A Quiet Year of Listening

It's here, the day so loved by my mother. New Year's Eve with all its promise and potential and opportunities for do overs. That day when she would find a scrap of paper, and jot down her hopes for the upcoming year. Her list usually included 'lose a few pounds', but mostly it was about learning, reading more, writing more, and a few things she could do to improve the world around her. 

After what we've all been through in 2020, if my mother was still here, I'm confident her list would look different. My civil rights minded, left-leaning mother would still be about improving the world any way she could. It amazed me, when she was in her late 70's, and she went door to door, trying to get out the vote for an upcoming election because she disagreed with the war in Iraq. She said boys were being killed and she wanted it stopped. I can only imagine what she would have done with the election this year. I do know she would have been out doing something to make a difference. She wouldn't have been busy trying to lose a few more pounds. 

Whatever any of us had in mind for this past year, whatever we hoped and dreamed for, it likely didn't happen. My word of the year for 2019 was Cherish, long before covid entered my world; I. had no idea how appropriate it would end up being. I learned better what it means to cherish my circle of people, and to cherish so much of what I'd taken for granted before, everything from toilet paper to touching the door handles of shops and actually walking inside. Checking out a library book, going to the movie theater or a restaurant, even hugging - or possibly even being with - my family members.  

Most of what I thought worth pursuing back on December 31, 2019 I soon found to be of little importance in light of what was going on in our world. 

So for brand spanking new 2021, in honor of my mother who was always looking ahead, dreaming of a better version of herself, of a better world, here's what I've been thinking about:

Quiet and listening. 

We've been so loud this year, about everything it seems. About covid, and masks and people's rights and politics and on and on it goes. It seems to me we've done so very little listening, to each other, and even to our own hearts. 

We don't think. We react. To everything. And everyone.

We're all so quick to tell everyone what we think, how we feel. Yet we rarely get quiet and really listen to others. And have we really, really taken the time to think about what we believe, and why? What really matters? 

These past few months, when we were still in Idaho, and then when we came back to our brand new home in Texas, I unexpectedly had the time to do just that. To consider what I want my life to be about, and what I don't want as well. I looked at my circle of family and considered if I was really investing in them as I should. I saw I wasn't. I looked at friendships we've made over the years and was honest about how much I have to invest.  I considered how I spend resources -  time or energy or finances or a sense of peace and calm in my life. Am I being a good steward of all I have been given, and am I being the best helpmate to Cub Sweetheart that I can be? Again, I fell short.

I want to face this upcoming year with hope and courage and a renewed sense of bringing my best to it, where it matters most. I will make the hard choices to cull and eliminate the good for the best. 

My doctor would like me to lose a few pounds, lower some numbers and I'll work toward that. I'd like to grow savings, waste less resources.  I'd like to read great books, but mostly this year I just want to be more quiet and truly listen. Not just stop talking when others are, but really listen to them, even when they're not speaking. I'd like to listen to my own heart and trust it more. Sixty-five years is long enough to try to please everybody all the time I think, so I'm going to go with what I know to be true and be brave enough to act on that. 

Say no even when it's not well-received.

Say yes when it's the right answer for me. 

More than anything I want to be quiet enough to hear those whispers God has just for me; I want to listen to what my own heart tells me is true; I want to do the same for those who matter the very most to me. 

Here's to a brand new year, full of promise, to so many opportunities to love that circle of people God has blessed me by putting in my life, and to my mom who never lost hope, in others, or in a better version of herself.

Happy 2021 everyone.