I’ve been looking forward to putting this post together for a few weeks (honestly since November, when I chatted with Carolyn about the series she was putting together to celebrate this OLW practice). Last year’s wrap up is one of my favorite posts to revisit … I love how the review tells a story about the year and about me and my OLW.  The monthly check-ins here continue to be one of the most useful practices for me around OLW – they force me to reflect and connect. Some months it makes magic, and some months it barely holds together. which all feels a lot like me. and my life right now.

January 26 – I finally announced my word … and explained a little about why I felt called to my first do-over. Basically, CHOOSE just kept showing up! I also shared quotations from Anne Lamott and Pastor Steve. “We become the future we choose. Let’s make it one full of joy, gratitude, and hope.”

February 23 – Helpful lessons about the choices I make in my thoughts. Strongly influenced by @SharonSaysSo and a series of Instagram stories she ran advising “If you can’t change it why choose it”, I committed to giving up complaining – choosing to give mind, heart, or head space to stuff I couldn’t change. I haven’t been 100% true to this commitment, but it’s still one I value … and sometimes even on bad days.

March 30 – I was looking forward to life post-vaccination and acknowledging all the choices that entailed. ahhh, the optimism back then! and still I recognized “The harder choices are going to come once more folks are vaccinated. when more things are open. when gatherings are going to be larger and likely include folks we (me) just don’t know very well (or worse, do know well, and know they’re not making similar choices). that’s gonna mean having the courage to say “no”. I think it’s also going to mean giving grace to folks who make different choices. and that was not something I actually contemplated when I thought about ‘all this’.” In retrospect, I haven’t done a great job with that grace, but I have gotten pretty good about saying “no (thank you)”.

April 27 – I wrote about Choosing Connection (one of this year’s intentions): “When faced with choices about which projects to pursue, which books I might read, which groups I might join (or leave), which Zooms I want keep up, where I might start venturing out and meeting up with folks – I’m choosing those that create or nurture Connection.”  This was an excellent lesson and one I still use to evaluate my choices!

May 25 – Choosing Connection and Stillness. My small group had just finished Brené Brown’s Gifts of Imperfection and there’s a guidepost (#8 cultivating calm and stillness) that really resonated. I reflected on how I chose stillness: “For me, a solo run to the lake – now a Sunday morning ritual (thank you Carolyn, for this framing!) – is that kind of time. I leave my earbuds at home. Once my feet and my breathing find their rhythm, my mind is open … for feelings, thoughts, dreams, questions, and occasionally, if I’m lucky, an answer or two. It’s also my dark-early-morning-quiet time with my journal, a devotion, and 10 minutes of centering prayer. Sometimes it’s reading, or knitting, or a conversation with a friend. Often it’s saying “no”. and almost always, it’s a choice.” yep, still.

June 29 – Inspired by Tsh Oxenreider, I revisited Gratitude as a choice. Tsh wrote: “On those days when I choose to remember to do this — and it is a choice, every single iota of this practice — here’s what I notice underneath the surface: the sacramental goodness that all of life is a gift.” Together with these words from the previous year “Gratitude is a choice that becomes a practice that becomes spiritual muscle memory”, I recommitted to my own daily practice of listing five things for which I’m grateful.

July 27 – I explored unconscious choices – also known as bias – when I listened to season 2 of Brian McLaren’s podcast “Learning How to See”. This closing reflection still resonates:

“Inspirer of holy boldness and humble bravery-
… give me the humility to learn from my community-
… along with the courage to differ graciously from my community …”
May it be so.

August 31 – Marc spent the weekend before this post in the ER … and that started his journey to a cancer diagnosis. I read a post by Joy Fetell Lee about finding joy in all the things and it reminded me of my intention to Choose Joy. “Still, I know in my heart that joy matters; it’s rooted in my faith. I believe in a God who created us out of love, to be joyful. I imagine my joy making God smile. It becomes a sacred act.”

September 29 – I wrote about still being in a liminal space, even setting up camp in that most uncomfortable place and asking for a more comfortable mattress. and still, I had the power to make choices. I documented a few of the choices I’d made during the month that brought me joy. “I may not know what’s coming on the other side of this time, but I know I’ll have choices. and I trust I’ll be able to find joy in some of them. and honestly, that feels like a pretty good place to be, in spite of the uncomfortable threshold.”

October 28 – more wisdom from @SharonSaysSo – this time about hope. “Hope is a practice. Hope is a choice. Hope is cultivated. It is exercised. Hope is developed. It is not a feeling.” Marc had a biopsy mid-month and by month’s end he had a diagnosis, treatment plan, and surgery scheduled for mid-November. “October threw me and my family some big challenges. My Hope muscle got a workout. I spent some unhelpful (and in the moment gratifying) time focusing on choices I didn’t get to make. but Hope helped. Hope gave me back some agency.”

November 30 – more wisdom from Diana Butler Bass about Gratitude, suggesting we expand suggesting we broaden our response to gratitude beyond the preposition “for” to include “with”, “through”, “to”, “within”. “I realize I need to go deeper on gratitude with others. Gratitude for others is huge, but with?! …and then I see a link between my intentions for connection and gratitude that goes beyond anything I’d imagined back in January. and then I wonder … perhaps these monthly checkins are exactly that. perhaps these checkins answer those questions for all of us.”

I spent the month of December intentionally looking for joy and gratitude beyond “for”. I found so much! and even though this last week presented challenges we weren’t anticipating, we managed. There’s nothing like pulling together as a family to navigate a tough situation to drive home gratitude “with” and “through”.

My mom’s follow-up orthopedic appointment is this morning at 9:30. We are all incredibly grateful for your good thoughts and encouragement this past week – thank you!

and I’m (optimistically) looking forward to being back here next week … with a combination of looking back and looking ahead, and maybe – hopefully – finding myself again.

Cheers to the new year!