Everything is Figureoutable

 Hello Lovelies! 

Every year on New Year's Day I like to do a little cutting and pasting to set intentions for the upcoming year. I obsessively hoard any free magazines I can pick up throughout the year and then use them to cut out letters, words and quotations that speak to me. Spiderman used to say that I would have been excellent at kidnapping because I had enough magazines to write dozens of ransom notes.

I saw a book at work with the title EVERYTHING IS FIGUREOUTABLE and I thought "That is what I want my motto to be this year." There are several things that are just really difficult and I don't know how to do them or who to ask to get help and they involve paperwork and filling out forms (UGH) and so the motto "I may not know, but I can figure it out" has already stopped my heart racing 

I thought it might be interesting to have a look over the course of a few blog posts at what I am hoping to achieve this year. Perhaps these are things you want to do as well. Perhaps we can help one another and be accountable to each other to help us live happier, healthier, less anxious lives in 2023.

Here is my Vision Board for the year.  I will pick a few things to talk about each time in no particular order. 

1. STOP AVOIDING ADMIN

As I said I have some outstanding (in the not done sense not the terrific sense) paperwork that must be completed. It took me ages to figure out how to fill out the forms to apply for my mother's Life Insurance claim and while I filled out the papers once and sent them in, something went wrong but I can't know for sure what went wrong without another phone call which I refuse to do because the last call cost be £85. They won't tell me exactly what was left out of the envelope, they just sent a reminder of everything that should have been included leaving me to play Sherlock Holmes and deduce where the problem was.  I have an idea what went wrong/what should have been sent but was not and so I am trying again. 

Admin is not my strong suit. Too many words on a page, being forced to write in ALL CAPS inside tiny prison cell boxes makes my heart race and stomach churn. Spiderman was much more calm than me when it came to filling out forms, but as he is no longer here on this earth, it falls to me to figure it out. By repeating the mantra YOU CAN DO THIS over and over I think I have figured out what to do.  But I have had the forms printed for a week and I just kept ignoring them on the table because I couldn't face filling them out again. Today is my day off and so I plan to devote several hours to reading every form aloud just to be sure I haven't forgotten anything.

Also, when I was trying to figure out how to deal with my mother's Life Insurance I discovered to my horror that I was meant to be filing US income tax for the last NINETEEN YEARS. I don't think I have to pay anything as I make below the threshold but I should have been filing. However, the IRS must know that lots of Expats don't know this because they have a whole page dedicated to Whoops! I didn't know, but now I do, what do I do now? But again, though I know about the website, I have been too afraid to look at what I have to do. American taxes aren't due until April 15th, so the plan is get the Life Insurance done this month and hopefully by next month I should have a cheque which can cover any potential slap-on-the-wrist late fees I may have incurred. Then by March I can look at filing my back US taxes. 

2. QUICK TIDY

   Peeps, I am drowning in clutter. I have always been a bit of a Messy Bessy, but since Spiderman shuffled off this mortal coil I find it harder to put things away. I am TIRED and often just drop things on the first available surface and collapse when I get home. However, this is what happens--it becomes like a terrifying game of The Floor Is Lava or a crazy obstacle course where I might break my neck if I fell down the stairs. This photo was taken on January 2nd and is the worst that it has ever been. Something needs to change.

One of my problems is procrastinating on things that seem insurmountable. The bigger they grow, the more I avoid dealing with them and the more I avoid dealing with them the bigger they grow. And I get looped in anxiety and I can't do anything but feel stressed about not dealing with it. (See above) I read about the "Pomodoro Method" which is basically set a timer and work your butt off until it goes ding. They suggest you buy one of those kitchen timers shaped like a tomato  that go TICK TICK TICK like a deathwatch beetle but I find that ticking like the axe swinging lower and lower in Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum so I just use my phone. I set the timer for 15 minutes, put on a Spotify playlist and work like the dickens until my friendly alarm sound calls out (my alarm is King George's song from Hamilton "Da da dat da, dat da da da da ya da") 

And you know what? It works. Even a 15 minute blitz helps to tackle clutter and if I start getting up early (I will be dealing with sleep and waking in my next post) then I can do 15 minutes in the morning and maybe 15 minutes in the evening. At night when I have been on my feet all day and am exhausted it is harder to do, but I discovered that I can do things like unload the clean dishes from the dish drain or sweep and mop the kitchen floor in the exact amount of time it takes to reheat a bowl of soup on the hob. 

3.FRAMILY

I do love a portmanteau word. Framily is made up of FRIENDS who are FAMILY. I am so blessed that I have such a good support network on this side of the pond. So many US friends were worried about me over these last few years lamenting that I had no FAMILY in the UK. But that is OK because I have FRAMILY. The Amazing Spiderman was my everything--my person that I did everything with. These days, I have different friends who do different things with me. I have friends who like the cinema or going to art classes or mooching around charity shops or going to plays or comic book conventions or museums. I used to do all of those things with Spiderman, but now I get to do them with lots of different people. Is it the same? No, not without him. But I still get to do them and it is very good. So this year I want to spend more time with my FRAMILY.

That's all for today. But in a day or two I will look at some other ways that I hope to be better in the new year. Maybe these are things you struggle with too. I hope it helps.