I like to wait until a week after all the “New Year, New You” hoopla dies down a bit to put any thoughts out here in your universe. Also, I’m a lazy procrastinator. Also, I don’t suppose I’m such an expert that I have much to offer you in terms of how to change your life in 2023. The year ahead, like all years I suppose, has lots of changes for me - my oldest will graduate and go off to college, and my youngest will get his driver’s license. My husband is launching a business, and I will continue to work with clients in both organizing and productivity coaching. Life chugs on.  

Last year was…hard? Complicated for sure. Tangled, stressful, constantly changing, joyful, transitional. I learned a lot about myself, but also my family and my friends. I faced many of the most difficult things of my adult life. I learned that life in your 50s is hard, but we are all battle strong for it. People who I held as babies had babies of their own. People I love lost loved ones. People got sick. People got diagnosed. People just kept keeping on. 

My first thought for my January post was that instead of New Year’s Resolutions, I’d make a list of what I’m NOT gonna do. But it felt negative, and I couldn’t make a great list. So I flipped the script. Not a list of what I HOPE to do. Not a list of what I WON’T do. I decided to just make

a list of what I’ll KEEP doing. Recognize what works in my life and keep doing that. A sample:

Doing a Daily Log in My Notebook

• I have come to recognize the immense power of daily (and weekly) reflection. It helps my struggling memory. It reminds me what I need to follow up on. It eases my stress as I lose that sense that I’m letting things slip through the cracks. It gives me a place to document how I felt, what happened, and what I am grateful for. It bears witness to the life I lived each day. Part diary, part to do list, part DONE list, it keeps my life in focus. Even though I fall off every now and then, I pick it back up and it does its magic all over again. I did a post about this last year if you’d like to dive deeper.

Daily Movement

• You’ll note I didn’t say workout, or yoga, or ride my bike or anything specific. I didn’t say how long. I’ve found though, that I can manage to MOVE everyday. Sometimes it’s walking the dog. Sometimes it’s 10 minutes of yoga, sometimes an hour. I can always add more. But SOMETHING that deliberately moves the body each day is a goal I’m fairly able to maintain.

Foam Rolling My Butt

• I’ve learned that my chronic lower back pain is highly related to tight piriformis, hamstrings, psoas and IT band, and probably not just my aging discs. The sometimes uncomfortable rolling on those muscles can sometimes make the pain disappear completely and stay at bay for days

Reaching Out to Dear Friends

• Over the past year, I have done more of this and it has improved my life 10,000 percent. Friends make life better. Friends are the ultimate ‘self-care’. I want my relationships with my old friends to get richer and my new friends to get deeper. That means making time and not excuses. I was rewarded by this effort and will continue to pursue it.

Fighting for A Good Night Sleep

Whatever it takes. Fail today, try again tomorrow.

Writing These Blogs for You

I procrastinate on these a lot. It could be my past life as a journalist that always needs a deadline. But your feedback lifts me up so much I’m always inspired to write again. Thank you for that support, and look forward to many more silly anecdotes from me.

Searching stock footage for “foam roller” shots. I truly enjoyed some of the images I found there. Behold the Gods of Foam Rolling! Behold the women on a foam rolling mission! Behold the love a strong but gentle man has for his foam roller! Brownie points for who can explain out why the last two came up in the search. I welcome this discussion in the comments!

Stuff I’m Consuming

All There Is with Anderson Cooper 

A very moving personal podcast exploring mourning, made by Anderson Cooper as he went through the process of emptying his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt’s apartment.

Apples Never Fall

By Liane Moriarty, author of Big Little Lies, Nine Perfect Strangers, and What Alice Forgot – all books I’ve devoured (and if you’ve never seen “Big Little Lies” on HBO - I highly recommend it!

Squint: Re-visioning the Second Half of Life

A memoir/guide for aging by Senior Move Management pioneer Margit Novack