New Year resolutions vs. Real life

Please, excuse that this post has no relation whatsoever to literature, but I have been reflecting on some issues that recently came up around here and I felt the need to write them down somewhere.

It’s just that, like everyone else, I had goals that I thought would change my life for the better, but it turned out the exact opposite was profoundly benefitial. I’m no longer assuming anything, people!

Let me explain some of my goals, and how they alone decided to take a different path altogether:

Goal 1: Be productive and organized

Yes, I am a big fan of planners and all those Instagram accounts dedicated to bullet journals and such; I enjoy being busy and crossing out tasks I need to complete, and I live accordingly to what has been written down for every day on my planner, but guess what: I got the flu just after Christmas and for eight days I was basically surviving and doing NOTHING. I even spent New Year’s morning in the emergency room at the hospital because I lost conciousness when I was about to have breakfast. What a plan!

My parents took me to their home due to my hypotension and high fever, so I was not left alone at my place, and those first days I found myself feeling guilty of being unproductive! This productivity disease we live in makes you feel this way. Fortunately, I later learned to go with the flow and enjoy my downtime as I was recovering: I would read some of the books from my parents’ library to pass the time while they were out working and, after dinner, the four of us (my sister was also staying there during her Christmas break) would watch a TV series and enjoy some time together.

Do you know when was the last time we were together like this? To be honest, I can’t even remember and, most importantly, I don’t know if and when will happen again. So thank you, Real life, for those unproductive and yet deeply satisfying days with my loved ones; they have been some of the highlights of the last months.

Goal 2: Read more books

I did want to read more books in 2018 than the previous year, of course, because I am a book blogger, right? You can only aspire to be a better blogger and a better reader if you read more than before, more than everybody else… MORE.

Well, today I am pleased to announce that I told my book club coordinator I cannot keep attending our mettings. I quitted the club.

For the last 2 months I have been unable to keep up with the reading pace, which is one book per fortnight (up to 300 pages, no more), so my strategy, in order to secure my spot, consisted on reading less than half of the book, attending the meetings and sit quiet while the rest of the group had a conversation about that book I hadn’t read. There is a long waiting list of people who want to join these book clubs due to the limited spots, so today I finally came to my senses and decided to let this activity go. It was hard because I made good friends there but, anyway, we will remain friends and I feel at ease again knowing I don’t have to read a particular book at a particular pace.

I am not reading that much this year, it seems, and now it is OK.

Goal 3: Spend more time doing what you love

While I really believe one should have her own time to do things you enjoy, I have realized that I have fallen into a spiral of selfishness: what’s important seems to be *my* goals, *my* dreams, *my* hobbies… myself.

Some weeks ago, one of those days I was devoting *my* time to *my* hobbies, I walked into the sitting room and heard my elderly neighbour crying for help through the wall that separates our apartments. The woman had fallen on the floor four hours ago and was unable to sit or get up. Shouting through her door, she gave me her daughter’s phone number (her mind is sharp as hell, thank goodness), so I called her daughter, she came with the keys, and we both got this old lady up. She later told me she thought she was going to spend the entire night on the floor and thanked me for being her “guardian angel”. While writing this, my eyes are getting wet again.

From that day I got two new habits: I call for her through the door when I go out, just to see if everything is fine, and I pay her a proper visit at least once a week. To be honest, sometimes it’s hard to stop thinking I should be doing other things (*my* things), but I feel I’m doing the *right* thing spending some time with her. Besides, she is happy to see me and she tells me she’s grateful for me to visit her, and that makes me feel useful and appreciated. I can’t ask for more.

Goal 4: Declutter your house

Yes, I have also read Marie Kondo’s book and went into a frantic tidying and decluttering marathon. This would fill an entire series of posts, but I’ll summarize the important point.

First of all, I am really glad that I did it; my home now is clean and tidy and there is no one single item that doesn’t have its own place and, more important, purpuse. But the process of decluttering have been emotionally draining and thought-provoking.

From the first days, when facing all the clothes I owned, I felt disgust towards myself. There were clothes I had never worn, with the labels and all! In the following days, I would also take out of closets presents I had never used. People have bought things for me, spending money so hard to earn, and I haven’t even looked at them. I had to face the person I had become: a hoarder and dissatisfied being who always wanted more. I mean, I could have lied to myself and told I’m not that bad, but proof was right in front of me; there is no way to scape your own flaws when they are finally revealed, you just acknowledge them and try to work little by little to build the person you really want to be.

You know, I had always read articles about consumerism and I agreed I had enough with the things I already owned. However, and I don’t really know how to explain this, I had never “felt it in my bones” like these past weeks while going in and out from my apartment to the dumpster, throwing what seemed an infinite number of garbage bags containing my things.

So the goal was to declutter, but the outcome was totally unexpected.

*****

And this is it. Most of my resolutions have followed their own rules, and honestly, it is totally fine with me. I have come to the conclusion that I prefer real life rather than that unrealistic idea of the things you should do, which makes you lose sight of what’s actually relevant.

So tell me, how are your resolutions going? Has someone done major changes like I’ve been forced to do? Maybe I hope so 😉

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What I’m reading – mid-August

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Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Cary Elwes, Sarah Sundin

I hate summers, but this one is being remarkable tough in so many ways. The main issue has been my father, who had a scheduled – but serious – heart surgery last Wednesday. My family and I have spent long hours there in hospital with him, and I don’t know what’s wrong about the place, but it leaves you exhausted. Luckily, he is the best of patients, and has been following all the prescriptions and doing all the exercises the nurses and doctors command, and he is at home now, with a long way ahead to make a full recovery, though.

I have begun a couple of books these days, which is not a reading habit that I have, but I suddenly found myself in the hospital, the day of my father’s surgery, with nothing to read and long hours ahead in the waiting room, so I started the last novel of Arturo Pérez-Reverte (Hombres Buenos, still not available in English), which my father had just finished the night before, already hospitalized. It starts well and it’s set in the nineteenth century, a time that I know quite well due to the Law text books that I have to study, and also thanks to some historical fiction novels that I have enjoyed in the past.

Besides, I started a book that I purchased at the beginning of the year: As you wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride, by the actor Cary Elwes, which is a delight. If you love The princess bride (the film and the book), not reading it would be inconceivable 😉 My father is also a fan of the film, so these last days I’ve been telling him anecdotes that I’ve read on the book and we had had a lot of fun.

With all the drives up and down the hospital, I have been disconnected from the blogging world and I forgot that I had organized a joint reading with my Spanish fellows! You know that I run a reading challenge for people to read in English, and I organize activities from time to time. We are reading With every letter, by Sarah Sundin, and it is still free on Amazon, if you want to join us. We are commenting the book on twitter with the hastag #WithEveryLetter.

And that’s all for now. I took this afternoon off, and hopefully I will come back to my daily routines tomorrow.

Hope you have a nice week!

My grandmother’s brand new library card

When my grandmother became a widow she tried to embrace new activities to keep herself busy and go out a little, instead of staying at home thinking she was alone.

I remember that the first thing she did was signing up for computer classes, when she was almost 80! There she went for a couple of courses, and now she knows how to send emails to us, her children and grandchildren; look for whatever she is interested using google, as well as reading the newspaper online, and my blog too!

She also likes sewing with a friend of hers (we all have beautiful curtains, tablecloths and woolen hats made by her) and she is reading a lot lately. Of course, I am the one in charge of providing books for her to read.

I find quite difficult to recommend books, but after some failed attempts I knew exactly which reads she is most likely to enjoy. The problem here is that after a couple of years I have almost run out of her kind of books; I asked her why she doesn’t learn English so I can lend her some books she will love, but she didn’t want to hear about it, so I went for the only choice left: I decided the time to get her own library card had come.

We went to the library together last week in order to get the card (I had already filled the form, etc.), take a look around the library for her to know where to find the novels the next time she goes, and look for the only novel by Kate Morton she hasn’t read yet, which was borrowed (Who dared! Grrrr).

In the end, we decided to borrow another book by Jojo Moyes, because we both loved Me before you (my review), and then we had a coffee together to celebrate.

Hope she enjoys walking around the bookshelves at the library as much as I do!