Dear January 2020 me,
I love you and want to give you a hug. I know that you have good intentions, but I just want you to know that nothing about this year will go as planned. If you knew the things that were going to come your way, you would probably turn around and run. But that is not an option, so I am just going to tell you that you will be knocked down. Most of the goals on this list won’t come to fruition, and I’m here to tell that is ok. You will be crossing the “finish line” of 2020 with a limp and a weariness that you have never felt before. But you know what? As hard and painful as it will be, it’s alright. Because what you will have at the end of 2020 won’t be goals crossed off your list. It won’t be fame or more followers or anything to brag about, really. It will be invisible, inner work. It will be a deeper patience. A deeper humility. A deeper dependance on the Lord. When you sit down to write your 2021 goals, you will be holding them more loosely. You will be more intentional. You will care more about inviting real people back into your life and less about making a space online. It will feel incredibly painful, and even at the end of 2020 you won’t be exactly thankful for the year, but you will be learning to appreciate that hardship is not always bad and that achieving your own perceived goals is not always the end all be all.
And also, January 2020 me, please be willing to laugh and have a little humor as you read through your goals. If you don’t laugh, you will probably cry, so go with the laughter!
So lets take a look at those 2020 goals, shall we?
Publish my book (NOPE. Two years running this is a NOPE)
Volunteer amongst a community that I am passionate about helping (Also, nope.)
Run a 10k (I’ve been running consistently, but I haven’t run anything over 4 miles)
Memorize Ps. 91 (no excuse for this one, it just didn’t happen)
Read 45 books (Ha! Something I accomplished! I read 102 books this year)
Publish 100 blog posts (Um, nope)
Sell our home Yes!! We did!
Host guests 1x a month (Also, nope. I think we had ONE person over for dinner and hosted a college student for a couple weeks in December)
Make an intentional date night (at home or out) without screens at least 1x a month (For sure, nope. I think we maybe had two date nights this entire year?).
Quit “fast fashion” Truthfully, I can say that I did this…mostly because I stopped shopping at Walmart. I haven’t bought any clothes this year that were not from the thrift store.
Continue to build a relationship with CHESS (Yes! And we are loving it!!)
Work on having all three kids sleep through the night on a fairly regular basis (Um, kinda? For sure better than where we were a year ago! Someone still wakes up almost every night, though)
As a result of that, build a consistent morning routine (devotions, blog, workout) (I’m trying but I don’t know if I can say that I have succeeded here. I also do my devos in the morning, but I struggle because I have one child who wakes up at 6am every day).
Work on teaching my children to not complain when they come to the table for dinner (Now, THIS- we did! If someone comes to the dinner table and the first thing they say is negative, they have to leave the room and come back and try again. They are allowed to not like something, and they are allowed to tell me that they don’t like it, but it is not allowed to be the first comment out of their mouths.)
By the end of the year, Tera can cook one dinner for the family. Spend one night a week teaching/training her in the kitchen (What? Haha. NOPE. I don’t even remember trying to attempt this one)
Write one letter or card every week (Again, nope).
Stand up and go to the door to greet Theo when he comes home (Kinda? He is now on day shift so it’s a lot easier to greet him at the door. We are certainly trying on this one, but I think that we could still improve!)
Pray: nightly with Theo, and consistently for five minutes during my devotions time. (Um, nope. Still working on this one).
Get away without kids: just me; just Theo; the two of us together (I did get away myself! Theo was supposed to get away by himself, but that trip was cancelled. And we had plans TWICE to get away as a couple, but they were also both cancelled. WOMP WOMP.)
Take a family vacation (I don’t think Theo has been able to take more than a day off in addition to his weekends this entire year, so family vacation once again did not happen at all this year)
Establish a consistent homeschool routine (Our school routine was fairly up and down this year, but I can say that we established it fairly well. Still lots of room for improvement, but I’m going to give myself a point for this one considering that it’s 2020 after all)
Figure out the preschool plan for Kiah (This one kind of figured itself out by way of me accepting the teaching job at CHESS! Kiah attends preschool two days a week and is thriving there!)
And that was 2020! I am going into 2021 with a mix of excited anticipation but also being willing to hold my plans a lot more loosely and plan goals that are still achievable even if the world remains mostly shut down.