Every new year I eschew setting any resolutions. They’re a form of inevitable self-flagellation, in my opinion, and I’m long past any of that. 

Having said that, last year I read somewhere about picking a word for the new year, a theme, if you will. I decided this sounded much more benign. My word was ‘slow’.

Not very inspiring, no, but after seven years that encompassed: a wedding, a turmoil, backpacking, two children, a pandemic, and working solidly through it all, I felt it was an approach to life that I badly needed to embrace. Especially as my youngest child was only 9 months at the time and I’d taken barely any maternity leave with either of the two. (Look at me trying to justify my slacking off). 

In many ways, these past years, though never dull (and it’s a high priority of mine to never live a dull life), had really pushed me to the brink of what I can tolerate. [As a legacy of the pandemic, these days, I can barely force myself to even send an email with a child in the room]. There were a lot of tears, anxiety, therapy even, and actual physical and emotional pain (childbirth is a delight, isn’t it?), amongst much joy, love, laughter and adventure. 

But I needed everything to just slow the f*ck down, quite frankly.

And while my life hasn’t exactly been slow, I do have two kids and a career and am a bit of a hedonist at heart, it has been slower. I worked much less, barely any evenings, none of the summer, and much fewer days over all, and I stayed in more.

Not to sound too ‘woe is me’ but it’s not always been easy, this taking things slower malarkey. I’m the sort of person who thrives on having too much on their plate and doesn’t know what to do with herself when she doesn’t. I make far, far too many plans. My head is always whirling with ALL THE THINGS I WANT TO DO RIGHT NOW! But it’s not good for you, especially when you have two small children barking demands at you from the moment they wake to the moment they go to sleep. Hours and hours with children can by and you feel like you haven’t achieved a single bloody thing; no washing up done, no emails sent, no words written, or at least nothing done properly. Yet, somehow, you’ve literally not stopped doing shit and you’re bordering on drained. Then one is ill or teething and you’re woken every other hour to screams or cries and, overtaken by the terror that one will wake the other up, you find yourself leaping out your bed like Linford Christie. And then you wonder why at 8pm you’re an emotional wreck and having an argument with your husband about the most mundane of things. This has taken some getting used to and, I must admit, with the two of them, it defeated me more than just a bit in 2023.

So, since being mindful of the need to take things slower, how do I feel? Well, it’s taken all of the year to arrive at this feeling, but apart from being absolutely, slightly demoralizingly skint, I am happier, calmer and feel better able to manage the juggle that is life with two children, a career, husband, friends, family and a social life, etc, not to mention, the mental anxiety of living in a country that is seemingly self-destructing. It’s all ok. I’ve had a ‘rest’ now, I’ve filled up my cup, my shoulders are broadened. I’m ready to ramp it up a notch, but not too much, I want to hold on to some of this feeling for at least some of 2024, please. 

On that note, I wish you and yours a good and tolerable festive season and a wonderful New Year full of whatever your heart desires! 

[Side note: the Spanish in the title is a nod to my Spanish learning that I dutiful kept up over the previous six years, returning to a mere few months after both babies but which I completely gave up this year. But I will return to it in 2024 and maybe by the next decade I’ll finally be fluent 😂🤦‍♀️]