Start Here
New Year, new me.
Yeah, I’m not going to be able to accomplish that overnight. I’m a fucking mess.
I could write several blog posts, and probably will, about how I’m a mess and how I got to be in this state of being. But for today, just to start, I’ll give you the CliffsNotes version.
Basically, I’m not happy with myself or my life as it is right now. There are many days when I feel like I’m barely hanging on by a thread. My life is not what I would have designed for myself when I was on the cusp of adulthood and planning what my life would be. Hell, my life isn’t what I would design if my fairy godmother were to give me a chance to do a hard reboot on my life and wake up with the perfect life.
So I’m going to change it. The changes will be slow and probably take more than a year.
When I was thinking about what needs to change, I was able to sort them into three categories: Home, Self, and Life.
Home
I am a hoarder. I’m fairly certain that I actually could be diagnosed if I spoke to a psychologist about it. The fire department hasn’t put a warning on my address about me being a hoarder yet; they’ve been here multiple times over the last year. Probably because while the house is an absolute mess, I have been careful to maintain walkways through all rooms and to all exits. So my mom and I would be able to escape if an emergency ever happened. We’re just existing in this house. It’s a house. Not home. And I want it to be home.
The most pressing issue when it comes to being home is obviously decluttering and finding ways to prevent it from collecting again in the future. In the long term, I want my house to be cozy, inviting, relaxing. But immediately, I need to have a house that is easy to care for and wheelchair or walker accessible for my mom. I think my best plan of action for making over my home is to define what the baseline for the house as a whole and each specific room is. The baseline is the minimum of what the room needs in order to be fully functional. Then, once the ENTIRE house is at baseline, I will begin making the house into a beautiful and cozy home.
Self
My self refers to my physical and my mental selves. I’ve been struggling with my depression and anxiety more last year. My mental health has ebbed and flowed for years, but it’s been at its worst for a few years now, and this past year has been the worst. Additionally, I don’t look the way that I look. I’m overweight (300+ pounds at the time of writing this). I struggle with dressing the way that I want to, styling my hair in the way that I want it to look, and wearing the makeup that I want to. My appearance and my mental health definitely affect each other. I don’t feel good, so I don’t dress or style myself in the way I want because my inner monologue says that I’m not worthy to look pretty, then I feel worse mentally, so I don’t dress or style myself, but then I feel even worse… and on and on and on. If I don’t actively take steps to stay off that merry-go-
I have some ideas and plans for how I’m going to makeover myself. One of my biggest issues is my weight. But that’s a lot of stuff to unpack and plan for, so I’ll write about my plan for weight loss in a future post. I want to make my outside match the mental me. I need to figure out what my style is and thoughtfully move my wardrobe, makeup collection, and grooming towards that style goal. I saw a video once where Michelle of ~muchelleb was talking about how she comes up with low, medium, and high energy routines for tasks that she does regularly. I want to borrow this idea. When it comes to the beauty routines I want to do, I will come up with low, medium, and high energy routines. Medium will be my general daily routine. High will be for when I want or need to put a little extra care into my appearance. And low will be reserved for those days when I don’t have the energy or time to do my regular routine. Additionally, I know that I have a lot of makeup and beauty products that help contribute to the clutter in my bedroom and bathroom. So I’m going to do a project pan for products in 2026.
Life
Life refers to the lifestyle that I’m living. This also ties in to my mental health, but a lot of times I don’t do the things that I want to do, like travel or have local experiences, because of the emotional turmoil and stress caused by the state that my house is in. I can’t go do things because I need to be at home cleaning and decluttering. It’s not just the state of my house that causes me to miss out on experiences and hobbies. I also have some debt. I love to shop and have also had some periods where I had to use credit cards to make ends meet or pay for expensive car repairs. Earlier this year, I got a debt consolidation loan, and I was doing okay getting that paid off. Then my mom was released from the hospital, and we needed to buy medical supplies. I ended up having to put a large bulk of that on my credit cards. Then once I started that, it reopened my need to shop, and I’ve struggled with getting that back under control. It’s probably also fed by the emotional upheaval that comes with unexpectedly becoming my mom’s caretaker in a way I never expected to. I also allow myself to miss out on experiences because I’ve always struggled to find my people, that group of friends who want to do the same things that I want to do and put the same importance on spending time with me that I put on spending time with them. So I need to put more priority on doing the things that I want to do and taking steps to find my people.
As for my life, the first step is to refine my budget and get my debt truly paid off. I know that once I do that, or have a solid plan in place to make it come to fruition, then I will have the mental bandwidth available to travel, work on my old hobbies, and find new ones. My mom and I are planning a road trip to Las Vegas later this spring. Well, I’m doing the planning. My mom is just the “yeah, that sounds fun; we can do that,” type of road trip company.
I sincerely hope that all of that makes sense when you’re reading it. It made sense when I was writing it. Either way, let me know down below. Are you in a similar place, or are you just here for entertainment?
Photo Credits
Header photo by Jeffrey Eisen on Unsplash
House photo by Denny Müller on Unsplash
Self photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash
Life photo by Diane Helentjaris on Unsplash
