It's that time of year again. When I don't just write posts, but actually publish them. (The amount of un-shared and/or half-written work is staggering.) When I actually blow the dust off and add another little chapter in my little corner of cyberspace. When I try to sum up a year of life 365 days and countless moments and memories into one word.
Odd to think I'm doing this for the 4th time. You'd think I'd have moved on by now to some other project. That would be more in line with my normal writing habits - always rushing off to write the newest idea that occurs to me. But some things are like home - you always end up back there no matter how much you rush around and neglect it the rest of the time.
Compared to the adventures described in last year's post, this year is going to sound boring. But it wasn't. This year was so incredibly full. Last year was full of waiting with spurts of adventure thrown in. This one was full of the mundane busyness of just trying to stay afloat in between the adventures. Last year I needed lots of pictures to show what happened. This year I think one picture explains it well enough.
Why this picture? It's just a girl looking tired with stringy, slightly oily hair holding up a cup of tea. You'd be right if you assumed that. In fact, I really had to think and swallow hard before posting it. I mean come on... couldn't I have had the forethought to fix my hair and hold the camera at a better angle?
But why the picture? Because it illustrates the difference between "adulting" and actually well... growing into an adult.
"Adulting" was a faddish word popular a little while back. Maybe it still is and I've just been too busy to notice. My social media news feeds were populated with pictures of glammed up people with perfect filters showing off the interview look, striking poses in front of brand new cars, or holding up expensive specialty coffees all nicely captioned with the hashtag "adulting." But I've been learning the truth of the matter is being a responsible, mature adult is rarely instagrammable. It's rarely even considered worth using up valuable storage space on your phone to snap a picture of. It's the interview that doesn't go so well. It's being belittled for being too young. It's doing the work no one wants to do or working for the sum no one wants to work for. It's buzzing in and out of the line because you're trying to justify spending a 1/3rd of an hour's paycheck on something you're going to glug down in 5 minutes or less and then realizing that the caffeine at 8pm is probably a bad idea considering you're going to have to go to sleep tonight to wake up and start work before 6am the next morning. It's checking and responding to a message about comma placement from a student when you were on the verge of a personal meltdown. It's figuring out which system works best for you to keep track of bill paying and washing the dishes and turning the heat up on the veggies because you forgot to cook supper.
So the picture up above? It was me realizing I had just done something actually "instagrammable." I'd just gone out with cousins, had a fun time in a hip coffee shop, and bought my favorite tea. Every girl takes pics driving with their favorite hipster drink right? Except... it didn't turn out quite right. I had parked and took a couple shots without a filter. I look fresh off of a busy day of appointments, one including finding out some maybe not so good news about the future of one of my best paying jobs. The make-up is either faded or non-existent by the time the day reaches that late. And my car is no gorgeous new thing... it's a loved, 16-year-old, shared mini van we wouldn't trade for a brand spanking new one. I was happy. It was a full day in a full life. And that's quite enough. Way more than enough.
See this year started with a job application after a year of trying and closed doors and head banging. Because one must have experience but few people take the chance to give you some. It ends with 5 jobs and one tired but happy little girl muddling her way through adulthood. This large and happy upgrade in life is in large part due to the moms in my life. It started with my family and mom pushing me to get a good education and, when the jobs didn't immediately come, to go get another certification. It continued with a couple of mothers of friends of mine voluntarily sticking their neck out for me and declaring I was good enough to hire.
A typical day lives up in full to the name of my business. It's all about words - editing words and typing words and lesson planning how to teach how to write words and teaching how to pronounce words and writing words on Post-It notes and memos and text messages. So while the world complains about 2016... I think I'll consider it a good year.
So the word for this year?
Work.
Growing. Lots of growing.
Not just career wise but life wise.
Because it's more work than getting up and doing my job(s). This year meant a lot of personal growth too. A lot of being ok with the haters hating. And becoming more comfortable in my own skin. And losing some people and growing closer to others. It meant becoming faster, more efficient, and more confident at decision making. As a matter of fact, decision making might just have been one of the hardest things to get the hang of this year. There's no one to ask but you in the classroom... no one to ask but yourself where the comma goes when you're the last proofreader. There's no one going to make you read your Bible any longer or behave. It's up to you now to keep growing into being a responsible, proper, diligent, worthwhile person.
And growth takes work.
Lots of it.
But it's worth it.
Especially when you have the best family and friends in the world to bolster you along. Because while "work" may be the word of the year it was chock full of other things too - like encouragement, climbing under waterfalls, surprises, seeing another Catherine after 3 years apart, laughing at midnight, deep conversations, and sunshine. It's a good life even on the bad days. ;)
Have a blessed and beautiful 2017, everybody!
