New year, another January, another blogfest

Another year, another bunch of head-scratching contemplation on where the old one vanished, and a bubbly little hope that this one won’t vanish as quickly. So yes, a happy new year to you and everyone (me included) and not just for this year, but for every year to follow.

Over next, to what “new year” means: “resolutions”. In my younger days I would typically come up with impressive resolutions that faded away unsung, unnoticed as the months passed by (though they proved useful starting points for the next year’s resolutions). Now, I don’t do any resolutions except one: my January blogfest. For the past three years, I have blogged through every day of January.

TIll a few days ago, I was swinging back and forth on the idea of attempting a blogfest for January this year. I wondered, do I really have anything to say each day for 31 days in a row?

But there is something to be said for having only one resolution for a year and for getting over with it by Feb 1, celebrating with dark chocolate (well-earned) with the rest of the year stretched out long before me, free and targetless.

I wasn’t bothered that I had no theme in mind. I thought I’d just pick up any top-of-mind idea and do a short blog on that every day throughout January. It could be about anything (hey, that’s what blogs are supposed to be like). I’m a dementia caregiver and a volunteer, and that occupies a bulk of my mindshare, so I may end up sharing some episodes that pop up, or some observation or philosophy related to that, but I’m not trying to get down to understanding stuff or drawing conclusions. Just exploring. I may end up with conclusions one day, and with counter-conclusions another day, and just unashamedly meander about weird and irrelevant stuff on a third. Stuff like jigsaws. Stuff I see when walking down a road. My claustrophobia, my fear of social interactions. Dark chocolate. Writing stories, and having stopped writing them, and struggling to resume.

In a way, all this serious work I do keeps me so busy that I sometimes forget to let in irreverent thoughts and new dreams, and irreverence is needed, or what is life for! Maybe I needed a pick-what-comes-first-to-the-mind type of shakeup. And so I thought I’d go with the flow and wondered what would emerge.

Then yesterday evening, New Year’s Eve, the attendant who looks after my mother got the news of a personal tragedy, and for the hour as she wept, I remembered my own bereavement on that day, many years ago, when my father had died, and I wept alongside in my heart. Then she packed and left for her village, and hubby and I were back at the 24×7 care for my mother.

Care for a bedridden patient takes time and energy, and added to our already-made January commitments, what stretches before us is a packed and tiring January. When I remembered about the blogfest, I thought, hey that’s something I can chop off.

But I didn’t, and here’s why.

I have worked from home for over twenty years now. I work to self-imposed deadlines, using self-imposed discipline, accountable to myself, driven by myself. And as I thought through last night and today morning, I realized I owed it to myself to give the blogfest a try. So it may not be the best blogfest, so what? Maybe I’ll end up skipping a few entries or taking shortcuts on some days and posting one-liners. And if someday I can’t think of anything, I may just post a picture; after all, a picture is worth a 1000 words. All of this is better than not trying. And at the end of January, I can step back happy that I gave it a shot. (As against feeling bad that I didn’t even try)

So yes, the year is new and fresh (and fragile and ready to bend one way or the other, depending on where I take it), and so yes, it promises to start off really busy, but that’s okay. I’ll give an update on my mother tomorrow, because it’s been ages since I did that, and then I’ll let randomness take over. I’ll flow along, snatch fun and happiness as they come. My 2012 January blogfest begins.

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