We have good conversations with our Solo Living community. We asked our Super Solos Living Alone Group members about their hopes, goals and plans for 2023. Here is what they say. Interestingly, there is a focus on goals and activities that will help and support their health and wellbeing in the coming year.
Jude
I don’t want much to change with my life, but I want to spend 2023 trying to be as healthy as I can physically and mentally, focusing more on experiences and less on material things. I’ve booked a holiday with a friend in April, but before the year is out, I also want to spend a week or two travelling alone for the first time.
Kim:
I have identified six focus areas for the year, which are:
- Developing existing and initiating new personal relationships with suitable people!
- Wiccan practice and study
- Fit for 50 programme
- Renewed focus on personal finance with a new home purchase and retirement both on the distant horizon
- History/meaning of art study (focused on Abstract Expressionists and mid-century to present day); personal creativity
- Having more days out and weekends away in Scotland.
Maria
My 2023 thoughts are best represented by the meme below. Change… I’ve done the groundwork now to secure the prizes…
The key initial focuses are around work, extending into a different business area, and the fact I’ve got myself a position in a better Brass Band which I have a lot of work to get myself up to scratch for; I start with them next week, and I’ve currently got covid, so I’m already behind where I planned to be.
Kirstie
I steer away from making unrealistic resolutions and putting undue pressure on myself. Instead, I’m prioritising my self-care, learning more about gardening, and pushing myself a little more to make social connections.
Ana
Happy New Year! I moved one year ago to France, and the adaptation process has been slower than expected as everything is different from the UK (job, culture, people, and don’t get me started on bureaucracy). So this year I want to continue to improve my French, put myself out there more, meet new people outside work (Meetup groups) and start taking better care of my mental and physical health.
John
It’s been really hard over the past few years trying to look after Dad, holding down a full-time job, and trying to prioritise my two teenage boys and Julie, my girlfriend. My mental health has suffered at times as a result. So, this New Year, I want to purpose time just to rest and relax.
Anni
It’s my 60th looming, and I lost some strength during the pandemic following an ankle injury. I assumed my fitness would get me through immobility for a while to avoid sarcopenia etc. I recently had a bath, which I haven’t had since the said injury, and to my horror, I struggled to get out of it, i.e. using the weight of my arms to pull myself up. I’m a healthy weight, walk a lot, am mindful of a good diet, etc., and have no long-term conditions beyond hypothyroid, so at 59, this scares me. In 2023 therefore, my focus will not just be on maintaining what I have but also on building muscle strength. If you live alone and have a fall (which I did at home in 2020, just tripping over my feet on the stairs), you have to be able to get up again. More than that, while good health and wellbeing are down to some luck, you really have to put the work in. So off to the gym I will go in 2023!
Sandy
It’s now time to look at my life and improve it! I need to get back to walking most days and lose the extra weight I put on over the last few months. I want to spend more time taking landscape photos, playing with them on my computer, and reading great books rather than watching rubbish TV!
Patricia
Nothing so analytical here. I just want to be rid of this cold, flu, lurgy thing that’s been trying to wipe me out since before Christmas.
Janet
I have to lose weight for my long-postponed emigration application for New Zealand. I’m going to need to work on it. This will require making an effort with meals.
Lynn
I am now six years into retirement and am finally settled into it. A lot of shit went down, most of it outside my control. I became an orphan after almost a decade of The Long Goodbye with both my parents. I spent most of the year after my mom’s passing, travelling and working through the grieving process.
I stupidly relocated to the beach for a romantic relationship that turned to hell and left to come back home 18 months later as a climate change refugee and one incidence of physical domestic violence; cancer and covid.
I adopted a very spirited dog; lost a lot of friends due to death and lifestyle changes; reconnected with some college friends who are still in the area but with whom I had lost touch due to parenting and careers.
I reconnected with high school friends from NJ at a class reunion and am now on the planning committee for our 50th class reunion in 2025; made a few new local acquaintances that have the potential to develop into good friendships; discovered some latent artistic skills that I continue to develop and expand, and hoping to take some clay classes this spring-summer.
The downsizing and organization of my smaller home continue, and I can really see the light at the end of the tunnel now.
I have reached a point of sustainable contentment, along with the fleeting times of sadness and happiness that is to be expected. I am safe, secure, financially stable, living independently and loving the freedom that comes with being intentionally single.
My dog has calmed down into her forever home; my health is good — it could be better if I didn’t enjoy good food and drink with good friends, but life is definitely too short now to worry about that much. LOL. I still take my dog to the dog park just about every day and swim laps/do yoga on a regular basis a couple of times a week.
I am having a blast with my new electric seated scooter and getting around without driving my car. There hasn’t been anywhere I really wanted to go since August that I did not get to. I will make a final decision on what to do about my car (transmission issues) after I return from visiting my son Andrew in Denver the first week of March. He is happy and healed from having two discs in his neck replaced in early November.
I have already bought tickets to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Nathaniel Rateliff and the Colorado Symphony performing the music of Harry Nilsson, and a Colorado Avalanche hockey game.
Will go to the new Meow Wolf art place, and I plan to go to a vintage bath house for a day of relaxing soaks and bodywork. Early spring will have me finally completing the small landscaping project I started pre-cancer/covid days and cleaning up the back patio that has been long neglected. I need to get all that done before summer arrives and find myself relaxing by the outdoor pool at the campus recreation centre.
I also have season tickets to ECU baseball, football, and student theatre. I will continue to take Lifelong Learning programs through ECU. The spring catalogue just arrived, and there are some interesting programs I will be signing up for. I taught myself how to make sushi, and this year’s culinary journey will be to learn to make tamales and maybe some baking.
May 2023 be kind to all of us.
Lesley
I’m aiming to be a bit more self-sufficient – making the most of my allotment, not relying on the shops so much unless for the utmost essential stuff.
Jodie
My goals in 2023 are to swim each morning (and to take a sunrise photo in the hope of creating a 2023 collage), find a new job, drop a dress size and get back into my garden.
Sarah
My plans involve staying well, helping my son, enjoying time with my loved ones, enjoying time to myself and staying on target with my finances.
Karen
I’ll do more of what makes me feel good and less of the other, more negative stuff. No need to list anything – I’ll simply work at ensuring I’m following my own advice. Which will, with regard to family, include me being what others may consider somewhat selfish.
Leslie
In 2023, I hope to hike more, spend more time in nature, and practice letting go of expectations.
Alysse
I want to live life to the fullest. 2022 was a tough year for me, and lately, I feel like I have just been existing and getting by rather than living and enjoying my life as much as I could have. I hope to turn things around soon and improve my health.
Thanks to everyone in our Community for their comments.
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