I’m ahead of myself with resolutions. Why wait for New Year? I’ve already started.
First is my health. This is very good on the whole, but one can always be better. This explains the fermented foods, nuts and seeds and so on. But I still eat anything I fancy – luckily, that rarely includes sugar. I’ve signed up for the Zoe (not me, Tim Spector’s app) food programme, to start in January, which will find out my own best diet by monitoring blood sugar and so on, and giving me a personal best way to eat. For example, to find out if carbohydrates give me an insulin spike (Prof Tim finds they do for him, whereas they don’t for his wife). I can eat what I choose, of course, but I’ll know whether it’s a good idea or not.
Second is my social life. I’ve had as little as possible of that, for the past year. I just couldn’t. But, over the last three weeks, I’ve started going out more. It’s been difficult a few times, as I’ve met several friends I haven’t seen for a while and had to tell them about Tim. A bit awful, when you’re met with good wishes on your remarriage and then have to explain that I’m a widow again. Awkward all round and I cried tonight at the sympathetic response from Jane, which just happens, I’m past embarrassment. But I’ll persevere.
Next, I haven’t started this yet, I must play musical instruments again. I want that very much. It was my plan for last autumn, but when Tim died I lost heart.
I want to get out on my bike again. But frankly, I’m way too lazy. So I’m going to buy an electric bike and shame myself into using it.
I’ll have another go at painting and drawing. If I draw, I’d like to get better at it. If I paint, I couldn’t care less about that, I don’t know what’s ‘good’ within what I would like to do. I want to make a mess with paints and have fun doing so, careless of the result and to see what happens. Then I can put it away for a week or two, get it out again, laugh and throw it away if I like. It’s the doing that takes my fancy, not the result.
I had no idea that the Zoe app was nothing to do with covid when it was developed, but just got ‘volunteered’ to help out with monitoring during the pandemic. There was a programme about it on R4 this morning. In case you didn’t hear it:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4M3FQxWmqlF79LBmH9kz0bh/is-a-personalised-diet-the-secret-to-long-term-health
It’s good that you have plans and are feeling like socialising again, hard though it is.
And art and music – anything creative is good (process not product is the important thing of course), but in times of di/stress, they are the first things to slip. The only creative thing I have been able to do for months is a bit of garden design. It’s not enough.
No, I didn’t hear it, thanks for the link BW. I’m still patiently noting my health, or rather how I feel, every day. Initially, when it stopped being a covid monitoring app again, it asked various health questions. I marked myself excellent except for two things: “feeling nervous, anxious or on edge” and “feeling stressed.” Occasionally, I manage to temporarily move up on one or both of those, but usually I’m still right down in the dumps. It has been for so many years, even when I was happy, that it’s hard to believe I’ll get much better. But I’m trying to.
Sometimes such questions are unhelpful and even stop progress/growth as one continually dwells on why things are as they are. FWIW I would be exactly the same – I suspect it’s more about personality type and past life experiences than something that can be measured on a single dimensional (ie linear) scale/continuum.
Who decides what is ‘normal’ anyway?
And how would you know when things are ‘better’? What would be the signs?
It’s meant to be normal for you. Most of the questions are factual, such as high blood pressure, diabetes and so on.
When you have a persistent headache or pain, you may be able to forget about it for a while but, when you think about it again, it’s still right there. It’s similar with anxiety and so on. It’s day to day monitoring, which can be unhelpful, but it depends how you treat it.
After my mother died, I realised I was recovering from the stress of several years, 2 years and 4 months later, when it occurred to me that I didn’t wish I were dead any more. And then I told my daughter. I hadn’t said anything to anyone, up to then. I’m not as bad as that now, though I was worse when Russell died. I keep a careful check on myself, so that I don’t dip so low again, but also to recognise any positive signs.