New Year, Old Me (possibly)
There’s something special about January. The second hand shifts from one side of the clock to the other, our phone calendars flip to the next month and a new year, and it feels like we’re given a clean slate. Resolutions are made as we envision the kind of person we will be in the new year. Personal health goals like exercising regularly, cutting out sodas and/or alcohol, or, for the truly determined, not lying to the dentist when she asks if you floss regularly. Or maybe the goals are home-oriented, like decluttering one space each week, finally sticking with that cleaning schedule, or the ambitious, folding and putting away laundry when it’s still warm and fresh out of the dryer. There are also reading goals for books and/or the Bible, and goals orientated twoard creativity, like writing goals (ahem, me, back from my two-year hiatus). Or maybe the goal looks more nebulous but no less ambitious with a simple, get-it-together encompassing one or many of those listed above.
I’ve been on all sides of resolutions in the past, seeming to change my stance on them every year. There have been times when I welcome the new year with gusto, ready to tackle my goals. And I will proudly say that many times, I’ve been successful in making lasting and meaningful changes—like my resolution over a decade ago when I learned how to cook meals for my family (which, to be fair, I still hate but at least now can do). In other years, I have limped across the calendar threshold with relief, simply content that I made it. And goals schmoals, who needs the extra pressure? (2020/21 anyone?) This year, I find myself sitting somewhere in the middle. I don’t think I want a new year and a new me, but I’d like to find the old one or at least reengage some pieces of myself that I miss. Hence, this post with a dash of hope that it’s not the only one this year.
It’s odd (read: surprising and frustrating) how quickly the last two years have gone without me writing. It was something I kept telling myself I would get to next week, and apparently, 104 of them have gone by since I managed it. 104 weeks, during which our oldest son became a tween and a fifth grader while our youngest son turned five and started kindergarten. Our Wonder Woman was in and out of the hospital multiple times and also became a thriving first grader who is seven. Our middle son is in 3rd grade and is rapidly approaching double digits, and our baby is now a two-year-old walking, talking little princess.
In that time, I’ve had to rediscover myself. We were deep in the baby/toddler/preschool years for so long that my identity was primarily the mom of young children, an identity that felt comfortable, if tiring and difficult. At least it made for easy and entertaining writing (Flash’s birth story, for example, which is still one of my favorites.) But things have changed, and I find myself now as a part-time working mom, a mom with a ministry, a mom of older children— let me tell you, trading insolent toddlers for insolent tweens was a shock. All of that while still being a special needs mom, a mom of a preschooler/kindergartener, and once more the mom of a baby and now toddler who, as her uncle lovingly puts it, is demanding.
In all of this adjusting, I couldn’t figure out what to write or say about what life was like. At times, it has felt like God is teaching me to juggle while adding flaming swords to the mix. There wasn’t time to write about it; all of my focus was on the all-important rotation of one thing to the next. I knew that God was/is teaching me something, that this new level of chaos won’t come without growth, but I’m still waiting on some of that hindsight clarity to truly understand what those lessons are. Graciously, in the way that God always does, he has stayed with me every step of the way, not lessening my calling but getting me through it and helping me find balance. Balance to add back in things like exercise, reading, and now— maybe, hopefully, possibly?— writing.
Do you like the uncertainty there? I don’t, but I’ve learned to live with it. To hold plans loosely, to be flexible, to give myself grace, and to acknowledge that while I may be capable of juggling a lot, some days I’m not. Some days, even longer, some seasons, I need to set something down, allow my focus to narrow, and then pick it back up when the timing is right.
So I hope the timing is right. I hope that this is another piece of myself that I can pick up again, to write and blog about life, but I’m still figuring out what that looks like. 2024 and its clean slate will hopefully be full of writing 12 months from now, and if not, there’s always next year.
