Mackenzie Carose

I Can and I Did: End of the Year Recap

By Mackenzie 3 Comments

2020 seemed to take ages to get through and 2021 seems like a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it year, and yet here we are. I am not a “resolutions” type of person because most often they don’t work and then you just end up feeling bad towards the end of January that you have zero self-control and who has time for that?

No, I like to choose a word or phrase to help me through the next twelve months and any decisions I make towards my well-being are reflected in that phrase. For 2021, I chose the phrase I Can.

Lest you think I conquered the world and was super productive and just kicked the crap out of my to-do list, I appreciate your belief in my abilities but that is not what happened. I didn’t set out to take the world by storm, but I did set out to believe in myself and stop believing the lies that my self-esteem, when battered, would tell me.

I believed I could, so I did.

What I said in January: “I can do hard things. I can do it. Self-limiting beliefs have not helped me so far, nor will they ever. No one limits me. I’ve limited myself. And I am done with that. No more ‘I can’t’, only I can”.

I choose myself. I admire people who have buckets of self-esteem and although I may never overflow with affirmations of how awesome a person I am, I believe in myself now and know that I am truly capable of doing amazing things. I took back control of my life from the periphery where it was currently existing.

Big and small, these changes added up:

(*) I worked on my anxiety

(*) I worked on my mental health

(*) I worked on my physical health

One significant thing that has helped in keeping with my healthy habits is that I no longer drink alcohol. I no longer drink and that has been beneficial to me both mentally and physically.

I also really and truly got back into blogging which has been great for connecting with different people across the board. Something I have felt as I have gotten older is that I need connection. I am a huge introvert and enjoy being at home most of all, but I am finding that I feel adrift in a raft in the middle of the ocean if I am not connecting even if it is just online (thanks post-2020 living). I missed aligning with fellow bloggers and it felt important to me to get back on track with that.

I believe that the past almost two years of pandemic living have shown us what is and isn’t working in our lives. Maybe wounds that we thought were healed were ripped right open. Maybe the way we have been living hasn’t aligned with our values. Maybe we were feeling unfulfilled. Maybe we were just tired of being tired.

I understand all of it. Sometimes we just have to start over. This I firmly believe. Instead of feeling stuck and feeling like I couldn’t make changes, I said “I can” and I did. “Giving up and starting over doesn’t mean you are less of a person because you didn’t get it right the first time. Sometimes the ‘try again and again’ part happens over and over.”

I decided this year to take a creativity course to really give me the proverbial kick in the pants to give this whole writing thing a shot. I enjoy stringing words together and expressing myself and encouraging others. Instead of lamenting that everyone else is better and who am I to think that I could do this, or do I really have the time while raising children, I just jumped in and signed up. I said I can, and I did. I responded back and said YES.

Change is hard but necessary. Changing your mindset is hard but necessary.

There have certainly been ups and downs this year. I have had to deal with my father’s declining physical heath which has been difficult mentally. Parenting during this past pandemic year has not been for the faint-hearted. Trying to keep all the proverbial balls in the air when it feels at times that you are hanging on by a thread, has indeed been difficult. I have cried so much this year. But I also have found an inner resilience that has kept me going when nothing else has. Me. I have depended on me. Who can do hard things? Me. Who gets the floor knocked out from under her but gets back up? Me. How? Why? Because I can.

I am not the same person I was even a year ago. I still have bad days but I rise stronger from them.

What I wrote exactly twelve months ago: “That in the end I am going to be okay. It means that I am taking back control of my life and that ‘survival mode’ is not a way to live. I am changing and maybe 2020 was a catalyst for that change, who knows. But I know that I can’t stay the same and that is a GOOD thing”.

Indeed it is.

Anywhere But Here

By Mackenzie 2 Comments

The term wanderlust is defined as the desire to wander or travel with the core word wander meaning to move about aimlessly or to travel over. I have never had the desire to travel aimlessly or even travel extensively with an aim and a purpose in mind, but I have wanted to leave and go anywhere but here.

I am a California girl, born and raised. Lest you think my feelings regarding my home state veer towards the negative, I assure you that is not the case. Many people call the “Golden State” their home for a reason and there are many pros to calling this state home.

However…

Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to live somewhere else. At my truest core, I am a fall and winter person. I love cold weather and always thrive amongst lower temperatures. When it does actually deign to rain here in Southern California, I am at my most happiest. When the Fahrenheit scale starts climbing above 85 degrees every day from July through the beginning of October, I am here physically but, in my mind, I am elsewhere dreaming of cable knit cardigans.

I never thought when I was younger that at this point in my life, I would still be in California. I thought I would definitely have some snow packed winters under my belt by now. Flannel sheets? Check. Wood for my fireplace? Check. Snow boots, snow tires, snow shovel and a carrot for the nose of the snowman we are making in the front yard? Check. Check all the winter boxes please and thank you.

Why am I still here under the glaring sunlight of California’s rays you ask? Why haven’t I fulfilled my dream of drinking hot chocolate whilst actually roasting chestnuts on an open fire? (I’ve always wanted to do that by the way).

Because life inevitably happens. I have a family and my husband has a great job that he enjoys. While he is on board with my dream of truly having a white Christmas one day, right now I have to vicariously live through other people and their magical winter wonderlands (thanks Instagram!) When the song says “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas…”, I really am!

Until I can make my cold weather loving dream a reality, I will don my sunglasses and put on my sunscreen to go take my kids to see Santa. Right now, an iced Frappuccino sounds better than a caffe americano. The weather at this time of year can vary but most days the short-sleeved shirt wins over a long-sleeved shirt. It is what it is.

But someday! Someday the change in temperature will usher in Autumn and I will be there for it. Someday the crunching of leaves underfoot will make me smile. Someday the first snowfall of the season will be celebrated. Someday I will wake up to a winter wonderland.

Someday. Someday. Someday.

Here, There, and Everywhere

By Mackenzie 1 Comment

I have felt my age lately.

Not in a “my back hurts all the time now” or a constant referral to people in their twenties as “kids” kind of aging, but a feeling of my age being more than a number.

My age feels now more like a ticking time clock and I am trying to grapple with that feeling.

I am in my 40’s and being in your 40’s is kind of like standing in the middle of a bridge. There is the part of the bridge that I have already crossed to get to this middle part and now there is also the rest of the bridge that I must cross, a bit at a time, to get to the other side. And that is okay, right?

But part of being on this bridge smack dab in the middle, is this feeling of time slipping away. The first half of your life is in the rear view and the second half is now beginning. With that pronouncement comes the feeling that I am missing out on something. That those regrets from the first half of my life need to be rectified in the second half. All those things I wanted to accomplish “someday”, well I gotta do them now because time is ephemeral and I need to get going and I don’t want to look back on the second half of my life in my later years and be disappointed and bitter and okay, what do I do now?

And so on and so on. Rinse and repeat. My brain repeating all of this, different words sometimes, like a hamster wheel running without a hamster.

While I know our brains tend to ruminate without much pushing from us subconsciously, I still can’t shake this feeling that I am supposed to be doing something. What that is, I don’t know. Do I need to make changes in my life? Do I keep things as they are? Is this wreaking havoc with my anxiety? Yes. Yes it is.

I put these words down here because I want to share how I am feeling and I know I am not the only person to feel this way. The term “mid-life crisis” wasn’t coined out of nowhere. While I am not in mid-life crisis mode nor am I wanting to relive my youth (no thanks!), I am feeling this push to do something, even if I don’t quite know what that is yet. This feeling will not dissipate so I am going to just sit with it. Not ignore it but listen to it.

My subconscious is trying to tell me something and I need to pay attention.

Read books, listen to podcasts, write things down. Something will bubble up and come to the surface and I want to be ready.

As I walk across this bridge onto the second half of my life I want to be intentional and embrace it all.