over is hard and don't let anyone tell you it isn't. It can be beautiful and it can be liberating, but it's really fucking difficult. That being said - how did everyone do with their resolutions? Are you still working on them, or have you forgotten about them now that it's almost April and Spring has sprung?
My resolutions felt simple enough (http://www.lambertraa.com/blog/2019/1/3/new-year) - but I've already "failed" at them. I don’t really think you can fail at emotionally and spiritual growth, but I haven’t done what I set out to do.
First of all - I underestimated how difficult it would be to start a new role at work. It was hard, really hard. I felt a lot of imposter syndrome and was overwhelmed for WEEKS. I came home tired every day, feeling like my brain had been fried by new information and new processes. I switched to an entirely different team and had to get to know new people and let new people get to know me. It was a lot.
Secondly, one of the relationships I wanted to work on took a hiatus. It was absolutely for the best, but it was definitely hard to face and it was painful.
With all of this going on my mental health started to suffer. I was tired and confused an emotionally overwhelmed. It rained for nearly a month straight. I had to spend over $1,000 in one weekend, because the DMV wrongfully impounded my car. That's enough to make anyone feel a little bananas.
When I was almost feeling right side up from all of this, there was a death in my family. My estranged father died and that was far more difficult than I ever thought it would have been.
Like I said, it was a hard few months and this year certainly didn't start the way that I wanted it to. However, I'm not letting it get me down. There are a lot of cultures that believe that the year really begins in the Spring, and this time I'm using that to my advantage and starting new now.
During all of the percieved doom and gloom of the end of winter, I experienced something interesting. My mom and I were taking a walk on our local pier; it was a Sunday and it was one of the few days where it wasn't raining. It was nearing sunset and there were a few fisherman out. We stopped to talk to one, he said that his day had been nice, but he hadn't caught any big fish, only a small one. The small fish he had caught was taking up all of the room in the cooler he had brought - it was a personal cooler, the kind you can pack a nice lunch in, but not much bigger than that. As we finished talking to him and walked away my mom and I mused, "Well, no wonder he only caught small fish - if he had caught a big one, he'd have no where to put it-" We stopped and looked at each other in the same moment. Is the size of your cooler limiting the size of your fish? Something to think about.
Until next time. xo.