As January comes to a close I’ve been thinking about what I’ve learned… As the clock brought us into this new year, it was with cautious optimism that I greeted 2022. Usually, New Years Day holds big Monday vibes and anyone who knows me knows that Mondays are my favorite, but this year I only felt tired.
I learned to choose fun in the everyday moments, and while I’ve likely learned this lesson before (and will again) somehow it rang truer.
I learned how essential it is to embrace the extra effort that is creativity. To try new things, even if I’m not good at them. This played out in the form of digital drawing on Procreate, making homemade sugar cubes for tea, and painting my first small canvas. None of them were perfect, but each one breathed a sense of life into me–the very thing that dancing with creativity does.
I was reminded of all the loss we’ve had in recent months. My mother-in-law has been struggling with her health since September and so I sent my husband across the country to spend some time with her. It was here where I learned that life–or in this case, SNOW–will hit the hardest when we are alone. During this time of being snowed in, I once again reconnected with fun. I did at-home spa treatments for myself, as well as the dog and cat. (I imagine you can guess which one was less than thrilled and which one loved it.) This was also when I learned to ask for help when I need it instead of insisting on being the helper.
As I seem to every month, I learned more about my writing journey–this forever quest towards something… Align is my word of the year and already these lessons I’m learning are bringing me more into alignment.
I don’t know about you but I’m not quite feeling ’22… Not yet anyway. For the first time in my four-plus decades of life, I am cautiously wary of transitioning into a new year. That may not be one hundred percent accurate… I was also fairly hesitant during the last few moments of 1999 as well, but I digress…
When I reflect back on the idea of what I’ve learned this year, it’s hard. The year feels like a thick, gooey, peanut butter fudge all mixed together with the year before somehow. Sort of like–what is 2021 anyway? At any rate, I’ll attempt to narrow down a list of life lessons from the twelve-month journey of this complicated year. If you happen to be a part of my tight-knit little circle and know I’m dipping into the wisdom gained from the craptastic year that proceeded this one, feel free to let me know. (Although to be fair, I’m one of those people who learns the same thing again and again, because somehow I tend to forget.)
What I learned this year:
There is not an aspect of life that isn’t improved by being connected to a community of people.
While I love our cat Darcy, whom we rescued the day she was born (in 2020) I am simply not a cat person. I’m not… I may love the random cat videos, and pet the cats of dear friends, but personally I just can’t surrender to being a cat lover in general. So many “cat habits” grate my nerves. Again though, I adore Darcy so much and do have a deep affection for the feral cats we feed and shelter…
I’m a slow reader. Chw insists I used to read much faster, and maybe it’s true. Perhaps years of chronic illness and medication induced brain fog have robbed me of that ability. For a long time I felt guilty for being a slower reader than many others I know. It felt embarassing. I am no longer taking on ownership of that guilt or embarassment. I am a slow reader. I’m a savorer. Every so often I encounter a book that I can’t put down, and I read all night. While I love those rare treats, I’m also chronically fatiqued and it simply isn’t practical or condusive to my health. I am ok savoring a book.
As I’ve continued my religious deconstruction journey (heading into the seventh year… Does it ever get easier? No. Is it worth it? YES!) I’ve began to realized that I am most whole and at home within the boundaries of connection. I find God there. Whether I am connecting with my Creator through creativity, barefoot in the depth of a forest, toes deep in beach sand, eyes raised to the mountain, or gazing up at a starry sky–it is that connection that drives me. Likewise, in the connections I share with people, God dwells. Sometimes this shows up through beautiful conversations, intense laughter, shared tears, and mutual experiences. Other times this looks like stepping up to love someone else where they are at, however they need. It is in these realizations that I’ve learned I never felt even close to this sort of connection within the confines of the church. With my many moves and church experiences, there is only ONE place which came the closest and this place was where I called “home” as this deconstruction began. Of all the Church “friends” I’ve known, I also know that body of people would be the only ones supporting me where I’m at today. I spent years searching for the things that I got from that space, and always left lacking. Religion would tell you that “church shopping” is a sin, and that the lacking was less about the church and more about my wicked heart…
BUT I’ve learned that is a lie. I believe that I am a created being, created by a loving creator. Of course I connect to Them within the beautiful spaces They created. Of course I feel Them in my core as I connect with, and love other people. It is a cruel deception to argue that in favor of oppression, manipulation, and judgement.
Likewise, I’ve learned to ask questions. I’ve learned to research and probe. To wonder why I was taught something was “bad”, and what that translated word or phrase actually says. Enlightening.
I have grown in my love of tactile things. Of paper and texture–things held in my fingertips.
For years I believed I could not do artistic things, and it was true. I could not, because I did not try. I did not try because I had foundational years of people telling me I was no good so why embarass myself? No more. Today I do the creative things. I’m sketching, painting, stitching…
I lost my mother and aunt this year, along with nine other people close to me (or very close to people I love deeply) and it was hard. Harder than hard. I learned how to grieve alongside others as I navigated my own sea. I learned, once again, that there isn’t a portion of life that isn’t made richer by community. Grief is only isolating because we are conditioned to grieve alone.
Having been suicidal for a time (years ago), and knowing three people who died by suicide (also years ago) I learned a lot about suicide this year. What it really looks like to be close to it. Part of what I needed to let go of, and reeducate myself on was stuff instilled during those foundational religious years. Again: lies.
I’ve learned a group of women of various culteral backgrounds and ethnicities can share an intimate connection. Some of these women can love Jesus, some can be Athiests, and a few can be a little witchy, and that none of these differences change a thing. In fact, this love and community is stronger for not letting them divide us. This isn’t what we are taught, but even so it’s what I’ve learned.
I’ve let go of my fear of the word witch. In fact, I’ve learned that the very things women did which had them labelled as such during the puritanical era involved things conservative families embrace now. Meditation, herbs, holistic medicine, essential oils, plant based sustinance, affirmations, self nurturing… these are all things that women were once killed for. Looking to the stars and paying attention to the changes in the moon caused women to be labelled devil worshippers. It’s interesting really, because men navigating the seas and seasons by stars was acceptable, even when the ships they sailed brought over people of Color to be abused and enslaved. (This is something the church should have always been against, isn’t it?) Modern medicine states the pull of the moon can effect us in many health and mental health ways. After all, we know the moon has an incredible affect on our waters, and aren’t we mostly made up of water? If my growing education in natural ways, the effects of the moon, the practice of hollistic things, and my belief in self-care and affirmations makes me a witch, I’ll claim it.
Fun fact (that I learned) Christian Witches are a thing! Who knew?!?!
The word witch has such a negative conatation, and it’s innaccurate. Each one of those things is divinely feminine in nature… Could it be that was the problem all along?
I’ve learned I prefer tea to coffee, and that I prefer that tea with sugar cubes. Infused sugar cubes are even better.
I’m learning (because I’m not quite there yet) to love myself as I am. Having once put my body through intense hell in an effort to take weight off, I have come to believe that was a mistake. Ironically the consequences of that decision have left my health a mess. Even more fun is that due to those issues, and endocrinal issues already present, much of that lost weight has come back. It’s frustrating. I’m tired. I’m sad, but I’m learning to love and accept myself as I am.
I learned that while I am a beautiful writer, I am not a well educated one. My foundational education, while heavily focussed in Biblical teaching and obedience training, did not do much for teaching me the skills I should have learned like math and grammar. Combine that with the afore mentioned brain fog and well, I’ve seen a lot of frustrationt this year. (As has my editor.) She has been so patient with me and we have really grown from the experience. After the new year I’ll be getting to know my Publisher’s editor and start that process all over again. Truthfully? I’m terrified. In fact, if I think about it too much I feel sick. BUT, I have to keep reminding myself that we all want the same thing: for this book to be out in the world and in the hands of people.
This year my word was AND. I learned to accept results of my hard work or goals, and then reach for more. Additionally, when my nostalgia made me sad about things which have been over for a long time (especially when I may wish they weren’t) AND reminded me that I can grieve and ache for a different outcome while also remembering boundaries and the reasons why it’s best as it is.
I learned that I could rewrite the majority of my book in seven days, if asked by the publisher I had my heart set on. I had no idea I was capable of that. (Brain fog be damned!)
This year I learned that I can be a sleeper. I’ve struggled with sleep for the majority of my life, and had grown to exhaustedly believe sleep just wasn’t meant for me. I was wrong. I researched, educated myself, and by trial and error have learned how to sleep well.
I learned that while I LOVE TikTok, I do not love making them. (nor do I have to.)
I learned that I have zero patience for the the Let’s Go Brandoners, the passionately anti-vaxxers, or the people who go about life like normal while being covid positive because “no one has really died from it.” Yes they have. We know several of them. Listen, I support your right to deny the vaccine. It’s your body, your choice (100% of the time) but this illness is real. People are dying, and others have had their lives impacted in devestating ways from it. If you don’t want to get the vaccine, social distance. Wear a mask in public. Keep yourself safe. Limit interactions so you don’t get sick, or carry it to someone else. I am triple vaxxed and I social distance. I wear a mask in public. I care about your safety as much as my own. (The LGBers though? GO AWAY! You’re loud, obnoxious, self-centered, and ridiculous. That this nonsense is happening in churches and is rampant through church communities only affirms my decision to walk away.) You don’t have to love our president, but don’t be a dick.
I’m sure I’ve learned more. Already this is longer than I expected… A hard year? Yes. A sad year? Resoundingly. But also a year of solid growth and accomplishment. (or should I say AND a year of solid growth…)
Inspired by Emily P. Freeman, I’m spending a little time with her reflection questions and considering what I learned this spring. She asks the following questions:
What was your favorite photo from May?
As the season unfolded it became clear that the normal spring we craved wasn’t just going to happen. March faded into April and so many of us sat waiting for it to feel the ways in which we’ve believed spring should feel– and it never did. In the realizing this, with May came accepting that we had the power to choose a new way to approach spring-mentality. With that, here in Pennsylvania, also came a lot of rain.
Rainy days are rejuvenating, but rainy days in the month of May are special. They carry with them a sort of life-giving magic.
Name a thoughtful moment in May.
I stood outside a closed window, in the middle of some bushes and landscape rocks, peering through at my mother. She sat slumped, vacant, in a leather recliner. She could see me, I think, but mostly I believe she saw through me. Through me, beyond me, into something that I could never reach. She couldn’t understand we were there to visit her. For over a year she’d gone without the loving embrace of someone who cares about her.
When I’d visit I would try to brush her hair, and rub lotion on her cracked and aching feet. Most of the time she knew what was happening, but sometimes she did not. Que the pandemic. I’ve only seen her “in person” twice, both times with a pane of plastic or glass between us.
This time, seeing her catatonic and missing, I had to wonder what the next time will be like. Will there ever be a time when I run a brush through her long, grey hair again and she knows that I am her daughter?
i just don’t know.
What’s something you look forward to in June?
My dear, beautiful friend is coming to visit and I cannot wait! She and her precious babies will be in my house. We will laugh face to face and it will be so unfathomably glorious!
8 Things I learned this spring…
My body does not heal or grow by my mind-designed time table.
I am most at peace with God outside of a “church”. I’d been teetering there for awhile, but finally I surrender.
I need to force myself to read more.
More about where the land I live on originated. The Native American history is something we all need to intentionally learn about. I’m trying.
Different doesn’t mean bad. Sometimes new and different can be better, and sometimes it won’t. Even so, holding space for the different is almost always a good idea.
I don’t have to do all of the things.
It is important to me that when it comes to publishing my work, the publishing and representative relationships I form are sensitive regarding the topics of inclusivity, mental health, abuse and sexual assault. I will not hand my work over to a publishing house, in exchange for royalties, who may choose to publish someone who contradicts those values. This was a huge moment for me.
My body may not look like I wish it did, but she has carried amazingly difficult burdens. She has been through so much physical pain, almost since her very beginning, and it is my responsibility to love every ounce of her.
I hit the second half of February in solid migraine form. I was in bed, living in a heightened state of nausea. The following week my husband had his second dose of the Pfizer vaccine and he was down for the count for three blurred-together days. (his blur, not mine. I was clear headed, but they were unnaturally long days.) The day that he felt human again was the day I was knocked back down:
fever.
chills.
migraine fest.
fatigue.
It was like we were tag-teaming on the worst part of winter blues and seasonal illness, except that he had a reason and I really did not.
In this era of C-19, when every sniffle raises a heightened paranoia, I made the decision to label whatever mystery was bringing me down (life? fibro? stress?) as February.
Are you feeling better? What do you think it was? I am, and February. It was February.
It works, don’t you think? It works because February is possibly the worst of the months. Winter is dragging on (or unfairly pummelling Texas, if we’re lasering in on this year) and though the days are growing a bit longer, it doesn’t matter too much when it’s still cold outside.
Beyond realizing that February is my least favorite of the twelve months, I thought I’d take this end-of-the-month reflection time to share some other things I’ve learned through these past four painfully long weeks:
Our little rescue kitten Darcy is nine months old. No one told me that nine months would bring her heat cycle. It was short, but those days were intense. Mostly we both just felt so bad for her. Bless. Also, our vet can’t get her in until April… Will she cycle again? I know nothing… except that the vet will only see her 8 weeks POST cycle so fingers crossed she does not.
Because we could not go out for Mardi Gras (something we love to do, even if we are here in the north), I decided to make some Creole food at home. The dirty rice was pretty meh, but the shrimp dish I made was PHENOMENAL and the beignets were a bit like heaven. All in all, a win.
A fellow writer talked skeptical me into joining Clubhouse. I was 100% convinced it was stupid and I’d hate it. It turns out it’s timely, pretty fantastic and I love it. Since so much of my job and passion involve community and connection, it has been an incredible experience.
Meundies. Have you heard of them? I was told they were the “softest and most comfortable underwear on the planet” and, once again, I was super skeptical. I was wrong. They are heaven. Also, here’s a code to save you $20. Trust me, you WANT to save it to this.
I spent moments in February coming face to face with my pride. Really questioning why something may have hurt my feelings and realizing it was up to me to keep myself in check. Sometimes that self reflection can feel really scary and trust me, I am no expert. Growth can be painful, but these growth moments were so healing.
And now, we are practically at March. A beautiful, closer to Spring blank slate and I am here for it- tired, but ready…
One of my first ever, favorite blogs belonged to Emily P. Freeman, way back in the early days. I still read and follow her, and find such value in this voice she has developed.
For a long time now, she has sat aside space to share what life’s seasons have taught her, issuing the challenge to her readers as well, and occasionally I have. One of the things I am trying to do, this year, is be more intentionally about noticing, breathing, and using this space for such. Reflecting on the winter months of this year seams like a great place to start… Here’s what I’ve learned-
1.} I overcomplicate…
A simple conversation, with a woman whom I respect and value so much, led to the “official” coming together of a group of like-valued women, on a regular basis. While it is mastermind-esque, it is something different too. From the first moment it was clear that this was an important, nurturing and vital space.
For a very long time I’ve dreamed of being a part of something like that, but I have stayed quiet, within that dream. It seemed too big… impossible…not for me. And yet, one silly afternoon conversation became this unboxable thing. While I like to think it hadn’t happened before because life was waiting for us to come together, in that exact moment, I have to admit that I stand in my way a lot. I overcomplicate things, believing they are far bigger than they are… When we get hide inside our thoughts, we miss out…
2.} sometimes over-complication looks like…
Avoidance.
I was playing an odd “dance” with my memoir, for awhile now. I would lose myself in it, for a season, and then when I needed breath I would pull out, and avoid it.
Over and over again.
I am practicing boundaries within my work. Self care through the hard things. Sometimes this is a walk, while other times it may look like losing an afternoon to a shallow book.
3.} I might be a bar person…
My husband is from an alcoholic family, and so our only (shared) experience of people who hang out at bars, stemmed from that. If someone had told me they were a “bar person”, I would instantly picture a falling-down-drunk person, or an intoxicated-fist-fights person. To be honest, I think my imagery may have been heavily influenced by movies and tv too…
But the thing is, there is something really special about finding a spot that feels like yours. I place that is not home, where you can sit with your spouse and just breathe. Take in the live music, maybe dance a little, and enjoy the company of friends.
4.} If you look, you WILL find it…
In my line of work, I have a lot of women who confide in me that they are desperate for a community of women who see them, love them and find value in them. This is an ache I identify with. Much of my adulthood looked just like that…
We are so fortunate to live in an era where there are worldwide, online communities, connecting people with commonalities, 24/7. It is amazing really. I’ve known this, but it wasn’t until this particular season when I really had my eyes opened to the powerhouse of community that we can become a part of, through social media.
5.} Five minutes here, really helps…
I have lived a majority of my adult life procrastinating the more tedious “chores”, in life, pushing it until I had more time… These same columns of tasks would travel, from day to day, on my agenda. Whenever my eyes would land on them, I would feel equal parts shame and guilt. My negative self talk would chime in with words like lazy.
It didn’t seem to matter that there may have been 73 tasks on a particular days list, and I accomplished all but the Tedious Four, that rolled over, yet again. LAZY, I’d think. Lazy? SMH.
Then I began to realize a few minutes today, does make it easier. It sounds so simple, but I just didn’t get it. Its like I’m finally growing up!
6.} it is ok to say “no”…
As I transitioned through December, and into the start of this year, there were a few areas of life that I had to strongly evaluate. Things that I was a part of, that were only leading to overwhelm.
The guilt was HUGE, as I cut those commitments. There were people who were disappointed, but I had to acknowledge that I was allowed to choose things to fill my time that kept me on the path I needed to be on. Maybe, to outsiders, this sounds selfish.
In truth, I needed to be free to invest myself in my biggest priorities. Being spread too thin meant that nothing was getting enough of me.
rainydayinmay.com 