Was it the turning of another year? Or screaming into the void in my last two posts? I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that I am feeling a tiny bit better today. Not enough to jump up and down celebrating, but enough to pick up the dirty clothes from the floor and read a few chapters. Which is a huge improvement over doomscrolling on Twitter all day (that’s not to say I didn’t do any doomscrolling).

Maybe it was the piece of birthday cake. Or listening to Taylor’s version of Speak Now. Whatever it was, I’m grateful for it. I mean, it’s not a huge shift, but anything is better than where I’ve been sitting for the last week. And now I need to see if I can build on it.

Normally I’d be kicking off the end of my birthday with a huge plan of how the next year in my life is going to magically change and become so much better. A plan that never works because I generally try to do way too much of everything at one time and get nowhere at all. This year I am trying not to do that.

I did put together a self care tracker to try to help me get a handle on my self care. I am so bad a taking care of myself even when my mental health isn’t in the toilet. I am starting super small and will hopefully gradually build up so that by the time my birthday rolls around next year I have a good grip on it. Maybe it will work this time? I think (hope) the key will be to stretch but not push. To let myself do just the bare minimum some days when things are hard, but to do a bit extra on the days that I feel stronger.

Contrary to what a lot of people who know me think, I really do want to get out of this perpetual cycle. It’s not like I have consciously chosen to be this way for my entire life. I’ll keep you posted.