A few years ago, I started a tradition of choosing one word to represent what I wanted to get out of that year. Last year, I chose ‘heal,’ and though I didn’t post it, I did do a lot of healing.
Just as a rundown, in 2023, my best friend died, I got a new cat, and I got a new job at Lush Cosmetics. So, 2024 was all about learning to figure out life with grief, my new baby, and retail. I spread myself among my other friendships, visited some people (and Lush stores) in the UK, started volunteering at our local museum, and dove back into my writing. I also got a lot of medical stuff sorted that I’ve been putting off for a long time. So, I did some literal healing, too.
One big lesson I got that I’m taking with me into 2025 is that, while I love structure and routine, my structure and routine needs to be able to shift and adjust. Think retrofitting a building in San Francisco so that it can stay strong and beautiful, and survive an earthquake.
Pre-retail, I would take all of December off to work on blog posts and my social media posts for the whole year. I have a pretty big raft of posts, and it does take absolutely every day of the month, especially New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
Last year…that did not work. At all, lol. At the time, I thought I’d just have to power through and make it work. I tried writing in the break room, or before or after work, or on my days off. But there was just way too much to do, and all of my mental and physical strength was going toward not losing my mind during the holiday madness. And the way I streamline (shout out to One Word, 2020) my posts prevents me from posting some ahead of time. I post everything at once, because I know that if I try to post throughout the year, I’ll be playing catch-up the whole time, and eventually fall behind, get overwhelmed, and quit. Whatever it is that keeps people steady and focused for a whole year is either still broken in me or never existed to begin with.
So, I’m writing this blog post in August, lol. Obviously, there’s a lot left of 2024 to experience, and hopefully I will remember to update this post in December. The Halloween and Christmas collections are coming soon at work, which means more hours, more mental and physical energy at work, and less of me available for blogging. (Avon editing in January: not as many hours as I’d anticipated, as it turns out, lol) In October, I’m going to Guatemala, where I will have some medical procedures done, so it will be less restful than usual. It might feel odd to read this in January 2025 and see October 2024 referred to in the future tense, but that’s my point. I’m adjusting my structure and routine to fit my schedule and how I think my energy levels will be in the future. If I want to continue to have a blog, which I do; and if I want to keep my job and volunteer gig, which I do, I have to find a way for them to coexist, and that means heavily planning it all out.
I’ll be honest, I don’t really want to be thinking about blogging right now. I just finished outlining the rest of my series, the Beanseller Saga, and I want to get back to drafting! But the blog is important, too. And once I finish the blog and posts, I’ll be done for a year, and it can be doing its thing in the background while I’m drafting my stories. The blog and social media are the ‘business,’ how I connect with my audience. It’s worth it to take time to look after it, especially since I wasn’t able to post for a whole year.
So, this year, I’m focusing on learning, figuring out what I did well and not so well, and finding a more efficient way forward, while juggling everything in my life.
What is your One Word?
Avon Van Hassel 