This One's Gotta Stick

Last year I made a singular resolution. It was bold. It was profound. And it was a complete and utter failure.

Ok, I'm being a little hard on myself. It wasn't as if I tried and failed. It's just that the resolution itself was a bit of a reach. And pretty naive.

I had resolved to enjoy my life more, which is a perfectly valid and reasonable resolution. Except that I forgot that in order to enjoy my life, I had to like it first. I forgot to fix some things. I went from being mildly dissatisfied with my life in the beginning of the year, to completely hating it by the end. Instead of paring down on work like I had originally planned, I ramped up. To compensate for it, I changed some things at home. And I took on some extracurricular things I shouldn't have. The nail-biting election and tanking economy didn't help much.

As a result, by fall, I sank into a deep, dark hole. And by hole, I mean an honest-to-god depression. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't focus, I couldn't do much of anything. I barely held it together in public and fell apart at home. I became angry and lost interest in doing things I normally enjoy like blogging (notice how boring I got right around Sept/Oct? Given the unsubscribes around that time some of you clearly did.). Me, the one with the perfect house, the perfect job, the perfect husband, perfect nanny and the truly perfect kids. Me, the one with the relatively idyllic childhood (which I almost never bring up because, you know, who wants to hear that? Ok, my mom made me eat food I didn't like and talk to people I didn't know very well even though I was really, really shy. OK? Happy now?). I was actually depressed.

I'm feeling better now. Maybe it's because I finally admitted to myself and to Hubby that I needed help and started to look for some. Maybe it's because I read this disturbing article and realized that lots of other women like me are going through the same thing. Maybe it's because I've finally gotten some sleep. Or maybe it's because I know that things can only get better from here.

So my new singular and profound resolution for this year is to take a step back and do what I probably should have done last year. Fix my life. I'm not exactly sure how yet, but this is one resolution that I'm absolutely committed to keeping.

This One's Gotta Stick