January represents many things to me, only one of which is a restart button of sorts. But during the cold winter months, I have real trouble restarting. So why choose January as a time to restart anything?

I’m asking myself that these days as I surface from a cold. The virus didn’t effect me too badly—just some congestion and sneezing and a whole lot of nose blowing—but I allowed myself the time to sit and do nothing because I could: no one else had to be anywhere, and I didn’t have to be at work since we were still on vacation. The last time I did nothing was when I had Covid (which, believe me, was much worse) and the time before that? When I had my ovary removed.

It’s taken me a long time, but I truly do understand now the power of slowing down and resting. I’m glad I realized that lesson before it was to late . . .

Back to restarting, though. What would I “restart” if I decided to do that in this new year? First, I’d have to define what “restart” even means to me. Because most of the time, if I start something, I finish it. So here, in these cases, I might be saying “pay more attention to” than restart. And these little things would be: my eating habits (I’ve slipped there), my exercise habits (I need to get another day of good walking into my schedule), and my cleaning habits (the house, not me; I’m always pretty clean). Those are all things that need a little attention in my life, and three is a good number because I have one BIG item that really needs attention:

I must stop picking at the skin on my neck.

Once again, the place of attack has changed: I’ve moved from the left side of my neck almost directly to the posterior middle. Why the change? I have no idea. Why can’t I stop? Again, I have no idea. But I think 2023 is the year to stop that nasty habit in its tracks. And honestly, that will be a “restart” for me because I’ve stopped and started this bad habit over and over and over again throughout the years.

I’m looking at the weather information as I write this, and the temperature seems to be hovering around 50 degrees. I guess that’s not too cold to restart anything, is it?

Wish me luck.

Image of dandelion seed by Anke Sundermeier from Pixabay.com.