A Note From My Heart for the New Year

2024 is here and I want to first take the time to thank each and every one of you that make it possible for me to keep writing this little blog. To this day I am still amazed that so many of you take the time to read my writings. Writings that I know can be all over the place at times. I hope that you all had an amazing New Year’s Day. We did nothing but have some dinner with friends and it was perfect. It has been a few years since we just did nothing and enjoyed ourselves. 

Honestly we needed that so much. In fact, you most likely have noticed that I haven’t been around that much since Thanksgiving. The truth is that 2023 was hard for us. Medically we were all over the place. I mean we had so much going on with my stroke, Ma having to have surgery, and then right before Christmas my uncle (who lives with us) had to be hospitalized. It was one of the scariest events for me. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. While his health is his business I will say that at one point he had five nurses and three doctors holding him down so they could work on him. He couldn’t breathe and kept saying he needed to stand up to take a breath. He ended up passing out because he couldn’t take a full breath. 

So, we came in 2024 needing to take a breather and recoup a little bit. I would love to tell y’all that I made so many wonderful goals for the new year but in the end I didn’t. Not really. I decided that this year I would let myself off the hook and work towards not stressing myself out so much.

I always get so stressed when I am behind or when I haven’t gotten something done. The truth is unless it is paid work then who cares. Y’all don’t know what articles I have planned before I do them. So it’s not like I am letting anyone down. Yes, I would love to be ahead all year and have things done. However, this year I am not going to spend hours or days making myself feel bad about it. I am going to allow myself the grace to say “That’s okay and move on.”

Another thing I am not doing this year is arguing. It takes so much of me to do that. If you say the sky is red then okay. This got tested yesterday like you wouldn’t believe, However, by just agreeing and saying okay, because not a single one of the arguments were worth being upset over, I didn’t feel so weighed down at the end of the night. One of the things was when the final part of Yellowstone came on. I said it was like November but my uncle said this month. Okay, it comes this month. He will see when it doesn’t and I didn’t let nothing become something bigger. If it is something super important I will argue but I’m looking out for my own mental health by not engaging in that. 

The final thing is standing up for myself when it comes to my pay. So many times I will get an email asking about working together and when I answer their questions they will respond with something like “I will pay you $5 please post the attached article today.” The other is I will agree to one thing and then after it is done they will say “Oh do you mind doing this or that as well?” All the extras they send are things that when I originally responded were at a higher rate. This year I am going to respond to those emails with grace and stand my ground. 

My time is valuable as well. I have no problem negotiating prices or the work I will do. However, being treated as though I am worthless won’t hold this year. I feel like if they already have a budget in mind then come with that. I get they don’t because my rates may be lower than their budget. At least come with something better than here is my post, get it posted today.

I intend to simply experience this year and take the time to enjoy life. I intend to be happy with where I am at any given moment. Of course ask me again in three months and I will most likely say the New Year Rita was crazy!