New Year, New Chapter
It’s a new year, a new chapter in life. Everyone has made resolutions and is trying to stick to them. Every year most fail at these resolutions. But fresh starts are needed. My fresh start included my family moving 900 miles away from everything we knew and everyone we knew.
My husband got a job before we even moved, my daughter’s education was going to improve drastically because the school system is so much better, and me well I hoped to find a job quickly that I love and I’m working on my bachelor’s degree online. Plus, we moved to a place we love, bought a house, and don’t have to deal with the long winters anymore. What can be a better fresh start then that right?
We have been here two months. The first month we lived in a hotel because of issues with closing on the house we were buying, but we made the most of it including a special Thanksgiving dinner in the hotel. Because we didn’t have a physical address, I was home-schooling my daughter in the hotel while applying for jobs and doing my schoolwork. We finally get into the house and the people who owned it before left it trashed so before we could move our stuff in we spent a week cleaning from top to bottom, steam cleaning rugs, bleaching bathrooms, throwing out science experiments in the refrigerator, scrubbing every inch of the house. All this is not putting any of us in the Christmas spirit and we have no family except each other. But once all is cleaned and we start bringing in our stuff and getting our new house the way, we want it I find my grandmother’s old ceramic Christmas tree and it still has a lightbulb in it that works. I set it up so at least our daughter has a tree. The house comes together little by little.
I’m still applying for jobs but have realized that depression is setting in because at this point, I have applied to over 50 jobs and have not found one yet. I have so much experience in different areas that I don’t understand. I pretty much hide out in the bedroom except at mealtime. I have given up on getting the rest of the house put together, and just focus all my attention on schoolwork and finding a job even though I feel the last part is becoming useless at this point. Christmas is just a few days away and I think it will be a good beginning. We have each other, we have a new home, I can come out of my funk and be happy again. I was wrong. Christmas turned into a giant disaster and then a screaming match and me in the bedroom crying thinking about just leaving.
The depression settled even more. The new year was approaching, and I was stressed to the max. I’ve never been one to make New Year’s Resolutions and I wasn’t about to start, but I have always thought that the new year is a new chapter in the book of life, and we hold the pen to writing the chapters. So, I thought about how to pull myself out of the funk and land a job I would love and get my motivation back. I wanted to enjoy the place I have been dreaming of living for so long.
I know life isn’t perfect, and it doesn’t have to be, but I have to change my way of thinking. I was in a dark place and having such negative thoughts that it was affecting my happiness. I decided I was going to focus on the positive. I was going to focus on the fact that I was living in the place I had wanted to for so long, I may not have a job yet, but I know I have the qualities and will find something that I will enjoy, all of my family may not be around, but I do have family here.
By focusing on the positives, I started coming out of my funk and things started turning around. I had four job interviews lined up. Then I finally got a job offer with a company that aligns with my vision and that I can grow with. My whole attitude changed. Sometimes to get that fresh start we need to take a step back and adjust our attitude and perspective. Everyone has a bad day and 2020 was a bad year, but if we focus on the bad, we can’t write a good chapter in our book of life. So, by looking at the positive and starting fresh when we slip back to the negative, we can write an amazing book.
