When your year starts in September and ends in August … or starts in June and ends in May, depending on how you feel about things … it can feel a bit disconcerting to hit December 31. This is my fourth year as a “seminary wife,” and our lives follow the school calendar more than anything. This year has definitely felt like it began in June and will end in May, which makes it hard for me to sum up 2016. Not to mention that we’ve been so busy with everything I never had time to record much of our doings, and so it’s all bit of a blur.
I remember the winter being very un-winter-ish … friends graduating … spraining my ankle … lots of trips to the beach (including sun poisoning on one occasion, ugh, you’d think we’d lived here long enough to not make that mistake) … going to Maine … visiting family … saying goodbye to dear friends … bits and pieces of writing squeezed in when possible … new approach to homeschooling … but really, overshadowing everything has been CARL’S LAST YEAR AT SEMINARY. And its follow-up thought, which is WHERE WILL WE BE NEXT YEAR? Next year being next school year, naturally.
I haven’t made resolutions in ages. I used to do the “one word” idea for a year, but that also sort of petered out. However, this year, I do actually have a few resolutions in mind to make.
For one, I don’t like how all my memories are blurred together (see above). This is a chaotic time in our lives, but it’s also precious, and I don’t want it to be vague in future years when I look back. Plus, I think it’s important to live life aware, not drifting through. So, one of my resolutions is to do better at recording this. Either with an end-of-the-month blog post, where I sum up a few things I learned, accomplished, or experienced that month, or with the same sort of idea in a private journal, or with a weekly gratitude journal (say, three things each week you can look back on and be specifically thankful for), or something like that.
And speaking of journaling AND keeping better track of my life, I also want to get better at recording what I read. So many times I read a book and promptly forget it within a week of finishing it. Or I re-read a book and then can’t remember why I wanted to re-read it or how it struck me differently this time around. I used to keep up with Goodreads, but they don’t have a good system for marking re-reads (at least not one that worked for me), plus I realized I was self-censoring the reviews I wrote based on how other people feel writers should review (always positive! Authors should never leave negative reviews even if they hated a book!), or how other people even felt one should respond to a book (if you liked a book that other people found “problematic” then you’re a big jerk!). So Goodreads became more stress than anything. This year, I’m going to try keeping a personal, private reading journal, both for fresh reads and re-reads, where I can either simply mark something as “read” or can leave a brief line or ramble as much as I want. I even have my eye on a fancy fountain pen to help inspire me.
As usual, I need to figure out a healthy way to manage stress. Last year I did start to learn how to minimize outside stressors (that was tied in to our new approach to homeschooling, actually); this year I need to find better ways of handling the stressors I can’t remove. Like, simply living and being a responsible adult. Daily exercise was working for me for the first half of last year, but spraining my ankle put a crimp in that, and I never really got back to it. Also a time of quietness to start my day, but my ability to get up early enough to have that depends on how I’ve slept the previous night, and that varies so much from night to night … I know there’s solutions out there, I just have to work my way to them. So that’s a plan for this year, to be mindful of ways to live wholly and healthily and not constantly fretting.
As for writing, no specific resolutions there. I’ve learned better than to resolve to “Publish X book” or “Submit so many MSS” or even “Finish writing XYZ.” As soon as I set those sort of solid plans in place, they get derailed faster than I can blink. So, again, my goal for this upcoming year is to write mindfully and well, to focus more on crafting the story well than finishing within a certain timeframe, and when I do sit down to write to actually WRITE instead of frittering time away on social media (oh yeah, less social media in general is a goal, and probably always will be). To be a good steward of this gift, basically.
Hmm. I hadn’t realized it until I sat down and typed these out, but there seems to be a common theme winding through all my resolutions: mindful. I guess I have a word for 2017 after all!
“I shall give life here my best, and I believe it will give its best to me in return. When I left Queen’s my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don’t know what lies around the bend, but I’m going to believe that the best does. It has a fascination of its own, that bend, Marilla. I wonder how the road beyond it goes–what there is of green glory and soft, checkered light and shadows–what new landscapes–what new beauties–what curves and hills and valleys further on.” -Anne of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
