Questions to Live Into in 2019

 

In so many ways, New Years just isn’t my holiday.  I’m really not one for staying up late or going out on the town.  I never seem to have plans on New Years–everyone I’d spend it with always seems to be doing something else.  This year, I spent New Years Eve painting, taking a hot bath, rewatching Downton Abbey, drinking one too many glasses of wine, and going to bed before midnight.

However, I love the chance for introspective self-reflection.  For that, New Years is ideal.  Entering a new year offers an opportunity to pause and reflect.  While there really isn’t much difference between December 31 and January 1, the flipping of a calendar symbolizes new beginnings and fresh starts.

Resolutions aren’t my thing.  Obnoxious reading challenges aside (see previous post), I find goals restrictive, daunting, and unhelpful.  Instead, I take a big-picture approach, facing each year with hopes.  Each year, I hope for similar things.  I hope to be true to myself and grow in my faith.  I hope to pursue a healthy lifestyle.  I hope to put my best into my work, my studies, and my relationships.

Yes, I still hope all these things.  But, this year, I want to take a new slant on New Years.

A lot has happened in my life over the past year.  Many of the big, unanswered questions that have held sway since entering the workforce have been resolved.  Barring my unfinished master’s degree, I’ve achieved everything in my five-year plan.  So… what now?  This position is both comforting, terrifying, and liberating.  Aside from finishing grad school, I have no idea what comes next.

In 2019, I have the opportunity to ask new questions.  I’ve learned that it’s foolish to try and predict what a year has in store.  Instead of forming questions of direction or destination, I’m going to lean into questions of attitude.  Here are things I’m asking myself this year:

Farewell, 2017

We’ve hit the season when everyone reflects on what has occurred during the past year and dreams of the year to come.  I am no exception.

What strikes me, though, is time’s beautiful ability to slip elegantly from one minute to one day to one year.  Tomorrow may be a new year, but take away the countdowns, the parties, the reflection, it is simply a new day.  Just as today was a new day.  I love that.

It is difficult to pinpoint the significance of 2017.  Before, each year had deep meaning, filled with momentous occasions and deep soul searching.  2015 was the year I finished college, filled with questions and striving.  2016 was the year I trekked across Europe and stumbled into my life’s work.

But 2017?  I suppose it is an extension of all the years before, as if all the momentous occasions, questions, journeys, and stumbles were leading to what I am doing now: living day by day, moment by moment.

This year, I continued life in the small town library where I work.  I experienced my first Summer Reading Program, started a Lego Club, and continued building relationships with my patrons.

This year, I applied, was accepted, and began graduate school online through the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.  Grad school is not easy, but it’s taught me to make time for self-care and that sanity is more important than grades.  This attitude helped me get through my first semester with my sanity and GPA in tact.  Already, pursing my Masters in Library and Information Science has helped improve my skills and understanding of my work.  While I frequently whine and complain about the stress of my studies, I am deeply thankful for this opportunity.

This year, I continued living with my parents.  All year, I have bounced back and forth.  Should I move closer to work?  Do I want to live in that community?  Is it worth it to continue driving an hour to work and back each day?  I’m still struggling with these questions.  While I like living with my parents, I’m ready to be on my own.  But I have absolutely no desire to live in the community where I work and cannot afford to both pay rent and continue commuting.  This is something I’ll continue to wrestle with as the new year comes.

This year, I made new friends and continued walking with old ones.  From road trip buddies to coffee shop chats monthly letters, I am extremely blessed in the friendship department and am so, so thankful.

This year, my faith journey brought me somewhere between the desert and the river valley.  I’m attending church again and am encouraged by friendships, but still feel like I’m walking alone.  In college, my faith journey was wild, frantic, and I pursued the path with relentless passion.  My faith has changed dramatically since then.  I’ve evened out.  I’ve simultaneously rejected the fundamentalism of my upbringing while holding firmly to my spiritual beliefs and heritage.  I’m calmer now.  I continue to study, but I hold my faith with open hands.  I long to be a person of high character, quietly bettering the world around me, letting my actions speak louder than my words.  2017 was a step in that direction.

This year, I spent each day with Wendell Berry.  As part of my devotions each morning, I ended by reading one of his Sabbath poems.  Of all my routines, this was my favorite.  Morning by morning, his words brought me into still forests, quiet fields, and sunlit meadows.  I reached the end of the book in October and went right back to the beginning.

This year, I continued my never ending love affair with the written word.  Thanks to audiobooks during my long commute and a deepening passion for YA, I blew past my previous reading records, making it through 212 books in a mere 12 months.  For more about my reading year, check out my previous post.

I suppose, in light of all these things, 2017 was a pretty good year.  (Minus the dumpster fires of national politics and natural disasters, of course.)  I grew, I worked, I learned.  What more can one ask for?

Tonight, when the clock strikes twelve, we will slip elegantly into a 2018.  Where will this year take us?  What decisions will I make?  What people will I meet?  What places will I go?  What words will I be writing one year from now?  I haven’t the slightest clue, and that is a very exciting thing.

Whoever you are, wherever you may be, I wish you a very happy New Year!

2016: A Story in Three Parts

As another year comes to a close, it’s time to reflect.

By global standards, 2016 was pretty much a train wreck.  Personally, though, it was a beautiful journey that I will tell in three parts.

INTRODUCTION:

A year ago, I was an unemployed college graduate with no idea of what I wanted to do with myself.  You see, for the majority of my life, my intuition has been my guide.  Until this point, early every major life decision has been guided by instinct.  College?  My gut lead me to the right fit.  Major?  My heart found home in the English Department.  Work at camp in the summers?  It just felt right.

The future, however, holds infinite possibilities and the prospective paths had me absolutely paralyzed.  I had absolutely no idea of anything.  My intuition, the little tug that pulls me in the next direction, had failed.

So, at the beginning of 2016, I felt my heart tugging me back to Europe and, against all logic, I followed.

Goodbye, 2015!

Another year has come and gone.

Looking back, 2015 was a year of waiting.  First, I was waiting to graduate.  Then, I was waiting for whatever came next. There were days when I would have given anything for time to move faster.  There were periods of loneliness and periods of frustration.

In other ways, though, it was a wonderful year.  I was able to spend nine months living at home, which, in a way, has been like a return to childhood.  I’ve loved spending time with my family.  I loved working at our strawberry patch and apple orchard.

I’ve learned a lot this year.  I finished my degree.  I spent my summer pulling weeds followed by a fall hauling around apples.  I experienced my first professional job.  I attended the Urbana missions conference.

I’m not sad to see 2015 go.  It’s been good, but better years lie ahead.

Check out some photo highlights from my year:

Skiing at Lutsen Mountains in Northern Minnesota

Long weekends spent studying in the basement of the library.

View of campus from my dorm window

Graduation

Strawberry season

Visit from my Austrian friends

Brandi Carlile in August

Sunset over the Rainy River along the Canadian boarder in northern Minnesota

At my childhood friend Katie’s wedding

Opening day of orchard season

Bible study retreat in October

At Year’s End

Dear readers,

It’s the end of the year and I am tired.

2014 was a challenging year.  There were a lot of ups, don’t get me wrong, and I made some fantastic memories.  But boy, am I eager to see it go.  I actually wrote up a big post analyzing my year, explaining everything that happened and whatnot.  But I don’t think I’m going to post it.  I feel like I should be putting more effort into the whole blogging thing.  I feel like I should engage more, follow more blogs, immerse myself in the splendor that is WordPress.  I want to.  But lately, whenever I think about sitting down to write a simple post… all I can think of is how tired I am.

The words are there.  There are so many things I can say right now.  But I’m not sure if I want to talk.  I’ve got a long road ahead of me and there are a number of stories to tell.  Right now, though, I don’t know if I want to let people in.  I just want to hole up in myself and be.

It’s been quiet here on my blog since Christmas.  It’ll be a quiet New Years–I’m going to Wisconsin for a few days to celebrate Christmas with extended family and won’t have internet access.  It may be quiet for a while.  I’ll come back, don’t worry. At this point, blogging is in my blood.  I’ve been doing it since I was fifteen and know I won’t be able to stop.  But, for now, my stories need to be mine for a while.

In light of all of this, I just want to let you know (yes, YOU reading these words) how much you mean to me.  I haven’t engaged with you as well as I should, but know that wherever you are, I am thankful for you.  Thank you for taking time to read my blog, and I look forward to getting to know you better as 2015 comes around.

Happy New Year, friends!  Let’s make this next one the best yet.

Amelia