New Year Fireworks

Every year I begin thinking of my New Year’s resolutions as soon as Boxing Day is done. Boxing Day is my favourite day of the whole year – Christmas and all its frantic panic and frivolity is over, and it’s time to kick back and relax, throw on a DVD, cuddle up in new pyjamas, and relax properly for the first time since finishing work for the holidays. Everyone tends to be busy doing their own thing with their new gifts, and it’s a great time to have a good think about what’s coming next.

Coming next is, of course, New Year’s Eve. Just under a week since my favourite day of the year comes this, my least favourite of all. I’ve always felt somewhat low on New Year’s Eve, there’s just something in the air that grabs at me and pulls me down, reminding me of all the things that didn’t get done in the year almost gone, and the things that should be done in the one coming up.

It also reminds me of how fast time is flying.

Which is why my first resolution this year is to strike a better work/life balance. Easier – far, far easier – said than done; as a freelancer the less I work the less money I earn. But it needs to be done. My daughter is 4 now, and those four years have shot past with indecent haste. I imagine the next four, and the next, and the next will go just as fast, if not faster. And then she will be gone, and I’ll have all the time in the world to do whatever it is I need to get done. But in the meantime, I will have missed her growing up because my back was always turned to her, my eyes more interested in what I was typing than what she was doing.

No more.

I have 9 months before she starts full time school. I intend to make the most of those 9 months, and the most of her.

My other resolutions are the same as ever – lose weight, exercise more, read more books (and review them here), do housework on a more regular basis… Maybe I’ll stick to those ones, maybe I won’t (I probably won’t).

As long as I can look back in a years’ time and say I did my best in 2015, that we had good times, that it wasn’t all about chasing the next few pounds, I’ll be happy.