I completely repurposed KATE in 2023

I'm repurposing my entire LIFE in 2024 (come watch!)

What’s going on here?

Hi, I’m Kati and the first five decades of my life have been erratic, unmanaged, and completely out of my control. In 2022, I turned FIFTY and realized that I had lived a whole life without personal boundaries, accountability, goals, achievements, self-worth, or self-identity. I realized that something wasn’t right about my health and I didn’t care. I had increasing debt and diminishing opportunities for significant income or meaningful employment beyond being a clerk at Dollar General or mowing lawns and poisoning invasive trees for local ranchers. My daily routine had reduced to waking up at 11 am to watch Family Feud and opening my first beer at noon. My marriage had devolved into just trying to avoid conflict and confrontation. I’m not even going to get started on the quality of our housing situation, but it was poor.

I would like to say that all of these revelations about the pathetic state of my existence struck me like a bolt of lightning that jumpstarted me to turn it all around.

That did not happen.

Instead, the awareness clung to me like a lukewarm, wet blanket, and reminded me that as bad as it looked on paper… My life had never been “better” or more “successful.” The year came to a close with that complacent resignation, and 2023 opened without motivation, resolution, or intention.

Depressed, Yet? We’re Just Getting Started…

On January 3, 2023, I got out of bed for work and almost fell to the floor. My husband and I had a drunken fight the night before, and my knee would not tolerate any weight or motion. I swallowed the extreme pain to avoid waking my husband while I looked for my phone to let my boss know that I needed to go to the ER.

The phone, when I found it, was completely shattered and useless. I struggled into shoes and a coat over the clothes I had slept in and drove to work to explain to my boss that needed medical attention and I didn’t have a way to notify him without my phone. Without hesitation, he drove me to the hospital, bought me an emergency pre-paid phone at the Dollar Store, and told me to call him when I needed a ride.

The ER released me with a referral to an orthopedic surgeon, a brace to immobilize my injured knee, and instructions to not work until released by the surgeon… a minimum of one month staying off that injury.

All the Comforts of Home: Indifference, Guilt, Blame, Gaslighting, and Adopting the Narrative

I drove myself home roughly six hours after I had slipped out that morning. I could see my husband sitting in his recliner with the front door open so he could watch for my arrival from about a quarter mile down the road. I parked in the driveway, struggled into my leg brace, hobbled to the porch, and struggled up the steps as he watched.

That’s when my lifelong, codependent, people-pleasing, conflict-avoiding trauma response kicked in, and told him that I didn’t remember anything that happened the night before, so there was no point even talking about it (even though I did remember… I just didn’t want to address it).

That’s when he explained that he had been able to see the location of my busted phone the entire time I was at the hospital and that the reason the door was open was not so that he could see me arrive from the hospital, but so that he would know when the sheriff arrived to wrongly arrest him for domestic violence. That’s when I told him that I thought I fell off the porch and hurt myself, so that’s what I told the ER, even though I knew that he had been reasonable to expect the sheriff.

Realizing that my “blackout” was his Get Out Of Jail Free card, he “confirmed” that I did injure myself in a fall and he had helped me to bed (he did not help me). Then he “confessed” that he would have gone to the ER to comfort me, but he was afraid that I was lying to them and accusing him of tackling me and causing the injury… which, if I told them that, would have been the truth.

When “Better Than Ever” Becomes “Unacceptable” Change Becomes Necessary

Photo by Austin Chan on Unsplash

The remainder of the day was spent in uncomfortable silence. The next morning, he offered to stay home from work to take care of me, but I insisted I would be fine. Then he went to work for 14 days, almost 300 miles away. I sat in solitude, mostly immobilized, for the first two weeks of 2023, and I made three lists:

1. All the ways my life was better in 2022 than any time prior;

2. All of the ways my life was unacceptable in 2022;

3. Everything on List 2 that was within my power to change;

As you can probably imagine, the lists were nearly identical and included everything in the first paragraph you just read. I decided that if I intentionally and consistently paid attention to my mental, emotional, medical, and physical health along with bad habits of nicotine, alcohol, diet, and being sedentary, AND maintained a sense of meaning and purpose (through work and personal relationships) I would become completely transformed by the end of 2023.

Level 2024: Unlocked

I can honestly say that with only three days remaining in 2023, I may not be unrecognizable from 12 months ago, but I have been significantly transformed and am up for the task of eliminating from my life everything I found unacceptable about my life one year ago.

What’s Next?

On New Year’s Day, I’ll be recreating my three lists for 2023, adding a fourth list for all of the achievements of 2023 and the related positive side effects of those achievements. I’ll probably also list the resources I’ve acquired in the past year as well as the resources I’ve sacrificed for the greater good, and what I’ve discarded to make room for more growth and blessings in 2024.

Then What?

I’ll be posting my progress, setbacks, and challenges throughout 2024 as I transform my life from “Unacceptable” to “Intentional and Inspired” in every meaningful category from Career and Finances, to Setting Healthy Boundaries, Maintaining Healthy Habits, Overcoming Codependency and Trauma Recovery, and Learning to Clean My Room and Achieving Goals for Lifelong Independence and Autonomy.

I’ll also be sharing how I reached the age of Fifty with nothing to show for half a century of life experiences. And I’ll reveal the extent of the year’s worth of personal transformation I achieved in 2023.

There will be something here for anyone thinking about giving their life do-over, regardless of their current level of “success” or lack of resources. Life is too short to live in misery and regrets. If I can come as far as I have in one year, YOU can accomplish even more! Subscribe and we can do it together!

See you in 2024!

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