My last post was two years ago (almost exactly). I’ve written a few draft posts in the intervening time, but haven’t completed any of them or felt comfortable what I ended up writing. So let’s ignore the time gap and jump back into things!

Now that the COVID-19 pandemic is seemingly “over-ish”, you’re probably seeing a bunch of ‘restart plans’ out there as I have seen. They outline how we’ll all work together to get back to ‘normal’ or try to figure out how to do the things that we haven’t been able to do for the past two years.

In the early days of 2020, I was excited to finally start doing things again, especially after an excruciatingly painful previous year. My health was beginning to bounce back with my new treatments, my then-boyfriend was finally coming back for a month to visit and talk about plans for the future, I was moving back in with some of my family, and a few other positive things.

I was also looking forward to reconnecting with people that I hadn’t been able to keep in touch with while dealing with all of my physical, mental, and spiritual health problems. So you can imagine my disappointment, discouragement, and outright dismay after thing after thing started to go wrong after that.

Anyway, flash forward to now!

Since that time, I feel like I’ve been putting pretty much everything on hold; More than ever before, actually. To some degree that was required, as we all had to do our part in the pandemic response. But also, in my situation, things weren’t so great for the past two years… and I was essentially in survival mode.

It’s time to move beyond that! I’ve put in a lot of work to deal with my anxiety, depression, OCD, ADD, OMG, CPTSD, CFS, and other (seemingly unending) ongoing problems.

I don’t know why exactly, but I’ve been having this sense of– I don’t know exactly what word to use… renewal! A sense of renewal has been in the air, and I’ve been itching to act on it. Which brings me to one of the specifics of my “restart” plan!

What I mean by my “restart plan” should be fairly obvious by now, but I’d like to clarify it here as I’m using this post as a way to straighten out my thoughts and as one of the ways to document the journey for myself/others. Basically, I’m restarting my life after years of being sick (with my Crohn’s and related) and feeling disconnected from everything and everyone. I’m tired of watching things happen around me as I try to cope and survive instead of engaging and being involved. Having things happen with me or because of me, and not for the usual ‘health-related’ reasons.

So to that end, I’ve decided that my first step should be to transform my habitat to start transforming the way I live day-to-day! And I’ve decided to employ the KonMari Method of tidying to teach myself a completely new way to approach how I think about my things and my living space.

Through the process I’m hoping to reevaluate my life and figure out what priorities I truly would like to honour as I move forward. I’d also like to learn more about my past through the things I have decided to hold onto, then let go of those things with a grateful and kind mindset to make way for the present and the future.

This is the beginning of a new chapter. And I’m ALL IN.

M3