MICKY MURRAY

BEING A BIT SELFISH MICKY MURRAY

ANOTHER NEW YEAR! I’m really not a Christmas person, so I’m very happy it’s all over, bah-humbug I know, but I just don’t get all the commotion.

I have a January birthday, 20th, which is also apparently the most depressing day of the year because it’s the day that those of us who get paid monthly should be paid, another reason I don’t like Christmas, why pay us eight or nine days early and make us wait an eternity for the end of January?

My New Year resolutions are going to be all centred on me, because last year they were all centred on others. It sounds selfish, I know, but I spent last year working through three elections, house hunting, then mortgage shopping, and I think I deserve a little bit of selfishness in my life. This is something I’ve always been bad at, I always take on too much and end up stressing myself out, so sometimes selfishness is good and positive and required!

I decided I need to be healthier, queue the eye rolls. I bought myself a blender about two years ago (and I think we used it twice before it ended up in a cupboard in the kitchen), and I’ve found some smoothie recipes online and frozen fruit in Iceland, who knew they sold presliced frozen fruit? I didn’t. Finally, I got the blender back out and I’ve started making a fruit smoothie, with almond milk, most mornings for my commute to work, it takes just a few minutes to make and sets me up for the day!

My favorite is banana and raspberry: 1 Banana, 125g Raspberries, 150mg Almond milk. Blend, and on your way! You can also throw in some Greek yogurt if you like too.

Part of being better to me is about getting active. I’ve signed-up to run a leg of the Belfast Marathon, in May, to raise funds for The Rainbow Project. Now, I work in an office and usually the only exercise I get is canvassing during elections, thankfully there’s been a few, but I was reassured by my boss, who done it last year and is doing it again this year, that anyone can do it. If you want to get signed up just give Jayne an email and I’m sure she’ll sort you out – she loves people who want to give them money, her email address is jayne@ rainbow-project.org.

Another change I’ve made is limiting my use of social media. You see a notification about something interesting and three hours later you’re watching videos of Sophia’s best bits from Golden Girls and giggling away. It’s actually been really refreshing and I’ve spent more time catching up with friends who’ve moved away and I haven’t seen in a while, I didn’t realise how much time social media took up, until I actively tried to avoid it, and using the time to connect with people who I haven’t seen or who I should really contact more has been doing me the world of good!

One of the most stressful thing that I’ve went through recently was buying a house, it’s such a long and stressful process, a process I never want to go through again, so I’ll just have to hope that I’ve made the right decision. I had all these ideas of renting out a room, or linking in with Erasmus to help host volunteers from around Europe, which was until Boris Johnston’s Government voted to withdraw the UK from the Erasmus programme. So I’ve decided to make myself a cinema room, complete with sound proofing using old election posters, which was an idea I, bizarrely, came across on Pintrest, and I had my old election posters sitting in a corner. Wash them down, turn them over, and use double sided sticky things (I’ve no idea what they are) to fix them to the wall, ta da! Sound proofing for my new cinema room!

I still have a lot to figure out, I want to finally have a house warming party, and I want to do some more traveling, I went to Brazil for a couple of weeks last summer and so I want to go somewhere equally amazing this year, which might be hard to find, so if anyone has any recommendations, please hit me up.

I’m pretty content that I’ve made resolutions that, I hope, will give me more self-fulfilment and challenge me throughout the year to take make time for myself, only time will tell.

Selfishness isn’t always a bad thing, we need to make sure we take care of ourselves, everyone is reminding our politicians about the importance of mental health provisions and we often forget to remind ourselves to take care of our own mental health.

Have a wonderful year, be kind to yourselves!

SIGALA BRUCE FIELDER