The end of July I turned 42. I looked back at the beginning of this year and the two words I felt leading me into 2023. I laughed when I read “the year of Sue” and thinking of how healing and home would be a focus within myself. I believe it started well. I felt encouraged and excited to start 2023 after the shift in my spirit and an honest engagement with my burn out. I was feeling myself grounding in home and focusing on being home more. I set good boundaries at work and was looking forward to the work I was and would continue to do. It was going to be a good year.
Then, our daughter had a health crisis in March that sent us into a spiral of fear and encountering something we’ve never dealt with before. It was an angst and feeling of complete helplessness in which we could not grasp any control. In brief, our daughter experienced a severe panic attack and a spiral of several days of these over her fear of eating and is now in therapy for her anxiety and working with a speech and ARFID specialist after her initial refusal to eat at all. We are finally able in this month of August to relax into our new normal and our celebration in my family pulling together to get our daughter the resources she needed in March and the quick move by those in the healthcare profession. We have begun a new school year that seems to be going well so far and her lunch times are good times for her right now.
My professional environment wore on me as I tried to navigate professional and clinical obstacles during this time of feeling helpless with our daughter and my own internal outlook and hope spiraled into a “classic enneagram 6 response” of catastrophizing and allowing myself to move into a place reactivity and feeling a need for survival and fight. As things have calmed down with my daughter, I have had to make a choice in my work environment as a new group of interns and residents begin their clinical work to see this as a new year ALL around and I have a choice in how to approach and engage it. I have begun to reflect on my year of beginning starting with the day I turned 42. I have 4 definitive goals for this year and 2 “wildcard” to pursue in this year of 42.
Goal 1: I want to read 42 books by my 43 birthday. This would entail no less that 3 books a month. This is a tall order but I think I can do it with audible and old school reading. I hope to read 1 fiction, 1 non-fiction, and 1 theological.
Goal 2: Complete scrapbooks for the last eight years of my daughters life.
Goal 3: I want to start walking/jogging/running with Lola (my dog) at least 4 times a week. This could be in my neighborhood, trails, and/or the field around my house.
Goal 4: Engage more quality time with my husband, daughter, family and close friends whether it is adventures and trips, watching movies, cooking and baking, or spending a day doing whatever the other wants.
Wildcard 1: Hone in on my sewing skills with multiple projects.
Wildcard 2: Attend the Evolving Faith Conference in the fall online.
Alright, “year of Sue” and year 42- Let’s Go! For me this year has to be different. It has to be better, more hopeful, and a time of healing my mind, spirit and getting my body healthier.
The Journey Home 