A New Year's Resolution - Be Generous to Yourself

A spur of the moment Stony Creek Diaries post

Happy New Year, dear readers!

Here’s an unplanned Stony Creek Diary entry to start off 2024.

As I was getting ready to sit down and do things such as organize the Talking Out of School archives to assist in subscribers navigating the old(er) good stuff, I was seized by a compulsion to communicate. I realize your inboxes are full of yet more sales and lots of consultants and subscriptions of all kinds sending you happy new year messages. But as the responsive nature of TOOS, and me as its main proprietor, is part of this special sauce - what the heck. And here’s to more “what the heck” in 2024.

Some years I am gripped by the urge to clean out, organize, get stuff and things streamlined and functional before the start of a new year. And for those of us in education, we always get two opportunities at fresh starts - Labor Day and New Year’s. The fall fresh start always felt a little more practical to me and the new year has always felt a little more ritualistic, a little more holy, a little more spiritual. And of course more communal as the calendar turns for everyone on January 1.

I have not gotten my delightful house as settled, decorated and organized as quickly as I would like. It’s OK - what needs to be functional is functional and some of the spaces are even lovely. But as someone who used to get everything up on the walls within the week of a move, this settling in has had a different pace. And mostly, as was pointed out by a friend who came to visit, what I see is what still needs to be done, rather than the (pretty significant) what has been done. (More on that phenomenon, and the pros and cons of how that dichotomy in POV is related to leadership in another post.) When I stepped out of the house to walk the dog the other day, a passer by I did not recognize said, “Beautiful job on the house.” And my response was what I always say, “Thank you! It’s a work in progress.”

Part of the issue is that there are more significant projects where I need to bring people in to do them that would greatly improve aspects of the house such as storage options. I just have not had the time to figure this out. I am something beyond “not handy” and most DIY projects have become messy mini-disasters.

But there was a major component that was totally within my control and that was the amount of stuff that was just chaotically hanging out in my partially finished third floor. The stuff inhibits any other uses of this space. For a year and a half, the stuff had been looming up there, pointing out my laziness. From time to time I would go up there to find something, start to poke around, realize how much of the stuff could either be junked or donated, contemplate formulating a plan, and then flee. I would tsk tsk myself that I had moved a bunch of that stuff in the first place. I would fantasize about calling 1-800 JUNK to just go up there and take it all away without even looking through it. I did nothing.

To use a really obvious metaphor, sometimes it felt like everything up there was everything from my 56 years of life I was toting around and didn’t want to think about. The intoxication of being young and feeling like the world is an endless adventure and how I was now in the stage where adventures were still possible but preferably would come with sensible shoes and at least a comfort plus airline ticket. The inevitable disappointments and losses that reside there, even when “everything works out for the best.” And then the losses that just are losses.

Watching a few episodes of The Office seems like a very reasonable alternative to dealing with all that.

But as the days shortened this year, I felt I had enough mojo to go up there and deal with the stuff. So I did - or at least got a good start - and here’s my news from the attic:

There were good reasons I didn’t ditch most of the stuff that ended up getting hauled up there, even if it won’t reside with me permanently. There was the stuff that might have had a practical use and now that I’ve been living in the house, I can see it really doesn’t, or there’s a newer, cheaper, better version available. Then there is the stuff that is just harder to figure out. I have some nice, barely worn work clothes I’ll never wear again but I just don’t want to dump them in one of those donate boxes in a parking lot. I’d like to find a place where they could be of some use. I have some beautiful shoes that neither fit my current feet or my lifestyle. I have strong attachments among those pairs and I’ll keep a few to occasionally look at and sigh but most need a decent new home. Also the same with some purses and beautiful totes.

I had a bad habit as a head to pursue online retail therapy and things that didn’t fit or work didn’t always make it back to UPS. And some of the things I bought are truly head scratchers now. It’s like someone else bought them. I was reminded of this when I saw a $40 panettone in a gourmet store this season and I realized with a shock that I had bought this $40 panettone last December in the middle of saying goodbye to my dad. I have no idea why I thought this would make me feel better, or make something better, as I don’t even like panettone. I think I ate one sliver before it got hard as a rock and I threw it away.

And the other reason there was stuff I didn’t ditch was because what do you do, exactly, with almost three decades of cards and personal correspondence? I have a shoebox of cards from Baby’s First Birthday in 1968. When I was little, I liked to look through them. And then I just saved everything until we all moved over to email in the 1990s. That’s a lot of shoeboxes, full of open hearts and tender wishes and messages from people no longer here, hauled from one temporary residence to the next in my peripatetic campus housing existence. I haven’t looked at them in years. It’s probably getting to be time, even if the sorting won’t happen in the span of an afternoon.

But as I broke down boxes and piled things up and labeled them trash/donate/keep/to be sorted, it all became more manageable. And even better, as I organized, I could see a future in this space where some things are kept and others are blessed and released to make room for the new. And that was deeply satisfying. We need to keep making space for the new. It’s a gesture on the side of life and hope.

So in this time of New Year’s resolutions, be kind and generous to yourselves. Those things you haven’t blessed and released yet? There’s a good reason for that. You might not have the full insight into why - yet. But there’s a good reason. And there might be a significant pile of shoeboxes you’ll need to keep around for a while until you can really process it in a way that brings you some joy along with some melancholy. We’re more than getting by and current you is doing pretty well - and that says a lot given the current unsettled nature of just about everything. Holding on won’t make the volatility any less unpleasant but creating space for the new allows for potential.

So let’s hear it for hope and potential in 2024.

Julie