2021 Reflections

What's Worked? What Hasn't Worked?

2021: In Review

In modern life, we tend to think more about tomorrow than yesterday. Time, as we experience it today, rushes us onwards. Who has time to think about last week when next week’s urgencies are upon us?

I love the New Year because I think space opens us for us, not simply to resolve for the year ahead, but reflect on the year behind.

There’s an important emphasis in Scripture on remembering, on gaining perspective from the past. Let’s share the stories of history with the generations to come, writes the Psalmist, that “they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments” (Ps. 78:7).

I follow Emily P. Freeman’s work, and I’m grateful for the practical advice she gives for engaging regular practices of self-reflection. (I bought copies of her guided journal for my daughters for Christmas: because who doesn’t need help making decisions, especially if you’re 17 and 20?) In one of her final podcasts of the year, she proposed asked just two simply questions of 2021: What’s worked? What hasn’t worked?

I’ve attempted answering those two simple questions for different areas of responsibility in my life—the areas of responsibility that head every weekly spread of my planner. (I use the Planner Pad, if you’re interested.) I’m not sharing everything I came up with for my own list: because the list is quite long and because some things are more private than others.

In fact, my goal here isn’t to give you my list but to encourage you to find some time this week, when you’re likely home and spending at least a little bit of time in your pajamas, to make your own list. Then, with that list, to set some intentions for the year ahead, should God choose to give us more breath and more days.

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FAMILY LIFE

What’s worked in our marriage, in parenting, in our relationships with extended family?

·      Using last year’s Christmas break to plan this year’s summer visits back to the States. Ryan and I booked our calendars the day after Christmas last year for the summer: visits to the States, kids’ camps, my MFA residency. We even booked our VRBO’s. This prevented last-minute rush, and it allowed us to prioritize these visits in our busy family calendar.

·      Having a psychoeducational assessment completed for one of our children. I had a niggling feeling that one of our kids needed a little more support at school. We paid for a psychoeducational assessment, diagnosed a learning disability, and have gotten help. What a difference it’s made, especially in academic confidence! I know these assessments are expensive and unaffordable for many. But the point more broadly is: follow your gut instincts, and advocate for your children.

·      Walking with Ryan most nights after dinner. I think we’ve circled our neighborhood blocks hundreds, if not thousands of times, in the last two years. I love this habit of ours, which allows us to regularly catch up on things big and small.

·      Sharing more household responsibilities. Everyone’s doing their own laundry. Everyone’s doing regular chores. Camille’s even started driving everyone to school. During the pandemic, I’ve gotten a lot better about naming desires (beforehand) rather than naming resentments (afterwards). Even during this busy Christmas season, we’ve had all hands on deck, and it’s been marvelous.

·      Getting marriage counseling. This fall, we did four sessions with a therapist, and it gave us some ways to start understanding our unhelpful communication habits. We’ve been married 25 years, and this is our first paid counseling, which almost seems unthinkable now. Who doesn’t need a tune-up on their most important relationship?

·      Providing a little more hands-on help to my mom. I saw my mom for the first time this last summer since the pandemic started. We planned another visit in November, and it was good to have enough time to help her with some paperwork and practical decisions. I’ve also been sending her flowers regularly through Bloomsybox.com. I can’t believe how much she loves them. Ryan and I feel that we’re entering a new stage of life with our aging parents, and we’re trying to make the necessary adjustments to honor them with our time and our care.

What’s hasn’t worked in our marriage, in parenting, in our relationships with extended family?

·      Eating in the kitchen. We have 7 seats around our kitchen island, and we also have a dining room. When we sit at the island to eat together, dinner turns into a quick and dirty affair. When we sit in the dining room, on the other hand, we tend to linger longer. There are complaints that our dining room is too dark, whereas our kitchen has a lot more natural light.  And though this is true, there’s still an important argument for eating in the dining room!

·      Watching too much tv at night. Until the pandemic, I wasn’t really a tv watcher. But after the world shut down, we fell into the habit of a watching show or two at night together. It’s not the worst habit in the world—but two shows definitely feel like one show too many. Our small group is reading A Common Rule together, and the author suggests curating media to four hours a week. That’s something I’m going to at least attempt in the months ahead, at least when we get to that chapter.

·      Twin bickering. Our twins fight—a lot. They’re super different, and everything turns argumentative. I have no consistent solutions for this, except to pay attention to the kinds of conditions (emotional, physical, relational) that exacerbate the conflict and head-them off at the pass.

·      Not having a regularly scheduled call with Audrey and Nathan. I don’t want to nag my college-aged children to call me, but I do want to talk to them more frequently. I don’t know if the best way is to schedule a regular weekly call, but this is something I hope to talk to them about when they’re home from vacation for another week.

·      Not having a regularly scheduled date night with Ryan. In all our married life, we’ve never had a regularly scheduled date night. I don’t know that we need a lengthy dinner every week (we do have our regular walks), but I know we could prioritize each other more. One thing we will do this week is consecrate a morning to do another round of yearly calendar planning, like we did last year.

·      Seeing our extended families too little. The pandemic has made travel across an international border, even the border between the US and Canada, very challenging. This continues to be a topic of discussion for us, especially as we’re feeling drawn to be present to our aging parents.

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HOUSEHOLD

What’s worked about managing the practicalities of our common life?

·      Paying someone to clean the house. Yes, this is a huge privilege, I know. But it does save us a lot of time.

·      Regular meal planning. I’ve been doing this since the kids were small. It’s a beast of a chore—but I’m always glad when I’ve done it and planned ahead.

·      Saturday chores. Even though someone cleans our house twice a month, everyone still has chores: cleaning up after meals, laundry, tidying their room, cleaning their bathroom, cleaning common spaces in the house. Saturday morning is usually the time for this—and yes, nagging is still sometimes required.

·      Returning to some rhythms of hospitality. I love cooking for people, and we’ve returned to doing this. In recent weeks, we’ve returned to some uncertainty about gathering, given rising cases and the Omicron variant, but hopefully we’ll only have a temporary pause.

·      Delegating wardrobe responsibilities to Ryan for the twins. Ryan is now fully in charge of all clothes for the twins. Hooray!

What hasn’t worked about managing the practicalities of our common life?

·      Not having replaced my digital recipe manager. I’ve used one particular software for years to organize all of my recipes, and about six months ago, it crashed on me. I can access my recipes, but not easily. Thankfully, Ryan researched new software for me for Christmas, so this will soon be fixed.

·      Not communicating clear laundry expectations to the twins. They’ve started to do the laundry, but for them, this can turn into a three- or four-day affair, during which my laundry room becomes a disaster zone. I’ve got to be better at saying: you are expected to get your laundry in and out and put away within 24 hours.

·      Teenager drivers (and messy cars). Again, clear expectations are key.

·      Careless spending. I do not have good habits of budgeting or recording what I spend. Every year I say I will—and don’t. If anyone has a simple solution, even an analog one, I’d love to hear it. Ryan does our financial planning, but given that I do most of the household spending, I know I could be wiser in this area.

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WORK

What’s worked in my life as a writer and MFA student?

·      Bible study. I studied wisdom literature this year for a speaking engagement, and it’s turned into quite a research interest. I am a regular Bible reader, but I am an irregular Bible student. This study I’ve done has proved more fruitful than I could have imagined, and it turned into a primary theme for my next book.

·      Deep reading. I read Julian of Norwich in Middle English for my MFA this spring, which took a lot of plodding and patience. But my goodness, how rich! And I’ve also liked the habit of writing annotations for my MFA program. It’s a quick 2-page engagement with the books I read, and it’s been fruitful.

·      Writing weekly work logs. I created a document to fill out at the beginning of the week. I record goals and track work in progress (file name, stage, notes). I also have a habit tracker for reading and journaling. This has been a life saver because I do a lot of different work, and from week to week, I can forget where I’ve left off on a project.

·      Book writing. I wrote a book in a very interruptive and stressful season of life, which feels like a miraculous answer to prayer. I’m not quite finished (January 10th deadline), but I’m almost there.

·      My new erasable pen. I love to write longhand: in my paper planner and my three-ring binder. It forces me to slow down as I think. The only trouble is that my hand gets tired, and my handwriting is atrocious. My new pen (Uni-ball erasable gel 0.7) helps on both counts.

·      Getting great feedback on my writing. My MFA mentor has been wonderful, and my (new to me) book editor has been equally wonderful. This has been such a gift: to have careful readers of my own work.

·      Experimenting with some different writing. I haven’t published any of the work I’ve done for my MFA. I’ve tried stretching my wings and doing some new kinds of writing. I want to do more of this.

What hasn’t worked in my life as a writer and MFA student?

·      Having files and notes spread out in a lot of different places: Evernote, Google Drive, Microsoft Work, Microsoft Excel, Things (app), Calendar, Email; Handwritten files and folders. I think I should look at Scrivener again, especially to organize the process of book writing.

·      Sharing my office. I had to do this on-and-off during the pandemic, and it works as a short-term solution. But I always miss a space that I can get super messy, especially when I’m writing a book. Again, I recognize the privilege of even having this “room of my own,” and yet I remain very grateful for it.

·      Not having a system for recording the books I’ve read. I’ve read lots this year, but I have not maintained a good system for keeping track of the titles. Generally, if I’m reading a book carefully, I’m taking notes in Evernote. But even if I’m not reading a book carefully, I still want to have a place for recording the title and my response I’ve got my Moleskin primed for this in 2022. We’ll see if I can stick with that system.

·      Not pursuing intentional relationships with other writers in my MFA program. I haven’t had the time to do this, but that’s been a loss, I think. I hope to change this in 2022.

·      Buying books, then changing my mind about reading them. I’ve spent too much money on books that I haven’t really been committed to reading. This has been a major part of my money wasting habit.

·      Not planning regular reading time. This next year, I’ll need to be reading a LOT for my MFA, and that’s not going to happen unless I plan the regular time. I find that even with the work I do, I still feel as if I must give myself permission to read during daylight working hours.

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SPIRITUAL PRACTICES

What’s worked in my spiritual life?

·      Fixed-hour prayer. I’ve become reliant on my 3 volumes of the Divine Hours to get me through the days of the year more prayerfully. I generally only do the morning and midday offices, so I’d love to try to include more evening/nighttime prayer this year ahead.

·      Small group. I don’t feel like I’ve been the model small group leader this fall, but I’m so thankful for the group and their consistency. Our monthly meals together have been especially memorable.

·      Daily journaling. I keep experimenting with different journaling practices (more guided reflection questions, no questions at all). I think what continues to seem most valuable is to start the day with one handwritten page of reflection on the day before. It’s a practice of attention that reminds me of the state of my relationships, what I need to bring to God in prayer, what is especially life-giving or life-draining.

·      Digital Minimalism. I’m borrowing this phrase from Cal Newport’s book, and while I don’t think I’m following his prescribed pattern exactly, I do know that I feel that I’ve been withdrawing from the digital world to be present in my actual one. It has sort of happened, beginning with an early pandemic decision to leave my phone in my bedroom for the first couple of hours a day. That’s become a life-changing digital habit for me.

·      Monthly Spiritual Direction. I’ve been doing this regularly for five years now. It’s a bedrock habit for me—and one that continues to help me notice of patterns of God’s activity in my own life.

What hasn’t worked in my spiritual life?

·      Fasting. I’ve had a very on-and-off fasting practice. I was more faithful when a friend and I were committed to fasting the same day of the week, but this has fallen off for the both of us.

·      Printed Monk Manual pages. I like the Monk Manual a lot, and it helped jumpstart both Ryan and me into our daily journaling practices in 2020. I’ve tried printing the pages at home (because I don’t like the waste of the binding), but I’m not super faithful to it, probably because it tends to become unnecessarily complicated. It’s too much to manage a planner, a journal, digital files, then these extra loose-leaf pages.

·      Scanning my journal pages and promising to reread them. Because I’m regularly journaling, I feel responsible to reread the pages. In a perfect world, I would. But this is not a perfect world, and this feels like something I’ve just got to say I can’t make time for. I’ll continue scanning them, but I won’t promise to reread them.

·      Following the church calendar. For a woman writing a book on time, I have the most pathetic practice of following the church calendar. (As in, I don’t.) I’m looking for a good resource here. Any suggestions?

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I’m opening up Post Script for comments for the very first time. Feel free to share some of your own 2021 reflections—and any helpful suggestions for me with some of the problems I’ve named!

As always, whether you’re new to my Monday letters or a longtime subscriber, I’m grateful you’ve chosen to read.

Jen