You were made for THIS.

New Year, Be You!

Today is the 7thof January, which means we are seven days into the new year, and I am just now getting this New Year’s Newsletter out to you. The lesson here is: January 1st is a great day to get going on your goals and dreams, but so is January 7th, or 17th, or May or September. I hope I am not the first person to tell you this year that you are doing a great job!

One reason this letter is going out on the 7th instead of the 1st is because three out of three kids (that’s 100% of my children) have had the pukes within the first seven days of the year. It started with August, who puked through the night and who reminded me that I am a pro puke catcher. He refuses to use a bowl or toilet or a bucket, yet not a drop hit the ground because of my newly discovered spiritual gift called, “catching all the puke with all the towels”. Two days later it was Truly who managed to make a mess which I am certain is the worst of my career as a parent. And then two days later our sweet little Macyn Hope who did all her puking at her grandparent’s house…thanks Gra and Papa! We owe you our lives.

But this little essay of mine is not about the health of my children but rather about my thoughts for this New Year which came to me in the middle of the night between puke catching and/or cleaning sessions… 

I love the fresh start a new year brings. I like the idea of reflecting back on what was and looking forward to all that can be. I have a number of goals or resolution for 2019, including getting two newsletters out a month. But I also recognize that a New Year can conjure up a great deal of stress and false narratives and disappointments. I know that’s true for me at least. This is because the new year also brings with it a slew of mantras about “do more” and “do better” and “you’re made for more” and “ten steps to a better you”. All the more, more, more, and better, better, better that saturates our January leaves me lying in my bed in the middle of the night waiting to catch the next round of puke and wanting to curl up and cry, not because of the puke but because I start to believe that while I am doing my very best here, it may not good enough?!

This year I find that January is getting all of my untrusting side-eye (and it has nothing to do with all the puke I have caught in towels or cleaned out of mattresses). Here’s the thing, I am a 37-year-old women (which is very, very, very young, thank you very much!) and mother of three and when I hear people say things like “you were made for more”, I have come to a point in my life when I feel the need to push back and say, “well, actually, what if I was made for this”? What if the very thing I am committed to, the raising of kids and the shouting of worth and the sifting of narratives is the very thing I was made for? What if I am doing enough? What if you are doing enough?

What if you are enough?!

 Let me explain a little more. My issue with the idea of being made for more is there is an unlimited amount of “more” out there. And with social media being what it is today, often times we find the “more” we are told we are made for happening in squares in the lives of those around us. Someone else’s, “this” becomes our “more” and we find ourselves lying in our beds in the middle of the night thinking about all the ways in which we have failed in life. 

So dear friends, as we begin this new year a word of caution, or encouragement or a mix of the two: while we strive to be the best version of ourselves and while we set goals and reach them like a boss, let’s remember that someone else’s “more” is not our “more”. And as we work towards the “more” in our own lives let’s not lose sight of the “this”. Let’s not lose sight of the very thing we are already slaying right now and let’s not lose sight of the fact that at this very moment you are doing your very best and it is enough! I am going to say that again:

What you are doing is enough. You are enough!

 Because while there can and should be a grand adventure ahead, a “more” if you will, which requires planning and courage and risk, there is also a “this”. Which from time to time may take the form of catching all the puke before it can hit the blankets and then snuggling next to a sick child as his only form of comfort. And while these moments do not equate to a New York Times best seller, or speaking on stages in front of thousands, let us find great peace and contentment when we look at the lives we are living and the ways we trying and the love we are sharing and say, “I was made for this”. 

So thankful to be on this journey with you.

Shouting their worth,

Heather