Last updated on May 31, 2024
Reflecting is a regular practice for me. I’ve found it helpful to look back and ask myself:
- What worked?
- What didn’t?
- What do I want to change moving forward?
I don’t know when I started doing this, but over time I’ve fallen into a regular pattern of asking these questions in varying degrees throughout the year. As a general “rule,” I let the year guide when and how I reflect, and generally, the end of a month lends itself to a reset. So this weekend I sat down with my pen and journal planning to go through the usual questions.
But soon after starting, I stopped. It felt off to dive right into an analysis of my month, for that’s what these questions stirred in me – a spirit of evaluation, judgment, and a driving need to categorize my life into a “this is good”/”this is bad” scaling system.
Don’t get me wrong, these questions are helpful, they’ve served me well over the years, but I realized this month that they miss a key part of what it means to reflect. To reflect isn’t to simply respond with the first answer that comes to mind. To reflect is to think deeply, or perhaps intently in order to move past what’s on the surface to what lies just out of sight, to find what you missed.
And since this year is a year of taking a different path, the one less traveled, I re-routed my journal routine. I turned back to the fork in the path, and chose different questions to help me reflect. I started by simply remembering what January held for me. What did January bring? What did it give? What did it grow? What did it grieve?
Honestly, I was shocked at all the moments of life we squeezed into this dark and dreary month. I thought maybe I’d share some of my January with you. Afterward, I did ask myself what worked and what didn’t, but I had a much better grasp on what life held in January rather than what it took. This is what I found January to hold…
What did January bring?
January was cold, so very cold, and we didn’t have any snow to distract us here on the east coast of Virginia. While it seemed that the rest of the country tasted snow powder on their tongues and slid down hills on sleds, we huddled inside away from freezing rain, and tried to limit our time outside. As outside people, this proved difficult, but we found our way.
We took the kids to see Migration at the theaters.
It used up the entire entertainment budget for the month, but it was 1,000% worth it. It was such a cute movie, and as a family who loves to go on adventures from time to time, we had a blast pointing out moments when one of us resembled a character in the movie.
This was the first movie theater experience for Mathis, and the first one Cary claims to have remembered. Afterward, we took them to a fancy (to us) Italian restaurant where we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
The boys spent a lot of time in the kitchen.
Sam mastered the Raddish Kids’ Stuffed Crust Pizza recipe, and he made some of the best chocolate chip cookies we’ve ever eaten.
Timmy experimented with making homemade ice cream and invented a mouth-watering chocolate ice cream that had us all licking our bowls clean. He also introduced his baby brother to ants on a log, which tickled them both pink.
Together they made lunches and treats from this cookbook, and though the mess very nearly drove me crazy, they had improved their skills of clean up by the end of the month.
We celebrated Sam’s 13th birthday (and he got braces).
We marked his 12th birthday as significant last year, and in all honesty, possibly underplayed his turning 13. It was an intentional choice for us, but as all parents do, we questioned if it was the right thing.
Nevertheless, he planned his entire birthday celebration: choosing meals, planning his friend’s party and sleepover, including being in charge of invites and RSVPs and organizing his family meal over the weekend.
He had a blast with his friends, and I was grateful that he managed the entire thing. He’s quite good at it! Perhaps that’s the way we mark 13-year-olds around here – you are now entirely in charge of your social life.
We re-connected with our homeschool co-op group.
This month was all about the human body. I taught three weeks of classes to the 3rd-5th grade group, which was loads of fun. We learned about the Digestive System, the Respiratory System (my personal favorite class, activity pictured below), and the Nervous System (focusing on the brain and Mark joined us!).
I didn’t get any pictures without faces in them, but I adored teaching these three classes and our corresponding activities were a blast! Below is our activity for the Respiratory System.
In addition to classes, I also helped kick off our 2nd Annual Tournament of Books for the entire co-op and hosted our Junior Book Club for our 3rd-8th graders (We read The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street by Karina Yan Glaser this month. It was a huge hit! This website has a lot of great resources, but I found this one most useful for our book club discussion.).
Sam and Mark went duck hunting.
Sam adores duck hunting. We don’t have a lot of opportunities for him to go right now, but Mark has a friend who tries to take them at least once each season. We are so grateful. It’s the highlight of Sam’s winter season for sure.
Cary tried (and loved) Sushi for the first time.
After dropping Sam off for youth group one night, we headed across the bridge for sushi (IYKYK). Much to our delight, our girl decided to try it and found that she LOVED it!
Because she loves oysters, clams, and alligators, we aren’t too surprised.
We tried (and failed) to potty train Mathias.
I’m noting this because it was such a key part of our early January. I was SO hopeful that this was going to work. He started strong, and then, I don’t know what happened but he regressed. I am not one to push. I’ve done this enough (and had an ARRAY of experiences) to know, it will happen when it happens.
I won’t lie though. I was a little disappointed, Perhaps, I should have placed this event in the grieving category below. I’m truly ready to be done with the diaper stage of parenting, but alas, we enjoyed him immensely this month. He had a little stint where he’d hide and we wouldn’t be able to find him (sometimes it was funny and sometimes he’d fall asleep and scare us half the death! Below is one of the funny ones…).
What did January give?
My word for the year is EMBRACE. To embrace is to hold with affection or to accept change willingly and enthusiastically. It seems an appropriate word and one that will take practice.
Poetry
One change that came this month that I readily embraced was taking classes to grow my writing skills. I want to explore writing more poetry, maybe even essays, or fiction writing. I don’t know, but I feel curious about writing and each month I want to take one class or do one thing that helps me learn about the art of writing and practice it. In January I completed Joy Harjo’s class on Poetic Thinking. I have a few rough drafts of poems I’m working on, but I didn’t complete anything.
Togetherness
Another thing January gave us was the gift of time together in our home. We chose not to do any extracurricular activities this winter (except co-op and piano), and instead left our calendar wide open for just being.
We watched an entire season of The Voice together, played many rounds of darts, and ate most dinners by candlelight. The kids built a lot of indoor tents and spent whole days underneath them talking, singing, playing games, and eating far too many snacks (the picture above is proof of fort-making as the cushions are back on the couch backward).
I think my favorite thing we did together in January was bundle up one night with hot chocolates and do a night walk under the stars. I got the idea on a whim, and though everyone grumbled when I mentioned it (they probably had video games on their mind), they thanked me when it was over. One comment stands out to me, “Mom, you have crazy ideas sometimes, but this was awesome.”
What did January grow?
Rest
We slept in a lot. If the sun was asleep, we probably were too.
We transitioned to gentler mornings to give our bodies the rest they craved. Hibernation is a real thing, and we honored it this year. It wasn’t easy because sleeping all the time gets quite boring, but on the other side of January, I see that it was only a few weeks. The sun is already staying awake longer, and so are we.
Without extracurricular activities, it forced us to face the dark days head on, feeling every feeling, thinking every thought, and wondering if we were truly going to make it through. Every day I had to wake up and choose to not give up. I sat in whatever emerged be it grief, boredom, gratitude, anger, cynicism. And I felt it. Really felt it. I actively remained present, wholly present, not running from what felt uncomfortable, and I found that I’m stronger, more tender, more grounded than I knew.
What did January grieve?
Closed Intentional By Grace
I started Intentional By Grace when Sam was just a baby. It was one of the best things I ever did for myself for it gave me a space to be with myself, processing my thoughts, and trying new things. I learned so much running Intentional By Grace as a ministry and a business, but on our road trip I realized, it’s not how I want to spend my next decade of life.
I want to write, but not for Intentional By Grace. I want to teach, but not in the same way I did at Intentional By Grace. I want to create but not the products I was creating at Intentional By Grace. I just had this overwhelming sense that it was time for a career change.
So in January I embraced the need for change and closed Intentional By Grace.
Withdrew from my seminary class
In the same vein of career change, I felt like it was time to step back altogether from seminary for now. As I create space to simply listen to the voice of the Spirit in my life, I’m finding that many of the things I’m doing now are, well, old things. It’s like I’ve been living with an old operating system when a new one is ready for me, but the comfort of the known is keeping me back. I don’t want to live life that way, so I took what felt like a risk, and withdrew from my winter class, the one I waited for so I could get the professor I wanted.
Looking to February
Upon reflection, January was achingly beautiful. The night held us, covered us, and the mornings nudged us, whispering their gentle welcome to try again.
I’m really not entirely sure what’s shifting in my perspective right now, but I am embracing what is and resisting what I think it should be. My eyes are opening to wonder. My hope is finding the speckles of light from the midst of the darkened earth. Spring will come, but for now, I’m held in the darkness. That’s all I really know. It’s all I need to know for now.
So for February, I’m focusing on living intuitively. I’m listening. I’m noticing. I’m responding carefully. I won’t jump too quickly at what I think I see, but will continue to recognize that things are tender right now below the surface. There is nothing to do quite yet. The sun has not yet begun to warm the earth, so I will trust the journey and wait.
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