Project Reconnect 2012

I decided NOT to do a list of New Year resolutions for 2012. Instead I have created project for myself…Project Reconnect 2012. I decided that this year I would try my hardest to reconnect with others. Over the past year between my depression and beginning my own business I have lost touch…lost touch with friends and family. But most importantly I’ve lost touch with myself.

This year will be about reconnecting with old friends. Trying to mend fences that were broke down from my lack of attention. Friendships only work when there are two people to work on them…and I have been lacking in my attention. I am not close to my family and over the years my friendships have helped to fill that void for me. But battling depression has made this difficult. It is like I have been a bear in hibernation…instead of me just crawling away to sleep though a season, I have been away for almost a year. I have hidden out and when I do have energy I have given all of that energy to my new business.

But I need more than just a business to make me feel whole. I need confidants. I need people that trust me and that I can trust. I need girlfriends that I can get silly and drunk with. I need friends that accept me as who I am and love me. But I need to reconnect and put more effort into it if I expect to be able to get any of these things back into my life. 

(I have also been lucky to have a few girlfriends that have stuck with me along the way...the deep dark way that is depression. And I am thankful for them. More than words can even begin to express...without their love, support and friendship I could not have made it through the past year. To you gals I love you more than you could ever know. Thank you for being there for me to cry on your shoulders and thank you for helping to pick me up when I fall.)

I also need to reconnect with myself. I need to take more of an active role in living my life. I need to work on me. I will do better at putting myself together more. Taking more pride in my appearance…I truly believe that looking good will help me to feel good about myself. Over the past few weeks I have worked on cleaning out my closet and getting rid of my grubby, slouchy, lounge around clothes. I found myself wearing them day in and day out…and because I was wearing them it was so much easier to just stay at home and lounge around. I didn’t want to go out looking like I rolled out of bed, so it was just another excuse to just stay home and hibernate.

I need to cook more meals at home. Not because I am setting a goal of loosing weight, but because I LOVE to cook at home. It’s something that makes me so very happy. I love creating new dishes to share with friends and neighbors. I love creating delicious sweets that I can bring to work. It is a way to get me back to being me. But I also think that cooking more meals at home will also be a great way to get some much-needed family time. Time for my husband, son and I to sit down together, break bread and talk. Talk and decompress from the day’s stresses. And we can reconnect.

I also will be reading more. I love to read. I love to learn. And I have missed it. I love getting lost in a novel…connecting with characters, letting my imagination get away from me. It is something that I long to do again and I will. But as I said I also love to learn and I will be reading books on things that I want to learn how to do or how to do better.

And I also will take more time to blog and reconnect with my blogging friends. Because I have learned that blog friends are real. Some of the only people that I have managed to not loose over the last year were some amazing blog friends. My girls Laura and Branson have been wonderful about checking in on me and keeping up on what’s going on. And I truly appreciate them for that. But I also want to reconnect with some of the other wonderful women that I have “met” online that I let slide on by because I wasn’t present enough.

But I am back. I will be baking and posting recipes. I will be talking more about my life, my family, my job…my hopes and dreams. And sharing photos along the way. I also will be better about visiting other bloggers and commenting instead of just lurking on their blogs. Its time for me to start joining in on the conversations and stop just standing in the corner observing everyone.

But blogging for me is also a wonderful creative outlet. I LOVE writing and for me blogging is almost like keeping a journal. It’s a way for me to get out what I am feel and thinking and share it with others. It is a way for me to get back to myself…the myself that I love. The one that is happy and outgoing. The me that is fun and loving. And I miss that part of myself. So in 2012 I will be working on reconnecting both with my friends but also with myself.

So here’s to 2012!! And the start of Project Reconnect…