It is once again that time, a period of each year during which I get very Reflective, and provide myself what I've sort of come to think of as my own personal "performance review." Since I don't have one place of employment that has a system for this, but rather, many - some that provide feedback and others that do not - I have found I need to take it on myself to be "reviewing" my own "performance." While this work seems to mostly stem from consideration of my personal life, I do find that my professional life is present in these thoughts, and that the ideas I generate are useful for all aspects of my life. I began doing a process like this each year in late high school, I believe. Over the course of time, it has become pretty codified for me: 1) Grounding Writing, 2) Looking Back (i.e. considering last year's New Years Intention/s (or NYI), 3) Evaluating (i.e. rereading all of my journaling and blog posts from the year through the lens of the set intention/s, 4) Parsing Out Themes (identifying the topics that just seemed to continue coming to the surface), and 5) Finalizing and Sharing. Steps 1-4 have happened over the last couple days and over the course of 18 pages in my handwritten journal. What's below (which has also taken me a couple days, on and off!) is Step 5: Finalizing and Sharing.
The ideas that emerged when I began creating New Years Intention/s (or Resolutions, as I called them when I began, but have since come to find that word to be too rigid) were pretty literal: drink more water, pack for travel more efficiently, etc. As time has gone on, they have become much more abstract, and in that, much more applicable to my life as a whole. Several of the emergent themes this time around are definitely not new, with some just packaged into different words, conjured by different feelings, applicable to different (and similar, honestly) situations. In a way, this is comforting. Just as there is a saying that "there is nothing new under the sun" when it comes to art making (or perhaps well beyond that, depending upon how you think about it), perhaps, when living a reflective live, the same themes continue to oscillate through life. This makes me feel, then, as though I've got some proven experience in meeting such themes head-on, like I am bound to be successful in meeting them again with different lenses, different scenarios.
That said, some of the emergent themes do feel new (to me), or at least slightly road-tested but not completely embodied yet.
While I will consider both revisited and new emergent themes in more depth below, I want to put the bottom line of all this work on top, to make it easy for myself to revisit this writing and get from it what I need right away: From a year centered around REIMAGINING (the 2021 into 2022 guiding concept), I move from 2022 into 2023 centering:
EPHEMERALITY
After sleeping on it, I am realizing that Ephemerality leads the charge because it fuels every other theme that has presented itself for me this year:
- Simplicity: Keep things simple because it's all fleeting.
- Noticing: Notice and appreciate your surroundings because it's all fleeting.
- Adaptability: Be adaptable to making the best of it, because it's all fleeting.
- Patience: Have patience with it all, because it's all fleeting.
- Trust: Trust in yourself - don't waste time not doing so, because it's all fleeting.
- Me+: Live in and love your expanding self, because it's all fleeting.
One could say that these are just fancy ways of saying "Life is short," but I've never taken to that phrase. I think it often gets used to justify decision making that would hurt the person doing it in the long-term. To me, the wistfulness of Ephemerality suggests the kinds of Wonder I strive to regularly Notice and Create. It suggests that almost anything, any time, can be magical, and should be allowed to be seen as such. It also brings into focus the idea that nothing is permanent - not the moments we want to be over or the ones we want to last forever. This idea helps me find balance, both the in-the-moment and longer-term, while also experiencing the Wonder that is always on offer in life . . . if we go looking :)
Below are more musings on both recurring and 'new' themes that emerged from this past years worth of writings. I begin with the three recurring themes - Simplicity, Noticing and Adaptability:
Simplicity
While this concept has lived under several names for me over the years, it's long been present. It's driven me in the form of this precise word for awhile now, and has even made it into my codified 'Beliefs | Values | Manifestations,' a series of guiding concepts living though rarely shifting at this point of my life. As a person who grew up valuing efforts to try and do 'everything all the time,' I have come to find both value and exhaustion in this idea. I love this idea for its implications of zest for life, wanting to seize the day, the desire to squeeze every last drop of juice out of each lemon for the lemonade: I WANT that. I find it difficult in its implications of seeing and/ or desiring no limitations or boundaries whatsoever, of overextension - even for something/s good, endless (and therein unachievable) capacity. I DO have limited capacity. I DO have limited energy. This is human. My time, my energy, my attention, are renewable but limited resources. I am coming to learn that this is not sad or unfortunate: it creates the chance to get a sense of what your own capacity really is, and to apply it only to what you really deem valuable. For me, the process of whittling down the who, the what, the how of the ways I really wish to use my renewable but limited resources has been transformative to my ability to truly be present for and enjoy my life. While these ideas have taken many names over the course of my life, Simplicity seems to be the one that has, for awhile now, really been encompassing this concept for me. While driven by many things, a big driver of it this year, my first year having a tiny human entirely (and slightly less so with each passing chuck of time) dependent on me (and Kris :)), has been NIKO. While in some ways, it seems he has complicated life (routines, etc.), I have found his presence to offer much more Simplicity, because he is Numero Uno. With absolutely no doubts about it, he comes first. I would do ANYTHING (within my humanity) for him. I would get in front of any danger for that kid WITHOUT HESITATION. Count these ideas among the many having-kid/s-related items about which this year I've found myself thinking "Oh, NOW I get it!" This clarity of priority really has made so much for me so simple. When he is happy, I am so much more happy. When he is safe and taken care of, everything is fine. This is not to say that these feelings are a pass for not caring about what's happening in the larger world, or a pass for setting aside the other things that are important to me. What I mean to say is that he has simply brought a lot into focus and helped me to feel that when he (and the other people I love) are healthy, safe, loved, happy . . . everything really is ok. It's that simple. This sense of Simplicity has helped me continue to whittle at what is really most important to me in the who, the what, the how of the ways I really wish to walk through life.
Noticing
Noticing, Wonder (the guiding principle that came out of 2020 into 2021's NYIs), Awareness, Consciousness, Liveness, Play . . . this idea has gone by many words for me, each of which have had their own connotation(s). Since 'Noticing' is the one that I seemed to write in my journal the most this past year, I'll go with that. Noticing the moment, my surroundings, the small things, the seemingly unimportant and everyday minutia that Niko seems to find FASCINATING. Wow, how I have appreciated him reminding me nearly constantly that EVERYTHING IS AMAZING. Everything is amazing if you let it be (just like "anything can be an aesthetic experience if you let it be," an idea I find myself considering at least a couple times a year). This past year, I had the pleasure of Noticing the sunlight on the grass, the texture of our stone fireplace, the feel of the feathers shed by my feather boas . . . all little moments when playing with Niko. He has been an incredible reminder that Noticing and appreciating the minutia is a beautiful way to fall in love with life everyday.
Adaptability
I actually think this idea has shown up under this exact word in my past NYI writings. It seems to have been an intention of mine, for quite awhile, to balance (another recurring concept) my tendencies toward planning, organization, order, with the ability to be flexible, open, adapt. This first year with kiddo really challenged my ability to adapt, in very positive ways that started to shift over into my professional pursuits as well. While I have long prided myself on my ability to adapt in the classroom while teaching to respond to the needs of the learners present, what we seem to be getting excited about, behavioral issues, it's felt harder for me to take that same sense of flexibility and apply it to my personal and back-end professional systems (ex: morning routine, admin workflows). This is indeed another Niko-driven intention: being present with and taking care of little man really tested my ability to "go with the flow," shift up my plans, be present for what was and is needed in the moment. While I consider my organizational capacity a major strength, I am learning that strength can only manifest when tempered with the ability to tap into the yin to its yang - Adaptability.
The themes from this year's writings that feel somewhat road-tested, but mostly new included Patience, Ephemerality (which clearly took the cake), Trust and Me+. More on these below:
Patience
I've never really seem to be 'naturally' good at this one. I think it's that "squeeze every last drop" mentality that has - at least partially - aided in my go go go, faster faster faster, fit it in fit it in fit it in mentalities, from which a byproduct has been a poor sense of patience. Niko-Boy has really tested these tendencies. Everything from his sleep to his eating to his playing - so really, ALL things currently Niko - has asked me to slow down, repeat, do over, take breaths, etc. And it's all been SO much easier than I imagined for me to do. Going into parenting, I was aware that patience is indeed a virtue, but I thought I'd find it MUCH harder to actually tap into. Turns out that when I love someone with all my heart, it's much easier than I ever thought it would be to employ patience with them. It seems I needed this sweet-little-human-shaped reminder to have patience with everyone I love - Kris, my dancing body (and all of myself), my family, my friends, my colleagues. This growing ability is definitely fanning out into all corners of my life, and I intend to remain conscious about its presence so I can help this flourishing continue.
Ephemerality
Much of my writing in this past year referenced the idea of 'seasons,' as in 'seasons of life,' as in "this is temporary," or "this is part of a larger cycle." I found myself simultaneously missing my daily morning walks while also wanting Niko to never get older so I could have every morning for the rest of forever be baby feeds and cuddles. In writing about this idea of temporariness, I knew that the popular term "seasons" wasn't it for me. In generating these NYI, I arrived at the idea of Ephemerality. The concept that everything is fleeting. Not being able to take a walk every morning right now, in the grand scheme of life, is fleeting. Niko being 9 months, 10th months, 11 months, 12 months was fleeting. EVERYTHING is. Keeping this in mind helps me remember to appreciate everything for what it is right now, because it actually isn't "always going to be this way," bad or good, challenging or comforting.
Trust
I believe I have actually touched on the idea of trusting myself in NYI past, but it's never been as prominent a theme. While I didn't actually write a lot - at least not directly - about this concept, it was baked into a lot of my ponderings, and came forward as a clearly important theme as I assessed my writing from the year for this process. When becoming a parent, I was really nervous about how I would "know everything I need to know" at any given time. While I have successfully managed to stave off the idea of being a "perfect mom" or "perfect parent" or "doing everything right" (fooey, all of it), I have been concerned about "knowing what I need to know." This past year has shown me that I DO know everything I need to know: I know that I LOVE him, and that leads me to everything else. While I may not have had a lot of experience with tinies before he came, I do know how to find out what I need to know. And when I/ we need to make calls on things, we are capable of doing so (reminds me of my near-the-end-of-pregnancy motto "Not ready, but capable"). Another way that the idea of Trusting Myself has been helpful has been in limiting how much information I consume about parenting and childcare. From the time I found out I was pregnant forward, it has been important to me to be very intentional about what type and how much information of these sorts I choose to take in: trusting my few, carefully curated information sources has been a practice in Trusting Myself, and so far, it has not lead me astray. Further, if I can Trust Myself in raising my kiddo, I feel I can (and should) Trust Myself with all things!
Me+
Another emergent theme that I didn't call out a ton, but felt and talked about a lot: the idea of "Me+." As in, I was very concerned about shifts in my identity when Niko came, and it turns out, just like when I moved in with Kris and when we got married (i.e. other major life decisions involving loved ones), as I've come to include the care and love of Niko into my life, I just feel like ME+. I feel like an expanded version of myself, like someone with an additional layer. Like . . . Me+! Turns out there is a lot of ME to go around ;). When Niko came, my heart just expanded to have the room it needed for him. I am still a daughter, sister, friend, partner, dancer, dreamer, cloud-watcher . . . I just happen to also be a parent/ mama now too. I feel that this year (like all other years), I have come further into the self I already was, learning more about who I am, and who I want to be. Niko coming along did NOT change everything (as some people would say to me before he did, which freaked me out, because I LIKE my life!): it changed some things, and other things have stayed very similar. It has been an utter joy and total challenge to figure out how Niko fits into the picture of my life. And as this aspect of life it continues to come into focus and life continues to twirl, something I'm starting to Trust is that along the way, I'll be Me+.
There are also a couple of literal intentions for the coming year that surfaced through my writing and thinking, to which I'd like to apply all of the above abstract themes:
More Three Time: "Three Time" is what I call time with Niko and Kris as a whole little fam. While Kris and I have gotten pretty good at carving out alone time for the other, and we get a decent amount of "Two Time" (him and me) after kiddo goes to bed each night, I am craving more Three Time. I have already thought about how we can accomplish this, and am looking forward to making it happen in the new year.
More Dancing: A long-held desire. That said, I've come to realize that even when I feel I am dancing a lot, it never feels like enough. Because I LOVE it. So I start with this thought by acknowledging that. With that in mind, I have also been thinking about how I can accomplish this goal. I have already began working toward this by condensing some jobs - a good start. I may also want to open myself back up to the idea that self-directed movement practice in the basement (a thing I got very good at during the height of the pandemic) is still dancing. I look forward to seeing where this and the other tactics I've identified for bettering my 'not dancing to dancing ratio' take me in the new year.
To finish, I always find it important to boil these concepts into the existent soup of my life, or my 'Operating System,' as I've come to call it. The below framework has been a work in progress for many years, and while it continues to shift, those shifts have become pretty small in the last several years. In other words, I feel pretty confidently about the below serving as my guiding information for how to human.
BELIEFS:
Consciousness | Love | Vitality | Purpose
VALUES:
Simplicity | Kindness | Wonder | Creativity
MANIFESTATIONS:
Reflection | Connection | Movement | Food | Aesthetics | Outdoors
From here, I consider how this year's musings factor into the above 'Operating System.'
- Simplicity: Has its own place in the OP.
- Noticing: Is a measure of Consciousness (and honestly, a deep relationship with Ephemerality)
- Adaptability: I think this one is directly tied into Simplicity for me. Sometimes, in order to 'keep it simple,' one must adapt!
- Patience: Consciousness and Reflection. A major area of learning from this past year that I can only imagine will continue.
- Ephemerality: This one is feeling like the honey of the bunch. It's not as though I've created an arbitrary rule that the product at the end of the NYI process MUST be one word, but it HAS been really helpful in these past years to me actually walking my talk in the coming year and beyond.
- Trust: Love perhaps? Love of self?
- Me+: Love. Vitality. Reflection. All of it. A lovely idea to have conjured up and to keep in mind.
Finally, taking ALL the above musing and channeling it down to an easy to remember guiding idea: that work - arriving to EPHEMERALITY - has been moved to the top. And with the bottom line now on top, I find myself closing up this round of NYI. I feel fulfilled, and ready to . . . Float? Glide? Bob into 2023?
How about "roll among the varying types of challenging, beautiful, Ephemeral clouds 2023 is sure to bring"?
I'll go with that :)
