Part of me always shies away from any “new year, new me” talk, as it often feels cliche, and I’ve never been one to get excited about goals or resolutions. Even so, I’ve found myself thinking through and reflecting on my 2022 and filling with a bit of curiosity for my 2023.
Honestly, if I could sum up 2022 for myself and my family, “survival” is what comes to mind. We started the year with 6 month old twins, navigating working from home and caring for our babies. We had just moved into our first home, and had to deal with all the maintenance that comes with that. We had 2 large dogs who were desperately in need of some obedience training and who needed more from us than we had to give. (They even lovingly tested all our patience by chewing through our internet wires TWICE) We had busy seasons and typical stressors that come from working full time and having a family.
There was a lot of joy. We traveled to and with family. We watched our babies transition into toddlerhood, sitting up, crawling, walking. It was full and rich and beautiful. But to be frank, mostly, there was a lot of auto-pilot, spending days thinking of, planning & making meals, answering emails, attending virtual meetings, moping floors, changing diapers, nursing, rocking, cuddling and trying to get enough sleep to do it all the next day.
I look back onto my 2022 and feel the truth of “the days are long, but the years are short.” Sitting with this feeling, I realize that this last year, there wasn’t a lot of intentionality outside of intentionally being present for my family. There wasn’t a lot of work I did on myself or the lifestyle I want to embody. I didn’t work out consistently. I was in my Bible embarrassingly little. I spent weeks without reaching out to friends. Meals got less and less healthy and more and more convenient. I ended up quitting my job in September to better manage caring for my family, so we weren’t able to save as much money as we’d hoped.
Even working through all of these truths, I surprisingly feel tons of peace. Thankfully, God is good and offered so much joy and growth even when we didn’t have the wearwithal to do a whole lot of actively growing ourselves. I wasn’t able to be intentional about most things in 2022, but, I WAS able to be intentionally present for my family. In all other ways, I just survived. But when it came to offering care and support for my family, I was able and I thrived. And that is more than enough for this season.
I feel in my bones that this year, we’ll do a bit more thriving vs surviving in more areas than just one.
We're starting 2023 with plans to be more active, plan healthier meals, read and pray more, think through our workplace options and opportunities, and intentionally cultivate the life we want to live for and with our children. Even so, as I look to 2023, if I end up having another “survival” year, I feel confident I’ll be able to offer as much grace and have as much peace as I have for 2022.
Comments