No. 71: I Thought I Failed January--Turns Out I Just Failed to Name and Accept my Season.

And a difficult update from one of your favorite letters

A few days ago, I lost a dear friend. The same friend that spoke the words that were a balm to my soul and, in turn, a balm to so many of you in the letter I shared with her permission, You Will Be a Brave Mom. She was magic. She was a mother. She was younger than me. She wasn’t afraid. I’m forever grateful to my angel of a sister-in-law for bringing her into my life. She went to be with Jesus on Sunday and I turned thirty-four on Tuesday which means this week has done the thing grief and birthdays always do—the reorienting and re-formatting you couldn’t otherwise manufacture if you begged. I wrote most this email last week and let it sit to marinate while I worked on the January Favorites letter, obviously having absolutely no idea whatsoever about what was to come. In the days since Elayna’s passing, I’ve thought more about my priorities than I have in a long time and it only makes sense that the Lord had already put these words on my heart.

I can’t believe I was lucky enough to love her and laugh with her and be made better by her. You can read more about her here in this sweet post from her own children’s clothing line, photographed with her precious babies. If you feel so led, please take a moment today to lift up her family and friends—she lit up their world.

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Everyone says January feels a hundred years long—I get it, I do. What with the repetition of generally ho-hum (‘offensive’ and ‘sucky’ also fit here) weather and settling back into school and work and the monotony of knocking the cobwebs off of every routine in your life. Sure, the gears feel rusty for a while, but deep down in my bones, I always end up feeling like January actually went by way too fast. I had big goals, big dreams, high expectations of myself and everyone around me and I tend to feel, I don’t know, disappointed? I almost always have this top outer layer that says, “I’m gonna be really chill and super casual about my goals. I’ll be gentle with myself and recognize the actual season I’m in, not the season I imagined I’d be in when I made these lofty plans. For real this time, just watch!” But right underneath that top layer—the fake layer, the padding—is the meat. And the meat, the real heart of it all says, “I will be better this year. I will be new this year. And by this year, I mean right now.” That layer has been tricked into believing my struggles, my season and my shortcomings will not transfer over from 11:59pm last year to 12:00am this year. Of course logical me knows better, but logical me loses most battles if I don’t put up a fight.

I have a certain box on my beloved goals tracker that had yet to be checked off even once in January. I noticed the sea of open squares next to “walk forty minutes five days a week” yesterday and dropped everything to walk around our cul-de-sac until E woke up from his nap. Did I push the goal-needle? Sure. Did I get a late start to making dinner, leave later than I wanted to pick up the big kids and miss my single slot of the day to elevate my legs? You bet. In the end, I ultimately moved multiple other goal-needles back.

I had to stop and realize that the reason I haven’t met my walking goal isn’t because of laziness or lack of discipline like I’m tempted to feel. In a ten second moment of reflecting and truth telling, I named the real culprit: I set goals for a season I’m no longer in.

Dreams are different than goals. I have big dreams set at the feet of the Lord and offered up in big prayers and silent whispers and across the pillow with O. Those dreams are filled with “somedays” and “one days” and “it’ll take a miracle” language. My goals are tangible, present, active and urgent. This means the steps to reach these right-this-minute pursuits have to fit in my right-this-minute life.

I have herniated discs in my back that are currently flared up because my Hashimoto’s is flared up. I have varicose veins in my legs that severely limit me from an exercise standpoint and I currently have the fullest schedule I’ve ever had in my life. The cherry on top is that I’m breastfeeding a delicious, albeit eternally hungry seven month old baby boy. A baby boy who still doesn’t sleep through the night. I am exhausted. I am over-scheduled. I am over-committed. I am overspent and unfortunately, I am still in a season where all of that is just par for the course. It’s not a glaring red flag to drop everything, but it might be a glaring red flag not to add anything lofty and unrealistic, either. This is what I’ve told myself over and over: