Happy New Year!
We’re heading home today after ten days of visiting family, and while our time was sweet and filled with memories, I’m ready to be home.
I’m realizing more and more that while I absolutely love to travel, I really am a homebody.
This week will be filled with catching up and attempting to get the girls back into sleep routines (with ten days away I’m fully expecting this to take several weeks… sigh).
I’ve been reflecting a lot on 2017 and the changes that it brought and I’ve had a hard time coming up with a word for 2018.
I was tempted to throw resolutions and “words of the year” out of the window and just wing it, because that’s basically what I’ve been doing for the last year and a half…
but I pressed in.
Because I realized that I need a word of the year this year.
After aimlessly floating through life in 2017, I need something to cling to and focus on admidst the chaos that is my life right now.
And in the midst of ruminating over what my word would be, I realized that I had found my word because I was doing it.
My words for 2018 are lean in.
over the last year, I’ve realized that I have been living my life one coping mechanism to another.
Food, shopping, numbing my mind with social media/Netflix… I’ve basically been running away from a lot of the sadness, anxiety, and fear that I’ve had over the last year (and before I go any further, every time I share these thoughts, someone feels the need to “diagnose” me, but please don’t. I’m talking to the people that I need to talk to and getting the help that I need).
A lot of those feelings were caused by postpartum depression and anxiety, and they have gotten better now that I’m completely done pumping.
And a lot of these feelings were unresolved emotions I’ve been carrying for as long as I can remember.
Either way 2017 left me raw and scrambling to do whatever I could to “cover” those wounds.
I can never express in words how deeply the twins’ NICU stay affected me. I changed so drastically and so profoundly in such a short amount of time. It was the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced, but also one of the most conflicting things I’ve ever experienced. I was so happy to have them, but so terrified I’d lose them. I struggled to bond with them because my heart was too afraid to bleed over them. But I felt so guilty because I knew so many who had real reason to grieve.
Sometimes, I wonder how my friends and family can look at me and still see the same person, because when I look in the mirror I hardly recognize myself.
I often say this in jest to my family, but I honestly feel like I aged ten years over the last year.
and oh! How painful that growth has been.
So my words are lean in.
Lean in to the pain and sadness I still feel.
Lean in to my lack of joy and happiness.
Lean in to my guilt.
Lean in to my struggle to accept what this year has made me…
And here I have to talk about my faith because, for me, it is impossible to finish this conversation without doing so.
Lean in to God and His strength… allowing Him to gently whisper His new purpose for me. I’ve spent the year being angry at Him, and I needed to be. But in 2018 I’m ready to receive His sweet promises. I’m ready to let Him teach and guide me… to coaxe me out of the pain I’ve felt and held on to and to let Him lead me back to His truth and His healing.
I don’t expect 2018 to be any less painful, but I hope that it is pain brought about by healing.
As always, thanks for listening friends. Thanks for always making this a space where I can be vulnerable with you. It’s hard for me to write these things down. It’s hard to expose my insecurities to the world, but I thank you for being a supportive group of friends.
What about you? What are your words of the year? Do you have one?
Until next time,
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