bingo

2025 was dense.

That is the word I keep coming back to to describe it. I felt like I had little room to breathe, to get bored. Ample space and boredom are key ingredients to my creativity, especially when it comes to writing. Yet, this past year, it’s felt as though any downtime is crashed-out time. As in, all I have energy for is watching a movie or falling into an easy fiction read. There’s nothing wrong with that! It’s simply not as fulfilling as this, this act I’m doing right now.

Work, family, friends, community, and personal work all added to the density. In a recent therapy session, I lamented how I felt like I couldn’t let any of the balls in the air drop or else everything would crumble around me. My therapist asked what would happen if they did crumble? What if I gave myself permission to not try as hard, even if for a short while?

I changed the question to “what if I gave myself permission to try differently, even if for a short while?” I don’t think it was about trying too hard, pushing too hard. All of the buckets in my life were truly requiring 100% out of me. They still are. I can’t change that. What I can change, or experiment with, is my approach.

I’d like to think I’m pretty darn good at self-care and resting. I exercise nearly every day, eat mostly home-cooked meals (except my near-weekly trip to Bibibop, which has become my comfort food), sleep a full 7-8 hours every night, journal every morning, go to therapy, spend every Sunday morning in my pjs sipping on coffee and reading, play a sport, go on friend dates, play board games… in short, my life is rich and fulfilling. The fun and joy I find in everything listed above generally offsets the stress I feel about my responsibilities. Mostly.

What happened was I got caught in the “I have it all figured out” trap. I was doing all things right! Look at me! I’m taking care of myself! Look!

I forgot the basic truth that everything changes. I will never have self-care figured out because I am constantly changing, my circumstances shift, and the responsibilities around me morph.

How might I find new ways to approach self care?

Over new years in a cute lil cabin with dear friends, I tackled this question. They make a bingo card each year of experiences or goals they want to have. I have always loved this concept, and was honored to have been invited to join them in making my own.

I brought my own new years tradition with me, too. Every new year, I do a values exercise. Using a values deck, I sort through and whittle 50-some values down to 5, the values I want to carry through most into the next year. They shift year over year, but the two that always seem to float to the top is Compassion and Learning. My 5 values helped me brainstorm what experiences I wanted to have, easily filling in the bingo squares.

And then, once I was home (and feel crummy with a cold, ugh), another friend sent me a fun Dungeons and Dragons-inspired chore chart. We’re both on a journey to learn how to play DND, me for the story-telling aspect, her for the theatrical drama of it. Also wizards and potions and swords and dragons and stuff. Duh.

Anyway, I took the chart template and turned it into a tool for what I most needed: help deciding how to spend my precious free time.

The bingo card and dragon-slaying activity chart is my way of doing self-care, but differently. Not doing less, not letting balls drop, but making sure I can keep the balls in the air while also breathing. Finding space. Getting bored enough to write.

Make yourself a bingo card!

Edit this dragon-slaying chart to what you need it to be!

Cheers to approaching things you do every day just a little differently.

Perspective is everything.

Also, I’ll be dreaming of this rocking chair and fireplace at the cabin for the entire winter.