New year, new me? News to me.

I wanted to have some serious fight and grit to me rolling into 2021, but I am still waiting to find it for myself.

On the 14th day of December 2020, I was fired from what used to be my dream job. Not so much a dream job, but more of a dream paycheck kind of job. I was earning enough to handle the house, new car and then some, but I was as unhappy as I could be. I have always dreamt of being a career person, doing big things, making things happen for myself and others who supported me. But having a small college experience and the resume of a person that displays signs of a personality disorder, I am finding out the hard way that being a career person might not have been my true mental focus. My mental focus as I tell myself is to have financial success. If anyone out there tells you differently they are already rich and their chase for success is over so they are seeking love or friendships or some other kind of reward that is not money driven. I just want to earn enough to pay for what I need to live, and retire comfortably.

My husband and I have chosen not to have children, we chose each other, careers and experiences. Our empty nest has consisted of intermittent times of being jobless for both of us, a couple of trips to Mexico, some fun pockets of time owning a boat, a homebuilder airplane kit that has remained in its box for 9 years, some exciting times with real estate purchases and an old dog that has been our savior. I sound like I am complaining, but I am pissed that here I am, this career woman, with hardly anything to show for it. I am beginning to feel like fulfillment means something else. At least that what this past year has made me really reconsider.

This all sounds horribly depressing reading it back to myself, and it is depressing living it for certain. Going into a new year for us has not been any different than any other new year. Same ole boring shit on the same ole boring day of the same ole stretch of months. The most excited I get at new years is seeing Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper do their live special on CNN in NYC. Maybe this new year of 2021 with seeing the hardships of others predominately on public display by watching the news nightly, I have had an overwhelming amount pain from sympathy for those who have had less than me, those who have lost their close loved ones or who are fighting for their own lives from enduring a virus or financial hardship. It is heartbreaking and unfortunately real for a lot of people.

So as I am sitting here writing about my depressing life and how a new year has no exceptional meaning for me, I am also thinking about how selfish I am for looking petulant when others have had it harder than ever. I have to ask myself, how are we going to get past all this grief? How are we going to be changed as a society from being locked up in our homes, afraid to go to public places and worried about seeing loved ones because we do not trust who they have been around and exposed to? I am not certain how our rebounds from 2020 are going to go, but I know I feel differently now about my expectations of my own life and the reality that is ugly but certain. My reality and certainty is I still have my home, my husband has a good job, I still have all of my hearts (family members) that are still on their paths, I still have my life and my health, and...I still have my old crusty loaf of love wiener dog that will not leave my side. So considering the circumstances, resolutions for 2020 are REAL this time around and I am not going to be selfish about it.

To those who suffered in 2020 with a loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, the loss of your dignity and lively hood, my news year resolution is for you. Yes your lives might be changed forever, but others are out here being vigilant and prayerful for you and your families. So this 2021 resolution is for all of you and for YOUR hearts to heal, YOUR lives to strive and for you to have the upper hand. LFG 2021!