Tag: resolutions

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Ferris Bueller

I love starting the New Year, although how I have welcomed the New Year has changed over the years. When I was young, I enjoyed toasting the New Year with parties, friends and champagne. Then, after I had children, I loved watching their excitement as the ball dropped in the middle of New Year’s Rockin’ Eve as we listened to the fireworks go off outside in our neighborhood. Now, I love to have a quiet toast at home, using the New Year as an opportunity to reflect on the past year to see what has changed and what I have learned and accomplished. As we collectively turn the page on 2025 to look forward to the clean slate of 2026, I am contemplating the role of resolutions and boundaries in my life.

Resolutions Past and Present

Resolutions are easy. At least, easy to formulate. I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t want to try to be better, to grow and become a better person. Resolutions are simply a list of things to change or aspire to in the next year to achieve growth. They are easy to write down in a list form. I choose to look at my resolutions more as personal goals. For example, I changed my resolution from losing weight to being healthier. I started with a personal trainer and have built strength and improved my balance. These are two very important things for the post-menopausal body, and I am proud of myself for successfully incorporating this into my life. There have been a few bumps in the road. There was the time I landed wrong and broke my third metatarsal on my right foot, so I am still a work in progress when it comes to balance, but I have successfully kept that resolution for three years. This year, I have decided to keep that resolution and add to it. I’m going to try a vegetarian dinner once a week and add cardio to my established exercise routine. I am incorporating small changes rather than huge sweeping changes that I know will not last a week. Adding things slowly, year by year, as my body and my life changes has built confidence and added happiness to my life. There is also the added benefit of keeping up with my twin grandsons.

Resolution number two is better time management. I already keep a Google calendar that my daughter and I share. Incidentally, moving from a paper to an electronic calendar was a resolution from last year that was another success. She puts her work schedule on the Google calendar and shares it with me, and I can make appointments and plans that she can see so we can make sure that childcare is covered with no gaps. This year, I am going to add blocks of time to the calendar to write and work on my professional projects. That is just for me, nothing I need to share, but something that will keep me accountable to myself. I have goals that I want to achieve, and the only way to do that is to consistently set time aside to work on them.

My third resolution is spend less time on social media. This goes hand in hand with better time management. If I block time on my personal calendar to work on professional endeavors and exercise this will keep me from mindlessly scrolling. I find myself constantly reaching for my phone when I am bored, and before I know it, an hour has passed. It sucks my time as well as my soul. I have found more and more AI in my feeds and it is getting more difficult to tell the difference. I want to focus my time on being a creator rather than a consumer. I want time to read an actual printed book, take a walk and touch grass and smell the flowers. I want to be present and focus on reality. Life is good, and it’s good to stop and appreciate that once in a while.

I feel pride looking back and seeing that I can build on resolutions from the past. One of the resolutions from last year is still a work in progress. That is my work on establishing boundaries.

Boundaries? What are Those?

For all the high achieving eldest daughters, how is your career in healthcare going?

A popular internet meme, but also true. Eldest daughters are the caretakers of their parents, their younger siblings, then their husbands and children…oh, and also their husband’s family, their friend group, their work place, and their patients. Did I choose a career as a nurse and then CRNA, or did it choose me? It’s all they—we—know how to do. We take care of others. Then, one day something happens and we need some type of emotional support—and everyone is…well…busy.

“Hey, the holidays are hard for me this year, do you have a few minutes to talk?”

“I’m really sorry, I know this is a difficult time of year for you, but this week is busy because of, you know, the holiday. We’ll catch up soon.”

The thing is, I very rarely need anything from anyone—another eldest daughter trait. So when I ask, I really need support. It is so hard for me to ask. I feel like it’s a personal failure. I give emotional support freely, and when I ask for it in return—crickets.

If the above does not define someone with a huge boundary problem, I don’t know what does. It is a problem of my own making. I am there for others to help solve problems, to help emotionally support them and to be available. I always seem fine. I handle my own feelings, my own emotions. I keep them to myself, with very few exceptions. The expectation of others is that I am fine, that I have always been fine, and I always will be fine. Forever and ever, world without end, Amen.

When someone needs me, I try to support them. I know life is difficult and sometimes you need to lean on someone for support. I was raised being that person. That is my role. It comes to me as easily as breathing. Other people seek me out for this purpose, but the problem is, it’s extremely one-sided.

When I ask for help it’s not a priority for anyone, because my role is to be fine in perpetuity. If I am not, the balance is skewed and I become burdensome, needy, reactive, and my all time favorite, irrational. Something happens, and all of the pent of feelings and emotions that I have been apparently “handling” bubble to the surface, and not the cute kind like champagne bubbles that tickle your nose on New Year’s Eve. Actually, I wish they would just bubble. It’s more of a volcanic eruption, specifically the explosive kind. In other words, not good for anyone.

So, back to boundaries.

The rule of boundaries is that they are rules that you make for yourself (so far, similar to a resolution) but they are rules that you make for yourself in relationship to other people!

That is the mind-blowing part. I didn’t know you were allowed to do that!

I don’t have to accept being treated badly? I have never, ever had to live this way. There was no rule that said, “Chris, you need to accept all of the nonsense the world piles on you and you have to take it.” I have always had the power to change this and I didn’t know it!

Thank God for therapy. I now have the opportunity to figure this out.

So my first boundary of the year is this, and it is a silent one. Another rule for boundaries is that it’s not necessary to always communicate them. I realize that I am announcing it now in this forum, but I don’t have to tell anyone that I am doing it when I’m doing it. It is a rule that I have made for myself.

I have always felt that it is on me to reach out to my friends and make plans. A duty of mine. After all, if I didn’t do it, it wouldn’t happen. It caused me to spiral into resentment. Why am I the only one whoever plans anything? And the more toxic, What’s wrong with me? Why don’t people want to spend time with me?

So my boundary is as follows: If I want to see someone, I will reach out twice. It’s a soft boundary – in other words if the person seems like they are really trying to come up with a time to meet, it may take more than two texts. If I get a noncommittal “I’ll look at my calendar and get back to you,” then I will reach out one more time. If nothing comes of it, I let it go. I don’t have any resentment because I tried and there are so many reasons that someone may not be able to make plans that have absolutely nothing to do with me. I no longer question my worth or value.

The ball is in their court. I’m not going to badger someone. Could it be that they don’t want to spend time with me? Maybe. Perhaps they are dealing with something of which I am unaware? Also possible. I place no blame on myself or others. No resentment, no hard feelings. I have peace knowing that I reached out, made the effort and their lack of response is simply not my concern.

This one small change has made my life better. It made me happier. I have discovered that most times, I eventually hear back. I do get together with them at a time that is convenient for both of us. I don’t have the resentment of feeling I am taking on the entire responsibility of the relationship, so the resentment I felt before melts away in the process.

My friendships have become less one-sided and more reciprocal. This was totally an internal change. I did not make a huge announcement on the friend group text, just an internal decision that changed my perspective and improved my relationships. Some friendships have fallen away,the ones that are there for a season, and that has made room for new ones to form.

By making this decision, I have embraced the cyclical nature of life. Friendships fall away after a job change, a move, or a change in circumstance. My friend group used to form because I was someone’s mom. Some of those friendships have fallen away; some have stayed and are some of my closest and longest. I have found that I can form new friendships in the place of the ones that have fallen away. They fit the time and place I am in my life right now. I am very grateful for that.