New Year, Same Me

The unfortunate reality of life

It’s 11.56pm on new years eve. I can hear the neighbour’s muffled laughter through loud music. Some others down the street have been setting off fireworks, happy screams pervading the night sky. Right now, a bunch of people are happy. They are revelling in the hype of a new year, fuelled with alcohol and the hopes and dreams of tomorrow.

Then there’s me.

Laying in bed wide awake after a fight with my husband. He’d pulled me aside fifteen minutes earlier and said, “We’d better have a pash and a grope because its new year.” My instant unconscious reaction of a low exhausted groan wasn’t taken too well, which resulted in his anger over my response.

He stormed off, took himself to bed, and was snoring a microsecond later, whilst I was still digesting his defensive retort.

I’m a shit wife because I’m too weary to have sex every day. Will that change in the new year? Will, come midnight, I suddenly turn into a horny minx who gets hot under the collar at the words “let’s have a grope?”

I’m thinking, probably not. The new year will see the same me in this regard. I’ll be weary, exhausted, wrung out by the daily kid ‘stuff’ and sex will often feel like a chore. My poor husband wasn’t lucky enough to see ‘have more sex’ on my new-years-resolutions list.

So, I get into bed and what better way to bring in the new year than to get on Instagram and observe the happy photos of others enjoying their cocktails and celebrations. At 11.57pm I had the realisation of how sad this moment was.

I could say, “Oh, new years eve is just another day” but deep down there is something significant about a new year. It’s fresh and shiny. It marks the end of what was and offers a clean slate of potential and opportunity.

Yet, here I was, doing the same ridiculously mind-numbing thing I do every night before bed. Scroll social media.

11.58pm.

Scroll, scroll, scroll.

11.59pm.

Scroll, scroll, scroll.

Midnight.

Scroll, scroll, scroll.

The new year begins, in somewhat depressing darkness and the stifled cheers of my neighbours.

My husband is annoyed with me, my daughter has made her way to our bed and has half a leg on my face as per usual, and I’m looking at the world through the lens of random strangers.

New year, same me!

Whilst the reality was miserable, the moment did feel significant.

Was I seriously going to continue this cycle for the next 365 nights? I mean, I’ve read all the stuff about the elements of success and successful people don’t waste their time scrolling social media. Good ol’ Tim let me know that I’m wasting my life with my love of three women he refers to as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and unfortunately he’s not far wrong.

So, as I laid in the darkness, with my phone screen illuminating the small space around me, I reflected.

Was I happy with the 2021 me? The 2021 wife and mom? The 2021 employee, friend, daughter and sister?

If I was to look objectively, I’d have to say ‘no.’

Yes, there were moments of pride, elements of success, times of joy and days where I thought I’d totally smashed motherhood. Yet regrettably there was a lot of selfishness, time wasted and half-assed attempts.

I’d love to tell you that in the early hours of January 1st I devised a grand plan to overcome my laziness and self-centredness, but I fell asleep having the sole realisation that if something didn’t change then it would continue to be ‘new year, same me.’

I could leave this realisation in the early hours of 2022 or alternatively start a journey towards being more of the person I want to be.

Passionate, sacrificial, a more attentive mom and refusing to live life through others’ perspectives splashed across social media.

2022. New year, same me? In many ways, yes, but in some ways I’m ready for a revolution.

Happy new year!

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