The Year of Re-Emergence

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope each of you reading here had a love-filled and restorative holiday period, whatever you did with it and whomever you spent it with.  That's how ours was, for the most part.  Sean was off for a week and all we really had on our agenda was Christmas, and a New Year's Eve party.  Sure, we could have tucked into the much needed painting and reflooring of our entire house, which looms large on our enormous mental to-do list.  But instead we settled on catching up on a few things around the house and just relaxing.  We didn't even try to get out much with the kids.  Every day we spelled each other off so each of us could get a little time to ourselves doing whatever we wanted (Sean: nap. Me: yoga, read, write.)

A family staycation.  I think we all have needed it for, oh...a year?  Especially Sean and I, who have so little time to connect these days.  We had another baby over a year ago and we just set to work, both of us head down getting the job done.  This week both of us realized separately that we'd been in a sort of tunnel all year, and were just looking ahead now to see the light, the opening that leads to a wider world.  Not a dark and scary tunnel, just one we had to enter out of survival, because to look around at all the things in the world that we can't do in this time in our lives is too frustrating.

For me, entering the tunnel meant accepting my limitations and lowering my standards.  2011 was the year of imperfection for me.  I let myself be Ok with good enough, and I forgave myself quickly for my mistakes in parenting and life.  I didn't think about career goals or hobbies or exercise or organizing my photos other things I didn't have time for.  I just moved us all forward, towards the light, managing the chaos along the way.

And this year, I'm dubbing the Year of Re-Emergence.  Already I feel myself stretching out, wanting to try something new. Ready to take on something outside of mothering my kids.  Just something very small, mind you, because mothering my kids is still my favorite thing, and something I feel more and more blessed to be doing as they grow up much too quickly.  I don't want to to miss much, but I do want to start building more space for myself to contribute to my community, and focus on my health and well being. By the end of the year I'd like to be making a little income.

And that is all. I'm still keeping my expectations low, because that's been working for me.  And because the fact is, I still have a toddler, a 3.5 year old, a husband who works 60 hour weeks, and a house that needs paint and some flooring that is not 20-year old carpet filled with the various fluids and debris of 20 years of people and animals. Uck.

Happy 2012 everyone.  Best of luck re-emerging into your normal lives after Christmas break.  Thanks for continuing to check in here.  May this new year bring peace and blessings your way.

What about you all.  What do you hear 2012 whispering or shouting to you?  What do you hope to see changed in your life by this time next year?