New Year Resolutions

So what’s next

Hi.

So I went ahead and created a Facebook page and had all these great intentions to write daily and purposefully when suddenly, Other Stuff Hit.

And then suddenly, I realised I couldn’t publish anymore. Not in my actual name anyway. It’s one thing to have a stream of consciousness documented in the public domain when the most scandalous thing to report is our uphill battle with toilet training The Younger.

It’s quite another when it’s about a very personal journey that involves your former truths crumbling to dust and the utterly bewildering and lonely experience of figuring out where your next steps should be.

That’s cryptic. Even as I type now, I’m wondering how much to divulge. The last two years have been a marathon that’s continually tested my stamina, my optimism, my thick skin and my courage. Meanwhile, my most entrenched ideas of what it means to be a Christian and a woman have been repeatedly called into question — along with my motives, my attitudes, my faith in God, and my character. I now swear more than I ever have in my life. I’ve lost a lot of friends. (That’s unrelated to the swearing but it probably doesn’t help.) Then again, I’ve found new ones in the unlikeliest corners of my life. If anything, the last few years have crystallised who my truest friends are. And while it’s been spiritually, mentally, and emotionally bruising to find out that the set of people I’ve relied upon don’t actually fully overlap with the set of kindred who continue to come through for me, the new relationships and the depths of honesty and authenticity I’ve found in brand new quarters have renewed my faith in God’s humanity.

Church is bigger than church, y’all. And God is the biggest of all.

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1 January 2019

Welcome to 2015!

My 2013 was horrible for the most obvious reason (mother’s death, for the uninitiated) but last year really blew for many of my friends, and for Malaysia’s aviation industry. There were quite a few good-riddance-to-this-rubbish-year posts on my FB news feed, and I’m glad for them, at least, that we have reached 2015.

For us, 2014 was largely a calm year. A winding down from the emotional roller coaster that was 2013. There were a few points for anxiety – the sale of my mother’s home being one, haggling with financial institutions on two continents, being another – but on the grand scheme of things, they proved paltry compared to the addition to our family. Atticus signaled a new chapter to our family life in late November — and a welcome focal point. We rounded off the year largely sleep deprived while being surrounded by family, and feeling older, slightly melancholy and stressed, but not sad. And after the sorrow of 2013, being not sad was a great step forward.

There was a study on “workplace happiness” conducted in Singapore between April and August last year. And the grand reveal was that Singaporeans are Under Happy – that vague, lukewarm, non-committal, soggy middle ground between the state of being Happy and being Unhappy. Under Happy was last year’s Meh, and the punchline for many Singaporeans still secretly seething about being ranked the Least Emotional Country in the World in 2012.

And it got me thinking. Although I had many things I’d been grateful for, and felt largely content with my lot in life, there was still a lot of Meh left in me last year. I’m wondering if it’s a self preservation thing, or the natural trajectory one follows after being shot out of the Emo canon that was 2013. Numbness is comforting. It allows one to function well and to even feel episodes of muted happiness. But although a bland life can be a happy one, happiness isn’t blandness.

I know this is a blog largely about my children and a little about my personal life. But some of the things I keep circling in this blog seems to be Life organisation and finding the Happy – whether it’s about some habit tracking app I find useful, or whether it’s about reflecting on my list of gratitudes every Thursday. I know I probably appear to be overthinking things, or maybe I’ve reached some kind of 40%-life crisis that induces me to contemplate my life and purpose. Perhaps I’m still trying to define myself, since I’ve currently parked my Career Woman persona. Or my cousin’s and mother’s early deaths have shaken me to the very core, and what you see here are the aftershocks.

Or perhaps, if I can indulge in some hubris, my soul resonates with the likes of W.H. Auden, who observed that “between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are…”

I don’t know. I just know that I’m searching for… something. Every New Year, I pounce on the chance to reinvent myself to some extent, and this year is no different.

I had started out last year reading Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project, and then got sidetracked. I had planned to explore my year like she did with a theme for each month, but that intention got seriously derailed by January, when I decluttered the house (just like in her book) for our anticipated move (which didn’t happen), only to pack her book in the process in one of 70 boxes now sitting in a storage unit four suburbs away.

Oops.

Anyhoo, I’ve gotten hold of an electronic copy and I’m trying her book out again. This is my Eat Pray Love, except I don’t have to leave my husband and children, and swan off to India to learn how to meditate. I’m still plotting my game plan for 2015 in between innumerous breastfeeds and rocking and shushing and diapering and cleaning and cooking and soothing and playing and including… so wish me luck.

What are your New Year resolutions, by the way? Made any this year, or cannot be bothered?

1 January 2015

New Year Resolutions 2014

I love big beginnings. Maybe it’s the project manager/event organiser in me, but there’s nothing like sitting down with a blank canvas, drawing out a programme of work and determining The Approach. I’ve spoken before about past New Year resolutions, and I am a little late (as usual) in finalising this year’s list. But before I launch into this year’s idealism, let me go through a short (by my standards) review of last year’s effort.

Review of 2013’s resolutions

I had split last year’s resolutions into 3 personal mottos (“Be my own mum”, “Live in the moment”, “Glass is half full”) and 5 everyday goals (“Monday Meditation”, “Attend writers’ meetings”, “Write, Write, Write”, Weekday Devo” and “Read 10 books”.) And this approach has worked surprisingly well over the year, given all the crazy interruptions.

I attended meetings at the Writing group I’m part of, until I was no longer physically able to because I was in a different continent. I also started reading books again, but didn’t get anywhere near 10 books. I think I’ve read 5 books halfway. So really, that was a 25% success rate – not impressive, but it got the juices going anyway. The writing goal was the hardest to achieve, not only because of the packing and unpacking I did all year, but also because all willpower dried up – and with it, inspiration. I didn’t even feel like blogging, partly because I was Tupperwaring most nights towards the end of the year, but mostly because I didn’t want to bore you or myself with my grief and negativity.

But the biggest surprise to me was the success of Monday Meditations and my weekday devotions. Didn’t do it the whole year through, but there were stretches of months when I did both consistently. And then I’d lapse into one or the other, before going into it again. Most of all, it was always there at the back of my head as something I want to do and need to do. And then when my mother died, all that desire to reconnect with God really came rushing in. Even if it’s so I could whisper, “Tell mum I said Hi. And that I miss our chats. Would you?”

On the personal motto front, I forgot about the “Be my own mum” one a lot – chiefly because it didn’t matter to me that much anyway. My role as Daughter came into the foreground a lot more last year, and any brush of Momsy competition with another got quickly squelched by the weight of my apathy. (“So you never let your children watch television because you’re not a lazy parent. And you’ve never let them eat cheese toasties because of the sodium levels in bread, ham, AND cheese. Well, good for you.”) Probably not the desired outcome in terms of attitude, but it did mean that I breathed my own version of motherhood a lot more freely.

“Glass half full” was snorted at a lot last year. And yet, I did count my blessings even in the darkest of moments. But I wasn’t feeling up to the pop psychology of Being Positive all year round, and so I ignored that one, really.

“Live in the moment” proved to be my favourite, and I whisper that to myself a lot. It’s a wonderful way to shut down the million voices jostling for my immediate attention. “Be present” is the shorter version, but means the same thing. There is vacuuming to be done before visitors arrive, dishes to be washed before dinner, and Tupperware deliveries to be checked and repackaged by tonight. But my daughter just pulled out a box of jigsaw puzzles, and this is supposed to be our day together. There is a reason I quit my job. Drop everything else. Do the jigsaw. Be present.

Happiness: the 2014 project

Part of the reason I took up Tupperware was to distract myself every evening. I had reached a point after dinner and when Tony went off to his study nook, where I’d sit in my soi disant work room and feel the dark creep in. I have to say I ran a lot on adrenaline last year. The practical aspects of being the sole executrix of someone’s will, of being the main instrument in deconstructing a person’s life were a fabulous crutch I could use to gallop along from one important thing to another. Tupperware was another way to extend the busyness. It isn’t rocket science, fairly menial, and pushed me to meet new people and take an interest in the world around me while allowing me flexibility to take care of house and home.

But I think I always knew that eventually, I’d have to address the sadness properly. Which was why I had bought myself The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.

As a Christian, it seems almost counter-intuitive to buy a secular self-help book on finding happiness, when we tell ourselves that the bible should suffice. The bible does suffice. It says a lot about what joy is, and it does make a distinction between worldly happiness and Godly joy. I’m not about to discard the Good Book. (Actually, the Good BOOKS, since there are 66 of them.) But I am experiencing some technical difficulties.

It’s like the concept of self-control, where we are told to pray for it and desire it and wait for it to be given and exercise it. We are told what it looks like, and what it doesn’t look like. We are told the consequences of not having any. But I think it’s also useful to know how self-control happens, in the most base and practical of ways. Like how your body needs glucose to help your brain control impulses. And that insufficient sleep impairs your brain’s ability to absorb glucose. And that you could try waiting the recommended 10 minutes for the wave of temptation to dissipate. A 10-minute wait – the practical form of spotting sin and then fleeing from the devil.

Likewise, I’m trying to work out how to develop gratitude and happiness through concrete actions. I’m not going to stop meditating, and I know that my joy comes from the Lord. But I also know that shaking oneself out of a funk often requires faking it till you’re making it. Happiness is a side product of love in action. I need an action list.

The Happiness Project has a chapter for each month, and all Gretchen does is talk about what she decided to do for herself. Her January was about research on energy generation – feeling pumped enough to even want to be happy. In practical terms, she resolved to

get decent sleep for a month,
to get out of the house for some form of exercise 20 minutes a day (even if it’s just walking),
to declutter her house, and
to tackle her long-term to-do list.

And that’s what my January resolutions have become. PERFECT approach for me, because I do have a short attention span most times, and a month is long enough to form a habit, but not too long that I get discouraged by the interminability of it.

I’m also continuing my mottos from last year, and they now are:

Be present
Choose kindness
Keep records

So yes – wish me all the very best. If you’re the praying kind, then pray that I’ll learn to be kind – for that is one of my biggest struggles. And for those of you who have resolved to do better by not doing worse, I salute your effort. I salute your will. I salute your desire to be a better person.

2 January 2014

New Year Resolutions 2013

We all know the drill. Or at least, I do. I make these stupendous new year’s resolutions the week before the clock chimes 12 on the 31st, and I’m struggling to even remember what it is I promised myself to do by mid February. Ish.

The idealism sets in around Christmas time when you’re in the warm embrace of Michael Bublé crooning that he’ll be home for Christmas, peaks when it’s an hour before midnight on New Year’s Eve and you’re almost feverish with a burning desire to get your 26″ waistline back next year WITHOUT RESORTING TO SAUSAGE-STUFFING SHAPEWEAR… and then grows sorta desperate when you’ve entered the first week of January and you haven’t finalised your list.

Or that’s me, anyway.

Tony regards New Year Resolutions with a bit of an eyeroll and a yawn. I am much more starry-eyed about it. There’s something about (thirty) second chances that I’m an absolute sucker for. Something about the lifelong desire for personal improvement. Something about a clean slate, a fresh canvas, and innocence reborn.

In terms of resolution-making, I’ve tried a variety of forms and tactics.

I’ve done the vanilla Listing Method, where you go “1. Go to the gym more regularly. 2. Take up baking.”

I’ve done the General Zen Self Improvement ones, like “Listen more. Do less. Eat healthy. Champion underdogs. Seek purity.”

I’ve made long lists. I’ve made short, manageable ones. One year, I made just one resolution for the whole year, which I half kept because I went to the gym twice a week for half a year before the irony of getting takeaway dinners after gym classes set in and stuck. I even made a New Year’s Theme, which isn’t so much a resolution as a mantra or motto one keeps for the year ahead. Mei Ann, who first put the idea in my head, had chosen something like Carpe Diem. I went with Cool Bananas – something I had my work team chant to me whenever I found myself near losing my stack because of idiocy.

I’ve read the articles that bang on about why New Resolutions Don’t Work. Hasn’t fazed me yet. Because ultimately, I’m an idealist. And I love lists. And I love new beginnings. And I never want to stop trying.

So here’s to trying.

Velle’s New Year Resolutions 2013

The following list is more “thematic”, ala the Cool Bananas of 2008 (see above). It’s the 3 rules I want to remember for the year, because I want to be able to apply them to situations I encounter frequently.

Be my own mum

I find myself comparing our family to everyone else’s constantly. A part of it is benchmarking, but most of it is due to insecurity. I’ve always been competitive, but since I became a mother, the competitive streak has grown a mile wide, taken over my cerebral cortex, and now mentally karate-chops every other kid and mother I encounter whose way of living differs to mine. It is a horrible disease.

It also swings the other way. I question my parenting constantly. I know it’s healthy to evaluate what we’re doing as parents, and to seek God and others to plug the holes. But my gut is telling me that I veer towards grabbing a whole bunch of “parent molds” in an effort to stuff our little family in them.

Fact: I am a new parent. But I’ve also been me a lot longer than I’ve been a parent. So I should probably stick to what I know best.

Fact: Arddun is a little individual with a growing personality that is All Hers. She will struggle with certain temptations, and yet sail through others. Comparing her to other kids who are better/less behaved in any given scenario just isn’t fair to her OR to me.

Fact: There will always be other parents (and non-parents!) who will judge me, Arddun, and Tony. They will do the comparisons, they will whisper behind our backs, they may approve or disapprove. I cannot change any of that, but lugging my family along to appease someone else’s Golden Standard is both impractical and ridiculous.

We need to set our own bars according to the gifts, character traits and resources made available to us.

I need to stop trying to grow the perfect kid on the off-chance that someone might award me a gold star for good parenting. Even if that gold star comes from the people I love and whose good opinion I desire greatly.

And I need to grow thicker skin.

Live in the moment

How many times have I been “playing” with Arddun while mentally listing things I “ought to” be doing at that moment? How many times have I depended on her to play quietly while I rushed around with housework and tomorrow’s worries and tonight’s writing assignment? How many times has Tony talked to me about something important to him while my mind has drifted on to Saturday’s church potluck?

This resolution isn’t about turning into a helicopter parent and filling Arddun’s every waking moment with All of My Quality Time. But it is about being wholly present in each moment – heart, body, soul. I am so much more distracted and distractible now as a parent than I’ve ever been. My mind is like dandelion sometimes- 18,000 different directions as soon as the wind picks up, even though the body is present and still.

I want to remember that I’m not a child-minder – I’m a parent. And I’m not a housemate – I’m a wife. It’s time to live each moment more purposefully and give the people in them the respect they deserve.

It’s time to get grounded.

The glass is half full

I used to be such an optimist. It came with the territory of being a ditzy arts student, seemingly unencumbered by something as weighty as facts and realism. I am, of course, being slightly facetious when I say this. But that’s my problem right there.

I don’t know how I’ve allowed this part of me to change, but I think I’ve lost this optimism. This ability to look at the world Sunny Side Up. This quickness to give others the benefit of the doubt. This courage to emote daringly. To look for the laugh. To brave the weather with a smile and some sass. To walk in and add sunshine to a room.

I’ve blamed lots of things over the years. A church that has traditionally frowned upon emotions as something of an inferior worship to an intellectual discourse on God our Father. Hurtful accusations of leading with my heart and being emotional, as if this part of my femininity is something weak to be suppressed or cured from. An emphasis overall on analytical skills over instinct, on quantitative over qualitative. Pessimism couched as realism. Optimism couched as the product of a fanciful, childish mind.

But the truth is, I’ve allowed myself to become cynical. And cynicism comes from a hardness of the heart.

And so here’s to softening it again, and to considering others as better than myself. Here’s to living joyfully, to embracing my Inner Dork, and to charging ahead like a child who knows she’s safe because her Father’s always watching.

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Velle’s 2013 Goals

This bit reads like a linear list of New Year’s resolutions. But as they say with project management and strategy, the trick is to make things bite-sized and specific.

Monday Meditation
Pray for half an hour on Mondays
Weekday Devo
Read a short devotional on my iPhone on weekdays
Write , Write, Write
Blog twice a week, write 4 magazine articles, write and finish a novella. This is probably the most difficult to achieve, I think.
Attend 80% of Writer’s Club meetings
I’d stopped attending my writer’s club since I was pregnant with Arddun. Time to get back on the horse, get inspired, and work those muscles.
Read 10 books
Have been talking about starting a book club for AGES. Finally time to get off my backside and make it happen.

What are your New Year Resolutions? Care to share?

2 January 2013

Finding The Happy

Looking for joy in all the right places

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