AND FINALLY
Resolve to make best of life we have
HERE we go again, with New Year resolutions. But this year I’m feeling a real difference and the joking has to stop.
The last two or three years have been very emotionally trying and although Covid is still at the forefront of our minds, it’s not what I’m talking about.
Least of all my worries have been the physical woes: tendonitis and a spasmodically painful knee (left side) and the ongoing dodgy hip (right side), often forcing me to limp.
Many of you will know all about such aches and pains, and even the fittest people (like my son-in-law) can be afflicted with back pain. You have to cope.
Worst of all are worries about those you love. Since motherhood, those anxieties (often acute) have been the backdrop to my life. Then, watching your dear parents age and become frail is painful.
And even today (as I write this) I had some really worrying news about somebody very dear which is forcing me even more to take stock.
So what to do? Kind reader Eve suggests I take a few months off, but that’s not possible. Many people feel depleted by their lives but have to get on with things, so why should I be different?
But since alcohol is known to be a depressant (as well as bad for you) I’m now strictly limiting my intake to weekends.
And since some sort of daily exercise is crucial to mental as well as physical health I now start every day with Pilatestype stretches on my lilac mat, while soothing music plays.
Then it’s pleasant massaging in the face cream and choosing different clothes each day.
This is the regime and never in my life have I been more determined to keep it up.
If I break, I promise I will confess to you.
As I so often say, we may not be able to control fate or how the world treats us, but we can make the best of the life we have, even in the small ways I describe.
■ Bel answers readers’ questions on emotional and relationship problems each week. Write to Bel Mooney, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow G2 6DB, or email bel.mooney@dailymail.co.uk. Names are changed to protect identities. Bel reads all letters but regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.