How is it that today is December 1st already? How are we eleven months through this year already?
Three hundred thirty-four days in...And what in the world have I done this year? What possibly have I accomplished?
I feel like it was yet another year of one step forward and four steps back.
Granted, the year is not officially over yet. We still have a fleeting thirty-one days left before we close the book on this chapter... but I know I am not where I was hoping I'd be a year ago, you know - when I was reflecting on the previous years helpless ending to yet another rough year.
At least I don't think I am where I was hoping to be. But truth be told... I'm not sure I actually really had any true plans for this year.
Every year I try to find a word... a theme... for the coming year to focus on. I was reflecting on this a few weeks ago. I had the thought that while every December I try focus on listening to the whisper of what the next years word will be, while I try look ahead to the next twelve calendar flips before me, while limping slowly out of the previous twelve flips that always seem to leave me weathered and worn... I very rarely spend any time during the middle of the year really trying to touch base with the word... the intentions... the expectations I set for myself before the start of each year.
This year's word is ENOUGH.
I just went and pulled that blog post back up...
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So, as I look to 2022 and wonder – Well, what should I all attempt to do / reach / overcome THIS year?? I just can’t help but want to just attempt to actually do nothing at all. Or at least go in with zero expectations of anything.
No milage goal. No weight goal. No preset races and training schedules. No book reading list. No budget expectations (but not meaning I’m allowing myself to be free to spend and spend – no, just wanting zero expectations on my attempt to NOT spend in my incessant drive to try to save and to justify overworking.).
No goals, no resolutions, no expectations.
Simply allowing whatever to just be enough.~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Ok. So perhaps this year I did accomplish something, by actually not doing anything.
I tracked my intentional milage
but I had no goals or expectations what that number needed to be, or where I am currently even at with it for that matter.
I worked out somewhat regularly (though less than half of what I did in 2021),
but had no hardcore training schedules for anything.
I didn't get on the scale once.
I also had no goals or expectations what that number needed to be.
I didn't track the books and pages I read,
but I know I did read a lot, fiction and personal development.
I didn't write and publish a set number of posts, and while in the back of my mind I'm thinking I wished I could have done more...
I do honestly know that the state of my mental capacity to process and express in that manner this year, just was not even an option.
I went to work. I traveled. A lot. Like, I flew in airplanes three times in nine months. I went to the lake. I went to therapy. I went to the hospital and met my granddaughter. I went to another city and adopted a new dog. I held hands with my tribe of amazing women. I taught my teenager drivers ed (like, all of it ~ classroom and driving) and then handed him my car keys and let him drive himself to school.
It was a tough year. A great year, don't get me wrong, but a tough one. But I'm fairly certain this has become the canned speech I've given at the end of every year. And every year I look ahead and hope for the best... or at least hope for better.
But best and better are a bit left undefined for me I think. I know I'm one that no matter how much I do, or how far I go, it will never be enough to satiate that nagging voice inside me always scratching for more.
It's the who that I am, hardwired into my very marrow.
I've spent much of my life fighting this... this perfectionism, this drive to over achieve, to over accomplish... to overcome... to hold it all together and to keep all the plates spinning for all the people.
I'm one that doesn't know how to not automatically give 110% at everything.
I'm not sure how it happened or how it all evolved... or when I went from trying to perfectly achieve and accomplish all the things - to coherently trying to not perfectly achieve and accomplish all the things... But I'm nearing a fine fifty years lived here shortly, and it is who I am. There is always a battle within, always. For better or worse (for richer or poorer?)(lol).
So where am I even going with all of this?! I don't think I actually know.
But I do know that December's seem to be hard. December's seem to take their toll every year. December's seem to hold so much expectation while also guaranteeing nothing at all.
It is December, yes.
But... The year isn't over. The year isn't a wash. The year isn't a bust.
And I'm not quite ready to cry in my coffee and call it quits just yet.
And neither should you.
Let's trust we are where we are supposed to be, in the timing that God has coordinated it to be.
Let's allow ourselves to sit, to lay our heads back, with our eyes closed for just a few brief moments.
To rest... to less, yes... but not to quit... not yet.
