In some ways it's unfathomable to think that today is the LAST day of 2020. While March to roughly September seemed to last 5 years in and of itself, the last three months of this year have flown by. As I sit here reflecting on the past, I'm really struck by the opposition of those two competing perspectives.
As each year comes to an end, I have a pathological need to figure out what life lesson I've learned (or should have learned) from the previous 12 months. Perhaps it's just a way for me to force order out of chaos or to exert control over the uncontrollable -- but that's how my mind works. I need for things to have MEANING. So, what would I say 2020 has taught me? Well...I think it's that life can be BOTH/AND. While this might not exactly be a new concept, I think this year (more than any other) has shown me how often the good and the bad, both the positive and the negative, can -- and DO -- exist side by side. And not just in the abstract or out in the world in general. Even within the microcosm of my own little world, I have experienced both extreme sorrow and headache and hassle this year while also experiencing incredible blessings and happiness and humor. It doesn't seem to make sense or be possible. But it's true.
I'm reminded of another year of life (2007) when I was personally experiencing a period of EXTREME difficulty. While Sophie was still an infant {a very colicky, unbelievably fussy, screaming-banshee-for-hours-at-a-time-and-never-sleeping infant}, Scott was smack dab in the middle of his MBA program, and we had to move halfway across the country for a summer internship. We also had two {extremely high energy and high maintenance} toddlers tagging along for the ride. Ethan was 3, Grace was 2, and Sophie was only 3 months old. I feel a bit like a broken record talking about this time period, but it bears repeating that it was HARD. And made harder by the fact that our new neighbors legit hated us, and let us know regularly that our kids were too loud and/or bothering them. To say that it was stressful trying to keep a 2 and 3 year old from running around the apartment and making noise, while also tending to a baby that never let me put her down much less get any actual, real, decent sleep, is an understatement. But here's the thing. Even in the midst of all that insanity, we still LOVED our summer there and were so excited when Scott was offered a full-time position at the end of his internship. I don't know how that could possibly be the case, but it was. I loved our surroundings and the friends we made at church and little things like The Dairy Corner not too far from our apartment where we enjoyed many an ice cream cone. I loved the magic of seeing fireflies in the evening and having Kristin and her family come and visit from England (and knowing that they'd soon be moving BACK to the States and would live only a couple of hours from our new home) and I loved having my mom and younger brother and sister drive up to help me out for a bit as well. That summer was truly BOTH/AND. It was both incredibly difficult and it was a delight.
This year has had it's fair share of incredibly difficult events -- quarantining during a worldwide pandemic, losing my dad, crashing our car, getting the Coronavirus; and it has been a delight -- having all 6 kids home and under my wing in this last year before they start leaving the nest one-by-one, driving to Utah to be with my family for my dad's memorial this summer, having Scott home for most of the year while working from his closet "office," experiencing such an outpouring of love and kindness and service while recovering from the Coronavirus, and having extra time on my hands to learn ALL kinds of stuff (from Adobe Photoshop/Lightroom/InDesign to politics and economics and practically everything in-between; CrashCourse on YouTube is my latest find and I love it). Yes -- 2020 has definitely been the year of both/and. And it's been really good for me to recognize that just because the going gets tough, it doesn't mean that all hope is lost. That is what I'll be taking with me into the new year.
Peace Out 2020! You've been a vibe.
2 comments:
AMEN.
Love you.
Yes to all of this! It's funny because I look back on our years in the MBA program as the hardest and best, but the difference is they were my HARDEST years, and Steve's BEST, haha. The summer internship was the one bright spot for me, buy I think it was mostly because it was warm outside and Steve only had 8 hours a day of work😊
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