2022: Resolving to Rest

I feel like I haven't actually rested since the pandemic basically took over the United States in March of 2020. A supermajority of 2020 was occupied by the ever-present thought that I had to do everything possible to protect my family from a pandemic level virus that was scouring the globe. I took on a massive amount of the household responsibility for my home and the home of vulnerable relatives. While doing all of this, I lived in a household that essentially didn't take my concerns seriously. They'd ask for my feelings when a potential problem would arise but only with the expectation that I bury how I truly felt to appease what they wanted. In 2020 I found myself in the most isolated position of my life.

2021 came around, and the joyous news of the various vaccines kept a light burning inside me and reignited my passion for keeping my family safe. By May of 2021, I'd kept my family from getting sick. Everyone was vaccinated and likely safe from anything to come, but my grandmother suffered a ministroke. She had lost her sharpness from the stroke coupled with a fair amount of loss of her physical strength from being homebound during the pandemic. These combined, she was in rough shape. She needed more focused and disciplined care for the time being, and it wasn't economically viable for paid at-home assistance service. Someone in my family had to do their best to help her, which came to me for various reasons.

This was a hefty responsibility and one I happily shouldered. I had gotten quite used to carrying what felt like the weight of the world by myself as well as feeling isolated from those around me at this point. This is a responsibility that I continue to carry to this day. Thankfully, it seems to have helped my grandmother. However, that weight of being her primary caretaker was hard to carry along with all of the other stress I had bottled up. All of it together began to feel like an impossible weight that would soon crush me. Somehow I managed to grit my teeth and get through this year, but the only thing I can think of going from 2021 to 2022 is how tired I am to my very soul, more so than from 2020 to 2021. So in 2022, I want to try and change all of this a bit. I want to be able to rest a little bit. I want to feel like I can lighten my load and not have everything fall apart.

In 2020 and 2021, I started engaging in various forms of exercise to cope with the overwhelming amounts of stress that came for me these past couple of years. It has helped, but I would like to decrease the intensity of my routines and channel the time and energy I would save into a different activity. In my mind, I was thinking about radio calisthenics. A series of daily guided exercises and stretches designed to promote health and wellness for anyone of any age. Most sessions last between 10-15 minutes and encourage health like the exercising I have been doing while promoting a calming effect to ease my weary heart and soul.

I would like to start talking to a therapist about the invisible burden I've been carrying. I've always thought I might benefit a little from therapy, even before the last couple of years. Still, after everything 2020 and 2021 have thrown my way, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I could benefit from therapy. I have spent some free time consulting with my insurance about what is available in my area in the last weeks. As soon as 2022 arrives, I will schedule some time every month to do this for me. That way, I can start unpacking all the repressed trauma of the past couple of years and find a way to be a better me. After spending day after day feeling like I am holding up the world, it will feel good to set it down for an hour and let my vulnerability show in full.

Finally, I will resolve to share more of these family and household burdens with the rest of my family. I had accepted all of this responsibility during a time of great need, and I will be happy to continue holding onto some of it. But I believe 2022 will mark a great time for me to shed some of it to make time for the other things I want to do, both to take care of myself and allow myself to rest correctly and pursue my wants and desires. I believe, working together, we can share the burdens and responsibilities more equitably. I don't want any family member to feel constantly plagued by what feels like the overwhelming weight of the world. Even if it requires playing and planning week by week, I think we can all manage to find a system where we can all have an equitable time for rest.

It's often hard to hold ourselves to our resolutions as the year goes by. It requires an enormous amount of willpower. Even now, I am thinking of the resolutions I have set out before me. All I can think of now as the final days of 2021 are coming to a close is how hard it will be for me to initiate these plans to allow myself the rest I need. I hope I can resolve to stay strong and keep to the idea of letting myself recharge. Once I get started into a new restful routine, I know I will be much better off in the long run.