New Year Musings

My time for typing or writing is so minimal these days as we work on getting the baby to nap in his crib as well as just juggling two different naptimes in general for the kids. I tend to use any free "creative" time to write for CatholicMom.com, write in the kids' baby books, journal in my real-paper journal, or work on our family photo book (and then of course the housework, haha). All of which are good, but I love the moments when I can just sit and write with no specific purpose or deadline.

It's a new year. And man, was last year a Big Year. I'm ready for a fresh one, one with smaller events and smaller emotions for sure. Yet it's been helpful for me to reflect on the past year as I ponder what changes I want to make in this one. Though welcoming our son was the most amazing and beautiful event of 2018, there were a lot of Hard Things we dealt with last year. I had postpartum depression. We had a homeless man live with us in the summer. Neither of our kids slept well so neither did we. We almost adopted a baby who was scheduled to be aborted (like met with the social worker and everything...but the mother decided to parent.). My husband's work and renown continued to grow bigger while I learned to grow smaller and more hidden as a stay at home mom of two who were sick almost constantly this fall. All in all, it was just a challenging year. But we survived and we're on the other side of it. With each other and two precious children. And a whole fresh year ahead of us.

The hard stuff of 2018 found me at the end of it humbly admitting that I've gotten into a rut of negative thinking. I realized in a twisted sense of coping, I'd begun to look more at the hard things instead of the good things. A friend and I were both talking about our difficult 2018 and we both realized that even though we both had had some challenging events, our attitudes were almost leaving us more defeated than our actual circumstances. It's a hard truth but a profound one, and for me it's where I find hope for the New Year. I can't predict or change what will come, but I can foster more grateful, hopeful, positive attitudes and reactions to whatever events it holds.

My word for 2019 (for the first time chosen by someone other than me, thanks to Jen Fulwiler's random word generator) is HOLD. There's a lot of meaning in that for me and I have a feeling it wasn't such a random word (looking up at you, God! Hold onto my peace. Hold my babies and live in the moment. Hold back harsh words or criticism (self-talk too!). Look for ways the Lord holds me. I also have some more practical goals for the year. Look for a post on those coming soon (for accountability...it's always better when they're written down in one place!).

How was your 2018? What do you desire for your 2019?