what are your dreams for 2022?

happy new year! we made it to 2022. so glad you're here!

i've been behind on tasks all year so it makes sense that my new year's resolutions still aren't together. but what a perfect time! as astrologically-aligned people may know, mercury is in retrograde until february 3rd, which means it's a great time to reflect and reassess. this period often gets a bad wrap for being disruptive, but you can also look at it as slowing things down, so we can take a step back and gain some perspective.

"resolutions" isn't a great word for what i do anymore, anyway. the last two years my singular goal was to try to get more sleep. people would laugh when i told them, but i was serious. i didn't have trouble falling asleep but would awake at 3/4am and would be unable to get back to sleep, and couldn't blame it on the kids anymore. they were finally sleeping through the night and i couldn't seem to get my act together. it was dreadful. so yes, all i wanted in 2020 was some juicy shut-eye.

for anyone who remembers 2020, you may recall it was ZERO CHILL. so yeah, i continued working on getting more sleep through 2021 and have made great strides. i started a sleep log to track when i go to bed and when i wake (if you know of any sleep trackers that aren't wi-fi thingies, i'd love to know about them). i'm finally getting over 7 hours of sleep on average and i'm pleased (i'd love 8, but baby steps). most importantly, i wake up less in the middle of the night, and when i do, i can get back to sleep (thank you, skullcap!).

last year i learned about this resource called the yearcompass and wanted to share it with you all. it's a pamphlet that offers prompts for you to reflect upon your last year and to plan and dream for the upcoming one. it takes quite a bit of time but it helps process the enormity of your life and its challenges that you have come to just accept as par for the course. for instance, it asks you to pull out your calendar from last year and write down all the important events. some things will seem like they happened years ago. for instance, our kids last day of virtual school occurred in june. it was a celebratory day but we were exhausted (i had been counting down the days since february). we dined outdoors at a fancy italian restaurant i'd wanted to try for months--the kids hated it, the food wasn't good, and the meal was $300. but what a memory! HA! i still cannot wrap my head around the fact that it was 7 months ago. it feels like yeeeeears. we also bought a house, and sold one, which was fun to reflect on. we are so grateful to not be moving in 2022.

anyway, i wanted to share this tool with you. it takes some time but you're worth it! i've just finished writing about the last year and am getting ready to plan for 2022. once i complete it, i'm going to take a look at last year's yearcompass again and see how things have changed and how i've grown. should be interesting!

reminds me of that sign on the tennis court in king richard, "if you fail to plan, you plan to fail." ;)

happy new year and happy planning!

may all your dreams come true! <3