Less than a week before the beginning of 2016 I dropped my smartphone, resulting in a cracked screen. I hated myself for it, and then and there my New Year’s Resolution was born: lose the self-blame.
At the end of October (this year) a friend called, and before we started chatting I told her to hang on for a minute because I needed to settle myself. The cordless phone that used to be connected to our landline broke down not long before, therefore I had to get the analogue device situated in a way that I could be on the sofa and talk at the same time.
‘Did you drop it,’ she asked me.
Good thing I didn’t. Now that would have been a source for an abundance of self-blame. In this case, the phone died all on its own, thankfully.
I still have difficulties with being ill. Not that I blame myself for getting ill (I am passed that stage, hallelujah), but for staying ill. If your deductive reasoning tells you that my New Year’s Resolution is still a work in progress, you are right. If I wake and I feel crappy, the first thing on my mind is about having been too busy the day before. Did I overdo things? And when – on other days – my legs hurt in bed at night, I blame myself for not being more active. On and on it goes. Worries and doubts like these are probably enough to drive anyone crazy? People are not made to be ill, let me tell you that.
Exactly ten days after I spoke to my friend on the phone, I dropped the already cracked smartphone in the toilet. I didn’t even feel that stupid, knowing this happened to that same friend. It took me four days to figure out what would be a suitable, new smartphone for me. But in the process of ordering it online I got stuck. How was I going to pay for my new device if I no longer had a phone to receive my transaction authentication code?
I rolled my eyes for my own stupidity. Indeed: that was self-blame. But it didn’t bother me. I decided not to blame myself for that self-blame.
Even though I might have difficulties with my health not recovering, I now know my self-blame is getting smaller and smaller. I don’t think I did that bad this last year, do you?
Wishing you all the best for the New Year. Love, Fleur
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This post is also available in: Dutch