Little Hopes and Big Hopes

What are you most excited about for the future?

When first accosted (because I somehow felt both affronted and burdened) by this query, my natural negative tendencies immediately took over. Concerns about autism, expenses, inflation, and even wars entered my mind. Being an instinctive worrywart and over-thinker, I suppose I do have a natural Debbie Downer in me.

The great thing about overthinking, however, is that my thoughts tend to interpellate each other. After depressing myself with the worries of tomorrow, I perceived a glimmer. I am actually looking forward to meeting my reading goals for this year. Like I mentioned in previous monthly reading wrap-ups, my goal isn’t high at all – just 52 books in one year (about a book a week) – and yet I was about 15 books off last year. I just couldn’t bring myself to indulge since it would make me doze off (my boys on the spectrum have insane sleep issues that result in my state of sleep-deprived default). So far this year, I’ve been at least two books over my monthly goal each time. I don’t believe in jinxes, but I’ll quit going on about it for now (cuz I might jinx it! 😁). As it is, I’m currently in a reading slump I’m trying to shake myself out of.

Still related to books, the next thing I’m looking forward to is setting up my bookcases when we move (we’re in the process of building right now and should be moved into the new house by August). The entire move is something awesome to look forward to since we’ll be closer to my mom, sister, and cousins, but I’m choosing to be chill. I have this warped, silly idea that my excitement causes disasters, like it’s self-sabotage, you know? Who else?🙋‍♀️

So, anyway, after that lightbulb moment with the books fueled my thoughts to come up with more little pleasures, so I thought of September and the fresh start of a new homeschool year. I always go in believing that I will slay it this time around. This will be the school year when I’ll be on top of things and right on schedule. Har-har. It’s still about two months away, so I think I’ll enjoy my delulu-hype moment, thank you very much.

It’s not really that hard to come up with more stuff to be excited about once you’ve built momentum, and I’m currently on a roll. Like I remembered that I just ordered a couple of bags of mixed dried fruits and vegetables, which I’m really looking forward to receiving. In my excitement, I just checked the order status and the seller has yet to ship it. ☹️

I can rattle off many more small hopes and joys, but I don’t want to omit mentioning some biggies as well. For instance, my daughter is turning 18 and officially becoming an adult in September. Meanwhile, my eldest son is becoming a teenager in the same month too. Those are significant milestones, but there’s more. Later in December, my husband and I will be celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary.

I just realized that all these important events are making me sound old. Maybe I am old to all the young’uns out there, but I just can’t fathom that. I’m GenX! We were the youth… Okay, back in the ‘80s and ‘90s, which still feel like just a couple of years ago. Dang. Middle age is a trip.

I feel myself circling back to negativity, so I’ll stop here. What about you? What are you looking forward to?