I Love a Fresh Start!

Photo by 2H Media on Unsplash

2022 was beautiful and terrible, the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Many beautiful celebrations and milestones with graduations, birthdays, and anniversaries. Many saddening experiences like a funeral, a car accident, dysfunctional relationships, a diagnosis, and loved ones suffering with mental health lows. It was one for the books!

I ended 2022 with Covid beginning on December 21. I had our live-yet-dead Christmas tree hauled out on the 20th and grabbed one of the last Fraser Firs at Home Depot to replace it. I spent the day-before-sickness getting a tree redecorated with the help of my children. It was the best of times and the worst of times. I wasn’t sure at first that it was Covid because I initially tested negative, but my telehealth doctor was pretty sure that it was, and told me to take another test on Saturday, December 24th. I took two tests and both were immediately positive. Christmas Eve dinner is one that I usually host for the extended family, and we had to pivot quickly. My Christmas Eve was the saddest of my life, and I hadn’t cried that hard in years. Christmas Day was lovely enough, but I was quickly back in bed after all the gifts were enjoyed. I spent that last week of December resting deeply, grateful that my husband had time off and jumped into running the home and fixing meals like a champ. We had a small New Year’s Eve celebration with just our children— normally I host a big party! Mike fixed Hoppin’ John, collards, and cornbread on New Years Day, and I basked in the flip of the calendar page. I love a fresh start, even if I was still convalescing.

My word for 2023 is WELLNESS. I decided that some time in early November. I knew that I was very run-down physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually from a year of “steady matriarchy”, the phrase I use to describe my 2022. The Lord gave me the grace to be an eye in the hurricane of our year, a calm + faithful presence that made sure everyone had what they needed individually while also navigating the intensity of the aftermath of my son’s car accident along with the ongoing challenges of a mother with dementia. I wanted my children to feel like I was seeing and engaged with their lives and interests while also dealing with heavy + weighty issues that could have distracted me completely. My prayer life was the strongest it has ever been, and I look back at that as the highlight of my year (along with our beach trip to beloved Holden Beach, NC!) Unfortunately, rhythms of caring for my body went out the window, and I wasn’t finding spaces where I was served well/invested in, but instead tried to offer that to others which left me emotionally depleted. I was never able to find good routines that served me well during this transition to my children being in public school. By the end of the year, I knew that my focus would have to be wellness which also seemed appropriate with turning 50 this year!

I participated in Edie Wadsworth’s Made for More workshop that final week of December while I rested in bed. It was extremely helpful for where I am, and as a result, I decided to join her Life Mentoring School for 2023. I decided that I was worth investing in, and that all my money didn’t always need to go to the needs of my children. I need someone older in the life-coaching community to hold me accountable to better ways of living and to point out blind spots I am operating in. I want to clean up my thought-life, learn to better use 90-day goal setting, rebuild my daily routines, and focus on my physical wellness for the first quarter. And not feel like I am alone while I am doing it. They say amazing things can happen when you have both a coach and a community, and I am hopeful that this will reorient my mindset as I head into a new decade!

I have already made tweaks to my sleep schedule and diet, have all of my annual check-ups scheduled for this month (I like to do all of them in January each year and then I don’t think about them anymore!), and am playing pickleball 3-4 times a week. I went to water aerobics this past week, but it wore me out because I am still experiencing Covid fatigue. I feel on top of my current schedule, and I am not hosting anything until the very end of the month. I am scheduling FUN into my weekly calendar and making sure that I am eating a good lunch each day. I am getting in my bed around 9, even if I don’t go immediately asleep (most nights however I am asleep by 10!) I feel like I am taking small steps to better living day by day by day.

I felt a huge sense of gratitude today for my life, for all that God has provided, for all that I truly do not deserve at all. I am grateful for God’s love and care for me and that He doesn’t drive me like I drive myself. I really want to believe that. I sense His shepherding heart towards me these days, and feel a deep sense of rest in Him. He is my eye in the hurricane, and I can lie down and sleep.