You and one.

Sun.11.Jan.26.

Hello, hello, here we are, plenty people hoping that another new year will stuff our bag with de goodies an’ things Santa didn’t bring.

Heh! Even me, friend, secretly-secret, even though my year began the way it ended.

The Aged M. was extremely ill. I was not able to do much creative writing. I poured long thoughts, awkward and lonely and sad, into my diary. Tears burnt holes in the pages. Okay, that didn’t happen, I wrote that for dramatic effect. I try to avoid crying. Tears tend to flood from my nose to my ears, and I can’t hear for days! You get the gist though, don’t you? That I was worried and sad?

I don’t want to bore you with the details. Lemme just say that the diaryea scribbling has helped me practise the “how to be stress free” theories I store away in the cupboard in my head.

I’m not sure if I should share with you one of the most clichéd of those theories that’s helping me the best right now, this minute. You’ve probably heard it before. But then, even if you’ve heard it, read it, had it chucked at you by the virtue-wallahs, seeing it again just might lift your spirits when you need it. (No, I ain’t mean rum. From what I hear, tha’ kinda spirits can make you feel like spit ‘pon third whirl pavement.)

This theory has to do with the number one. You. And one.

You can quibble and say there are others with you, family and friends, but what I’m telling you here is for when you are alone, when you put your head on the pillow at night, after everyone has gone to deal with their life because they can’t hold your hands 24-7. This is for when you’re heavy with sorrow, worries or anxiety, and there’s only you, one. Not even the four walls can hug you.

Hear me out friend, then you can park this, dump it, and dump me too. Or you can try to understand what I’m saying so it helps you now or later.

As lonely as one feels, it is also good.

If you’re washing the boring dishes by hand, you scrub one at a time. If you’re loading a dishwasher, you do only that, and not stir porridge at the same time (unless you have the stove near the dishwasher and you can lean down to the dishwasher and stretch your other arm up to the pot on the stove at the same time).

To get clothes clean, you have to finish one laundry chore at a time. Doesn’t matter how you argue that you can multitask, you can only pick up the laundry basket, you can only load the machine, one task by one task.

One thing at a time, Ma, that’s what I say when my mother is tripsing to the bathroom and fretting about the whereabouts of towel, toothbrush, about needing to do one or two. I say, “Stop stressing, do one thing at a time.”

And off she trundles to the loo, quoting:

“One thing at a time

And that done well

Is a very good rule

As many can tell.”

This makes me giggle.

When the giggle wears off and a worry, or an annoyance, sneaks in, I say to me, “Awright, stop de crap. Tomorrow isn’t now. You can’t deal with two-minutes later. Now is the only time you’re living.”

Live one day at a time, and live it well. If you do, as lonely as one feels at times, it’s possible to feel whole. Complete.

This theory seems as though you don’t plan or make goals, right?

Actually, you do plan, you do write down goals. Take a day and write your goals, then write the list of tasks to achieve those goals. Then, every day, you work on the tasks to reach those goals. One task at a time.

When you add one to one then to another one and more ones, you fulfill the days. One, one dutty build dam, as the people say in my lovely native land. One clump of dirt, by one clump of dirt, builds the dam…the dirt road. One handful. One bucket at a time.

Or look at it like hiking up a mountain. Going to the top is your goal. To get there, you move one step at a time.

That’s what I explained to my best friend in the whole wide world.

“I have my goals and plans sorted out. I have more to write down, I’m looking forward to getting them done. One day at a time does not mean that I don’t do anything about the goals and plans. It simply means that I know what they are, and every day I tackle a task to achieve the goal. It means that I don’t live worrying in the future. It means I stop thinking what if this happens tomorrow. What if something bad happens next week, what if this problem that I’m dealing with today never gets resolved?

“Living one day at a time means I don’t dwell on issues that may never pop up.

“It means that today is the one day I get to do whatever I must do to move towards something I dream about.”

Do I make sense, frien-oh, even though I sound like poor Dhoray mumbling, stumbling drunk along de village back street?

I do know where I want to go, I have my map, and I’m trekkin’ de trek, step by step.

Sometimes, I might forget to check my map, and I might start running around in circles. If you catch me doing that, please remind me: One.

Thank you!

See you two Sundays from now. One Sunday. Then another Sunday. One week. Then another week. One day by one day ‘til we meet here that Sunday again. Remember to take good care of you. Eat nice food. Dance up, it’s great exercise. Plenty luuuuve, neena.