As I write, 2026 is a little more than 24 hours away, at least in my locale. I can’t wait to put 2025 behind me. As I wrote earlier this month, there were a few good things things I acquired or encountered this past year, but on the whole with everything everywhere out there it has been a fairly difficult year to manage, and, well, 2026 is looking to be no kinder.
I don’t know where to begin to end the year, and I have no wish to rehash what has happened in the world. If you don’t know about that you haven’t been paying attention. But for me, personally, 2025 started on a high note. I got together with a bunch of old friends, and had an amazing time talking through trauma and shared experiences both old and new. But then, I came down hard. The spring was rather difficult to adjust to. Summer came, and it has been long and hot and exhausting, physically. There was a pretty great week spent in Boston that was exceptional, but I spent most of the summer waiting for cooler weather. This autumn I continued to struggle until I was able to adjust some of my medications, and that has been better. The weather continues to annoy me, because it hasn’t cooled down and stayed there. Even this first week of 2026 will have higher temps than it should.
The holiday break, which for me started a week early, has been equal parts fun and tiring. My eldest niece came out for a week from Arizona to visit, and that was a lot of doing things. The week after was Yuletide, and all that goes with it. I feel like just now I have gotten a chance to relax and rest, and at the end of this week, the vacation will be over. I am not ready to return to work, but I’ve little choice.
I am once again battery-depleted, with lots piling up on the horizon. My brother is struggling with burn out, and having been there once before as I finished university, I don’t want to return to ashes. But I am feeling close. I admit I don’t know what to do. My wife and I cannot survive on one income, and thus I feel forced to keep to the grindstone, as unpleasant and un-helpful as that is.
So with 2026 rapidly filling the windscreen, I need help, and soon. I may have to talk to my boss about strategizing how to handle workload and time off. It occurs to me that through whatever twist of fate, I have a bunch of sick time I could utilize, and while I can’t just take a month off completely, I might be able to take off every Friday for awhile. That might be something that could forestall an engine flame-out. A three-day weekend would give me time to rest, and still have two days to actually notice that I am off work, instead of one day rest and one day to try to get everything done I don’t get to during the week. That might a possibility.
Another thing, and this I’ve done poorly through break, is manage my sugar intake. That is a key part of how much energy I feel I have, or don’t have, and the better job I do of regulating carbs the better I can sustain activity throughout the day, and not feel as tired. I am, after all, diabetic and that has real consequences that I need to pay attention to if I don’t do things right. Holidays and all extenuating circumstances acknowledged, I’ve noticed how much the extra sugar messes me up.
Expectations need to be tempered as well. I have a tendency to get down on myself for not getting into my hobbies, or doing things, and that isn’t helpful. The symptoms of burnout include not having the drive to do, and my mental struggles also manifest in that way. Taking the pressure off myself to do may help me avoid feeling the lack of fueling desire. Perhaps a schedule, or a simple plan of what I can reasonably attain throughout the week would be good. A few years ago, when I was really struggling through depression, I created a mood painting in which I painted a different color for each day’s major activity. This helped me in a visual way to see that I hadn’t succumbed to the blue (for depression) as often as I thought. Some similar way of tracking progress would be a boon to this situation. I wish I had a few $$$, I would buy Simone Yetch’s calendar made for precisely this purpose. Any way I do it though, I need to remind myself that slow is better than much, in this case.
Rather than publish goals, and make resolutions, and psyche myself up for failure, I think I need to realize limits and set boundaries. Allow for spontaneity and all that, and during higher energy times I can do more, but I need to be more intentional about managing myself. I’ve flown by instinct for far too long, and it may be a good thing to pay attention to instrumentation and fuel gauges. I am going to turn thirty-nine in 2026 as well, and I need to incorporate some of this experience I have gained along my life-journey. Part of this breakneck, reckless pacing and mentality has been because each day was a day I never figured I would live. Ever since I was seventeen, I never expected to live beyond twenty-five. I figured I would die by suicide or some other less direct happenstance, but I never once dreamed I would reach my upper thirties at all. I literally never planned for this day or eventuality. My black days have passed and I don’t think that way anymore, but if I will have a future, I probably need to start being intentional about it.
In coming back around the roundabout, I need to put 2025 behind me, and embrace 2026 as a year in which I can figure out who I am and what I am about. Not going up in smoke, or down in flames, but maybe just in crackling along gently, dancing softly into each night. Er something. I need to fuel the rest periods in my life as much as the work and play, and make sure I can keep going. As I’ve mentioned, the how is still a bit fuzzy, but that’s ok. No one ever has it all worked out for all time, and all I really need to know is the next step to take. It is a journey, not a destination, after all.
a simple man 