Can I please get a ‘Fresh Start’ in purple to go?
Here we go again. Another fresh start is about to start. And I feel truly excited about this one.
I recently listened to a podcast that mentioned a book (names of both elude me right now) where they talk about fresh starts. That it gives people a sense of beginning and hope. Fresh starts can happen at any given time and shouldn’t be restricted to certain times and places. But, some fresh starts can be obvious, like the beginning of a new year (heck even a week) or moving to a new place.
So, ding ding, I have recently moved to a completely new country where I barely know anyone.
I have been here for exactly 55 days now. I am in a new country, in a new apartment with new furniture, and yet I feel like I am continuing the same old patterns I wanted to leave behind. In the 55 days, I feel like I have made no progress. (It’s not true, but in my head, I feel so.)
I started thinking about it. Why is it that I feel like I am in a loop? It took me 55 days and a very bad period of pain episodes to finally understand the why.
I am still the same person following the same patterns, but there is an added element of confusion that has crept in. It seems I was so invested in the ‘moving’ part of the move that I didn’t think about the ‘what’s next.’ I mean, I did, but it was mostly very theoretical. I know what I need to or want to do next, but I do not have the how or the motivation to do it.
I really do not feel motivated. At all.
This really confused me. Somehow I thought the move would be the motivation I needed to do what’s next. But, no, I just feel so tired and relieved, but mostly so tired. Like the years of waiting for something, the constant anxiety, the constant thinking, “now what next” has finally caught up with me, and all I want to do is nothing.
Okay, to clarify, when I say nothing, I mean I will still continue with my freelance work (because of rent and food), but I do not feel like looking for that great job I have been thinking about for years now.
I want to go out and see my new city. Go to a museum and sit there the whole day. Walk for hours and discover new neighbourhoods. I have always loved walking, and that love is coming back slowly. I love listening to an audiobook or a podcast and just walking.
I mean, is it wrong to want to enjoy the moment I am in? I have worked hard and saved, and I feel I deserve to take it a little easier. I have even aggressively done the maths, I have enough saved up to go a few months without worrying or even depleting my savings too much. Shouldn’t I take the advantage that the past me has provided the current me?
The guilt that I feel every time I think about just doing ‘nothing’, has been quite demotivating. And, I feel lately my thoughts have become very jumbled and cluttered. This then leads me to think maybe I should take this ‘break’. I can create the routines that my anxious brain loves so much. I can go out and make some friends. But, then should I? Shouldn’t I be doing what all new immigrants do? Find a better job and better myself?
All these and more have led me not to feel the freshness of this fresh start that has been the BIG MOVE. I feel stagnant, and I feel guilty and and and. The same health issues continuing doesn’t make it feel any fresher either. It feels like it’s been a new bottle but the same old wine, a whiny me that is.
I think the problem isn’t with the freshness but with the start. I do not feel like starting anything. I want to bask in the warmth of one thing (the move) that has been successfully completed.
Maybe instead of thinking of this as a grand fresh start or just one fresh start, what if I break it down into smaller fresh starts, I feel like that will work. Right?
What if instead of, finding a new, good and high paying job, losing weight, starting routines, meeting new people, going to new places, etc., all at once, I simply break down each of these into tinier fresh starts?
Fresh start #1 Walk every day, starting August 23rd, 2022.
Fresh start #2 Go to an event/meet up once a week starting from first week of September.
You get the gist, right? I think that should work, right? Why does my fresh start have to be one grand image? It can be made of tiny pixels, of tiny fresh starts.
Here is to starting over, time and again, and to never giving up.