New Years has never been my favorite holiday. It comes at the end of a busy and hectic time of year and marks the beginning of a cold, gloomy, arduous time of the year with no scheduled holidays or “free” time off in the upcoming future. January through March is easily my least favorite time of the year. I look at this time as a period of hibernation, doing the hard work necessary (through employment, training, financial saving, etc) to set myself up for success as I reach the “spring” of activity in the following months. To make matters worse, I am starting off this new year being under the weather with some sort of flu bug. What was supposed to be a three day weekend of productivity in gearing up for that three month cycle of hard work turned into three bed-ridden days of bingeing on Downton Abbey episodes and eating whatever I had in the house, nothing of much nutritional value by the way. I am beginning to feel better and decided to take what is left of my long weekend to reflect on the past year, what I have learned, and what that means for 2017.

One of the recurring themes in my self-reflective process is to evaluate my friendships. A few key events occurred this past year that have brought to light some wisdom. One key event was that one of my good friends moved away. He was a solid fixture in my social life and when he left, his lack of presence was definitely noticed. There is still a gaping hole there that a lot of us (not just me) are dealing with. Another member of that group, someone who could have helped to fill that gap, also moved away for a year, taking a sabbatical to Australia. The transition has been more difficult than I thought it would be. What does this mean for me? I have always been someone who tries not to define myself by my friendships. I do what is best for me in my life and surround myself with those who will support me, compliment my life, and bring joy and very little drama. I choose friends who are not high maintenance and understand that I have responsibilities to myself and my daughter that supersede anything else. The friends I choose understand this and don’t question me when they don’t hear from me for a period of time. However, they know that I will be there for them when they need me and that I will always respond when they reach out. However, with the loss of two wonderful friends to geography and other incidents that I won’t mention here, I have come to realize that I don’t have patience for fair-weather friends. (Side note: The following sentiments do not reflect on my two friends who moved away but, rather, signify the value of their loss and has led me to consider what I do value in friendships.) Since I value my own privacy and alone time, I don’t expect my friends to be available all the time, physically or emotionally. However, I do expect communication. If I send them a message, I do expect a response. Maybe not in an hour, but I expect one within a day, two at the most. Because I have been burned more than a few times from past friends, I have always taken the stance that we shouldn’t have expectations of others. It prevents disappointment on our end and forces us to be responsible for our own reactions to what happens to us, allowing us to move through the world somewhat unaffected by others. I think I even have a blog post about this somewhere. However, I have since amended that line of thought. Ultimately, we still need standards for ourselves if we are to have quality friendships. A standard of mine to call anybody a friend is to always maintain an attempt to keep open communication and to remain honest. If you need space for a time, communicate that. It isn’t difficult. But I have reached a point where I no longer have qualms about letting people go from my life who don’t make an effort to communicate…not when we have so many ways in which to communicate. Thankfully, I don’t depend on any one person so I can afford to let people go should I need to. That fact doesn’t make it easy, but it makes it easier.

Another recurring theme for me is my health and fitness. I went through a small crisis this past year regarding my goals and desires in terms of my fitness. I switched jobs mid-year at a time when I was quite heavy into CrossFit training, making huge gains in my fitness. My new work schedule, however, was a huge adjustment for me. Between me and my daughter’s demanding schedules, I found myself at a place where I had to alter what I was doing in order to fit working out into my lifestyle at all. This forced me to drop down my time at CrossFit and go back to running more since running is simply more accessible to a really busy lifestyle such as mine. I realized that I needed to shift my goals a little bit. But I was frustrated and lack of exercise makes me somewhat depressed. A good friend of mine gave me some sound advice. He said, “Jen, we both know that permanent fitness has an ebb and flow to it. Sometimes we ebb. Sometimes we flow.” My response: “Well I hate ebbing!” This is true and has always been true for me. I have an “all-or-nothing” mentality. It isn’t exactly a good trait; I have perfectionistic tendencies. When I set my mind to do something, I want to do it all out. I had decided I wanted to see how far CrossFit could take me. But then I reached a crossroads. So I decided to switch my focus. Right about that same time, another friend said he wanted to train seriously for a marathon in the spring and asked me to train with him. I decided that maybe that is what I needed to get back on the fitness train. So I have set a new goal for 2017. I plan to train for Revel Rockies marathon in June, but I will use CrossFit as a supplement to my training. This will make me a more efficient runner but also allow me to maintain some of the strength I have gained. After the marathon, maybe I will be at a place where I can make the switch back to CrossFit full-time. I will evaluate that when the time comes. My point is that we have to be prepared to shift our focus when necessary and go with the ebbs and flows of training. We can’t possibly always be at the top of our game. That is an impossible feat.

My daughter is my most consistent theme. She is the constant in my life and the most important aspect of my life. She is my number one priority. My daughter and I have a somewhat contentious relationship, mostly because we are so much alike. We are both outspoken and stubborn. And we very much know what we want and work hard to get it. With that being said, we tend to butt heads often. Now take that tendency times about a million with Ashley going through puberty, and you constantly have the potential for fireworks. One thing I have tried to teach my daughter through the years is how to manage her emotions. I have given her the pre-puberty talk, warning her about erratic hormones and potential mood swings, and I have encouraged her to acknowledge all emotions but in a healthy way. We are making progress, and even though we still have some challenging encounters, she is becoming quite mature and self-actualized for her age. There will definitely be more fireworks, but I hope I am laying a foundation of how to deal with her emotions and how to communicate so that we can minimize the trauma that puberty and the teen years can bring. In this new year I simply want to continue that trend of teaching Ashley to be aware of other people and to use kindness as a primary measure of how to navigate through the complicated relationships of middle and high school.

Other goals I have set for 2017:

Write one blog post per month. This goal is important to me in order to continue challenging myself to lay my own ideas out on the table so-to-speak. Writing them down forces me to assess what I really think about a variety of different topics, and it allows me to grow in my own assessment of the world.

Become more minimalist. I already live my life somewhat to minimize waste. However, I want to do this in a more intentional way. I want to pair down my wardrobe, get rid of any clutter that remains in my house at year-end, and really focus on my financial health. These are my 2017 priorities.

Utilize my free time better. I want to keep my TV off more. I already don’t watch much TV; however, since I started my new job I have watched more TV simply to decompress, which has led to zoning out and focusing less on other goals such as reading and writing. This includes less screen time in general. I want to shut off my phone an hour before bed, which will help my sleep and allow my brain to shut down rather than be stimulated.

Better diet. I think we all have this one on our list, but I have some serious goals to attain here. I have been utilizing some of the Whole30 concepts since doing the challenge last June. However, I want to get back to using them on a more consistent basis. There is nothing glamorous about this other than using sound judgment and setting myself up to succeed. That means consistently having a plan. I know how to do it; I just need to make the commitment. No excuses.

Many of us make annual New Years resolutions as a reset, some of us roll our eyes at the cliche. But I think resets are important. We can’t expect to be perfect; however, there is no better time to analyze what we did right and what we could improve on for the coming year. I wish all my readers a year of success and progress. That will mean different things to different people. It is up to you to define what that means for you. Cheers to a wonderful year!