[Author’s Note: This story precedes 2018: A Year in Review — The List but is not critical to its reading. If you have stumbled upon this post but are interested primarily in our decisions, rather than our decision-making process, then I recommend that you read the aforementioned post instead.]
“Ok, babe, I’d like you to finish up within five minutes, and then we’re going to do our Year in Review.”
“… What?” my husband asked after a beat. It was Christmas night, and the baby had been asleep for a couple hours. Taylor had just slain a gold Bokoblin in Breath of the Wild and was understandably distracted.
“Remember how we were going to sit down and pick out the five words that describe 2018 and the five words we want for 2019?”
“Oh… yeah, that.” My husband paused his game and glanced toward the nursery.
“No, you can’t ‘phone a baby’,” I snapped before he could ask. His shoulders slumped a bit. “And unless you think ‘mum-mum’ or ‘uh-ee’ is a good descriptor, he won’t help you anyway. I think you can manage ten words.”
Taylor looked at me askance, silently challenging, I’ll bet I can’t!
We sat down at our kitchen table with a mostly-blank spiral notebook, and I flipped to a clean page. “Ok,” I started, “so I’m going to write down five words that I feel like described 2018, and then you’re going to do the same — without looking at my words — and then—”
“I get a point if my words don’t match your words?”
“Um, no. That’s a different game. And then we’ll look at all ten together and try to choose the five among them that best characterize our 2018.”
I quickly scrawled my five words, then passed the book back to Taylor. After a few minutes of thinking and writing, he set down the pen and announced, “Ta-da!”
I scanned down the lists. “Ok, it looks like some of these are basically the same,” I assessed, linking the almost-pairs: my “exhausted” to Taylor’s “endurance”; my “transitioning” to Taylor’s “refining”; and my “learning” to Taylor’s “discovery”. That left four unpaired descriptors: “fruitless” and “trapped” on my list, and “malleable” and “joyful” on Taylor’s.
“Man, all of my words are a lot more depressing than yours,” I commented. Taylor laughed.
“No, seriously — like, these are irreconcilable. There’s no word that combines ‘joyful’ and ‘trapped’.”
My husband sobered a bit. “True,” he responded, “but we did have a lot of joy this year. I think, since your life takes place in the metaphorical trenches, it’s just harder for you to see the joy.”
“Yeah. I guess you’re right.” I circled “joyful” and moved on.
“Ok, so what about these last three? I think ‘malleable’ is kinda the same as ‘transitioning’, so let’s incorporate it into that sentiment.”
Taylor: <grunts in assent>
I tapped my pen against the notebook. “So… that just leaves my two — ‘trapped’ and ‘fruitless’.”
“Yeah… what exactly did you mean by those?”
I sat back into my chair with a huff. “I mean, like, nothing I’ve done this year feels like it has any weight. Like it’s all just been worthless.”
“That’s not tr—”
“Yes, I know it’s not true,” I said quickly. “But it feels as though it’s true. I guess it’s more that I feel like I have to do everything that I do, even though it doesn’t make a huge difference, because it’s what I’m supposed to do. Does that make any sense?”
Taylor’s blank stare told me that no, it did not.
I took a breath and tried again. “Ok. What I’m saying is that we perceive that God wants us here — me at home, you at your current job — but I feel *trapped* in this small life that doesn’t really seem to offer many opportunities for success. Like, every win I have is a small one, you know? ‘Woo, got the baby dressed today!’ or, ‘Alright! It only took me three days to get the laundry put up this time!’ I’m not, like, rich and famous like I thought I would be after graduating from engineering school.”
“Would you rather go back to work? We can find a nanny and make it happen.”
His question was rhetorical. We’ve been around and around on this, and the answer is always the same.
“If God wants me to return to work, then He will very clearly open a door for that,” I sighed. “Plus, I don’t want to go back to engineering, and I’m not qualified to do anything else. Like, working at Victoria’s Secret wouldn’t even pay for the childcare.”
“So… what?” Taylor prompted.
“I mean… don’t you just feel like our lives are kinda small? But you’re right, ‘trapped’ and ‘fruitless’ are pretty negative and not really the words I want to use to describe the life that God has for us. It’s almost like it’s….” I trailed off. Words usually aren’t hard for me, but something about summarizing the past year was insurmountably difficult.
Taylor sat patiently as I thought.
“Limited!” I declared finally. “This past year has been limited.”
Taylor: <grunts in query>
“It summarizes both trapped and fruitless, but puts them in perspective,” I elaborated. “We are limited in the scope of what we can do as well as what we can accomplish. Ok, at least, what *I* can accomplish. My life, in particular, has taken place mostly in this house. But that won’t be the case forever,” I concluded.
Taylor cocked his head. “I’m not sure that I actually feel limited though,” he said.
“Really? You don’t feel limited when we can’t leave the house after 8pm because a babysitter isn’t in the budget most months?”
“Ok, yes I do,” he conceded, “but being limited isn’t always bad. Sometimes God places limits so that we can excel in a certain area, right? Don’t you think Paul felt pretty limited all the years he was in prison? But, he banged out a bunch of really important epistles in that time.”
“That’s a good point,” I acquiesced. After a pause, I added, “So… ‘limited’, then?”
“Yes, I think so.”
I circled “limited” to round out our list.
“Alrighty. Now for 2019.” Taylor retreated into the kitchen as I flipped the page and marked out our columns. I immediately jotted down “fruitful” — the opposite of “fruitless”, my first entry for 2018. And then I… sat there. And sat there. And sat there. I could not think of a single additional word for 2019. Worse than that, I couldn’t picture 2019, at all. I realized that, for the first time in my life, I have nothing on the calendar… for an entire year. (Ok, that’s not exactly true. Our current plans include — and are limited to — Bo’s first birthday party in February and the Labor Day Lift Off in September.) The year is my oyster, and I have absolutely no idea what’s inside — or even, what I want to be inside.
Meanwhile, Taylor wiped down the counters as he waited for the oven to heat. My holy crusade against our over-full freezer (described in Makin’ Bacon) has continued, and our target that night was a raw bread loaf. (Another Leroy acquisition, I believe.) After about twelve hours in our frigid kitchen, the loaf had finally crested the bread pan, somehow managing to be both over- and under-proved. Taylor stuck the lopsided blob o’ gluten into the now-hot oven and returned to the table… where I was still sitting idly by.
He grabbed the notebook and scribbled down five words over the next few minutes while I continued to sit in pensive contemplation. Why couldn’t I picture my life in 2019? It’s not that I don’t have any plans for my life — it’s that my plan is, “Wait for God to reveal a plan for my life.”
And He has — in stages. During my senior year, it was, “I don’t have a engineering job for you. I have a child for you.” So we walked in that (with a little kicking and screaming on my part). During my pregnancy, it was, “Work. Save money now for when you’ll need it.” So we walked in that. When I was recruited to return to my old department early in Bo’s life, it was, “This job isn’t for you. I have you at home right now.” So we’re currently walking in that. There has been no new revelation for our “plan” since Bo was about three months old, and every time I’ve tried to do something major to alter the course of my life, I have failed spectacularly. (Think: health and wellness home business, makeup artist, freelancer, etc.) So, in summary, we’re here until we hear otherwise.
But just because I don’t have a set agenda doesn’t mean that I can’t have hopes for how next year might turn out. As my husband finished up his list, I thought of all the negative descriptions I had used for 2018. I decided that I could probably just use their opposites for 2019. If I didn’t like this year, then I can hope that the next one will be different. I slowly picked out my remaining four words as Taylor retrieved the misshapen bread loaf from the oven.
When he sat back down, I uncovered his list of words and was heartened to find that most of them seemed to have analogues among mine. I started at the top of his list.
“Ok, so you have ‘grounding (relationships)’ — which ones?” I asked.
“Like, developing relationships that are grounding. I guess just actually making solid friends,” he answered.
“I have ‘close’, which I think is equivalent, except ‘close’ was also supposed to refer to us and God.”
“Well, yeah,” Taylor responded, “I kind of figured that went without saying.”
“Maybe for a mind-reader,” I grumbled. “Hmm. You know, I actually think these would both be better represented as ‘relational’.”
“Yeah, that works.”
I scanned the lists again. “I think ‘passionate’ and ‘rekindling’ might be equivalent,” I speculated. “What did you mean by that one?”
Taylor’s cheeks flushed a bit — a common occurrence, with his rosacea. “Like, rekindling the spark in our relationship,” he explained. “You know, with a new baby, things aren’t always… like, sometimes we choose Bo over each other, and we have to make sure that we continue to prioritize our relationship.”
“I wasn’t aware that we were missing our spark,” I stammered.
“We aren’t! At least, not completely,” he amended. “And it’s gotten better in the last month, even.”
I reflected on what he had said. It‘s true that things between us sometimes verge on clinical. “You have the baby.” “Please change his diaper.” “He needs to be fed now.” But surely we aren’t doomed to always just be loveless roommates?
Taylor leaned over and kissed me. “We’re ok!” he said, looking into my eyes. “I’m just making sure that we prioritize us.”
“Yeah, no, you’re right,” I answered. “I was thinking of ‘passionate’ as more along the lines of, like, doing stuff we’re passionate about, but it can incorporate, you know, marital passion, too.”
Next, I lumped Taylor’s “impactful” with my “directed” and “fruitful”.
“So, doing something meaningful, under the guidance of Christ?” I clarified.
“Yeah, pretty much. I’m hoping that this is the year we actually start a Millennials ministry in our church.”
“Yeah, me too.” You will know them by their fruits. I circled “fruitful” and moved on.
“Ok, so what did you mean by ‘solidifying’?” I asked.
“Like, settling into our roles and feeling confident in them. We’ve been parents for almost a year now.”
“So… what, any day now, we should start feeling like we actually know what we’re doing?”
“Yeah, but more than that. I mean, we stopped, like, resisting parenthood a while ago, but we should start actually, you know, embracing it.”
“Ok, then I think that goes with your ‘reassuring’, right? Is that just, like, reassuring that we’re on the right path?”
“Yes, that was exactly my reasoning. So both of those are about us… you know, accepting where we are.”
I added ‘accepting’ to the other two words, then analyzed the set. “It’s almost like… like, ‘contentment’. Like, ‘contenting’?”
I’m actually embarrassed at how long Taylor and I sat there and tried to think of an adjective that described contentment.
“Peaceful!” I finally shouted. I think it is a word that we have used maybe three times in all our years together. “Peaceful” just generally doesn’t describe me — but I’d like it to. I don’t think that our life will ever look peaceful, but we can have peace about it.
Taylor: <grunts in confirmation>
I moved on to the remaining word. “I think ‘impactful’ just gets wrapped into ‘fruitful’,” I said, “which leaves us a word short.”
I looked over at my husband, who decided at that moment to revert to his normal, laconic self. He shrugged his shoulders as if to say, I don’t know any words!
Again, we sat there silently, groping for the perfect word to set our intentions for 2019. Taylor was, alas, no help. I think that night may have used up all of his talking for the rest of this calendar year.
“What if,” I suggested, “what if we said ‘joyful’ for 2019, too?”
Taylor laughed. “Yeah! Why not? I want another joyful year for sure.”
And with that, I wrote and circled our last word, and we prayed over our hopes for next year. Emotionally exhausted, I set down the pen and closed the notebook (although, of course, I had to open it again to write this story and its companion piece, 2018: A Year in Review — The List). Taylor pulled me into his lap and kissed the top of my head.
“2019’s gonna be a good year, babe,” he whispered. “I just know it.”
2019 will be a good year! Taylor is correct 🙂