year-end review {boho berry challenge}

1. Introductions I’m late to start this, but I scrolled past this challenge again (I visit her site often) and suddenly thought it might be good to force myself to think through the past year and look ahead to the new year I can’t really join though, since I don’t do facebook or instagram anymore (you don’t want to hear my reasons, it would be a long rant), but I can put it here on my blog. I don’t think I’ll post daily when I’m done catching up, that feels like too much of a commitment, but we’ll see what happens. I’ll skip the rest of the introductions, if you don’t know me from the rest of my blog, my about page is right here.

2. 2017 in three words – What 3 words best describe your year so far? tired – helping – fear Hmn. Really? So negative. But it’s true. The first word that came to me when I thought about this prompt is tired. Cause I am. And I have been most of the year. The year started with a real burn-out (I had pains in the chest, panic attacks etc.) and when I finally started to feel better, that second word came about. I helped one of my girls move to an apartment that she will be sharing with her boyfriend, I helped my parents move into a (much) smaller apartment and sort through their belongings to make it all fit, I’m currently helping someone to get grip on her household again, after being sick for quite a while. And I helped lots of other people lots of other times with lots of other things. It’s all done out of free will and with love. But I am tired. Both physically and mentally. And fear… I don’t want to get into details too much, but yes. Constant fear. Finances, health problems of loved ones, world problems. I try to shake it off and sometimes I succeed. But it does impact my life.

3. Favorite memory – What was your favorite memory of 2017 so far? Oh, there have been good times this year, really. My favorite memory must be sitting in an Irish bar on Gran Canaria (we always seem to end up at Irish bars when we’re on vacation) and singing my heart (and lungs) out with the live music. What kind of music, you ask? Rock, mostly hard rock even. I know. But it was just what I needed. (here’s a link to the performer. If you ignore his accent and focus on the guitar, he’s really good. And okay, everything sounds better if you’re on a sunny vacation island.)

4. Biggest accomplishment – What was your biggest accomplishment this year? How did you achieve it? I kept the weight off! I have to explain that, I guess. In 2016 I lost a lot of weight. I was really happy about that. But I’m an emotional eater, I binge when I’m having a hard time and all the other times I lost that much weight (I’m also a yo-yo dieter) it came back on when things went wrong in my life. But this year I didn’t. It has been a really hard year in so many ways, but I kept telling myself I didn’t need food, I needed to work through it. And I did. In fact I lost even more weight along the way.

5. Biggest challenge – What was your biggest challenge or obstacle this year? How did you overcome it? Well, apart from and related to no. 4, I guess my biggest challenge was to work through burn-out, depression and anxiety. I’m still not there, but I think I am doing better now. For me the best way to do this is to analyze what’s going on in my mind. Why am I thinking this? Is this realistic thinking? Where does it come from? What can I do to stop thinking like this? It’s hard work, but it does help.

6. This year I … – There are so many ways to interpret today’s prompt. Complete the sentence with whatever is in your heart about this past year. This year I tried to pick up the pieces of things that have gone bad in past years. I realize that is actually what living is about most of the time, but there were a lot of pieces this year in so many ways. Anyway, it had to be done.

7. Time spent well – What was time well spent this year? Helping my parents. Even though the downsizing was not an easy job to do, we’ve spent so much precious time together. Talking about what really matters in life, curating the mountain of stuff they couldn’t fit into the new apartment into a beautiful selection of their most precious memories.

8. Successes – What felt successful about 2017? Again? I guess I’m not good in these things. It feels like I’m constantly repeating myself. The weight, helping my parents. Really, I don’t think there was more. That sounds so negative, I know.  I don’t mean to. It’s just the way it is. I had plans, ideas, things I worked on. I don’t feel they were failures, but none of those were a success. Yet. Maybe next year.

::  ::  :: Want to join in? You can find all about the BohoBerryChallenge here.

If you decide to follow my lead and blog about it, let me know. I’d love to read your answers to the prompts. I don’t have (don’t want) an Instagram account or the app, but I sometimes view/read from my computer. I can’t see stories or private accounts and I can’t comment, but I can see pictures and read captures and comments, so I can follow along if you decide to join the challenge there (yes, it is kind of hypocrit not to avoid all that is Instagram, I know that. It’s complicated..) Facebook won’t let me view without an account though.