27
Last year I did this thing for my birthday where I made a list of 26 things I learned in year 26, and I posted it a little late because I was helping with a YoungLife banquet the actual day-of and had decided I wasn’t going to share it anywhere, anyway.
This year, I’m, uh… over two months late, because I spent my actual, November-4th birthday in a hotel room in Wapakoneta, Ohio eating a microwave burrito and watching 10 Things I Hate About You with my new dog. Which was a pretty weird day, honestly. And then I got back home and moved into a new house and got a new job and it’s all been really good but also a whole lot and I’ve just basically been trying not to drown since.
Between the amount of transition this year has held and the end of it rapidly approaching, I’ve been thinking a lot about the last few months — and just thinking a lot in general, ha. I finally decided that even though it’s way overdue, I wanted to make my birthday list. And share it this time. Just because.
In no particular order, 27 things I learned this year:
That teaching suits my giftings, that I like it, and want to pursue it.
How to substitute teach!
How to do my eyebrows. Feel like I really nailed down my process this year, not gonna lie.
99% of the time when I feel like my life is falling apart, I actually just need to sleep.
Just because someone expresses love differently than me doesn’t mean their love is lesser or invalid. Woof.
Letting go of old dreams is not the same as failing at them.
Letting go in general is not the same as failing, come to think of it.
How to use chopsticks.
Being outside does not make everything better but it never makes anything worse. This isn’t something new, necessarily, more just a very firm reaffirmation.
I’m allergic to surgical steel! Which is a thing that can be true, apparently! Who knew! And explains so much about why every piercing I’ve attempted since college has gone horribly, horribly wrong! Including my third attempt at inner lobes this spring! !!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Patience. (Ha. Will be learning this forever, but feel like this year forced some big and good strides within me.)
Process/growth mindset — something that I preach often but am not always great at actually practicing. In so many ways, this year of life required it of me. Thankful for that.
How to train for climbing, not just climb. The tactics and routines I dedicated a lot of this year to (shoutout Power Company Climbing!) will pay huge dividends in my climbing moving forward, and while my participation in the sport hasn’t looked like I expected this year, I know I’m well-equipped moving forward.
How to take lead falls! I made huge mental strides this year, and I’m incredibly proud of it.
To care what people think a little less, in a good way.
Popeye’s french fries are delicious.
Dying your hair hot pink is the way.
A lot about race and privilege — and there is still so much more to learn. Super thankful for and humbled by this one.
The importance of friends who see me at my ugliest/weakest and still choose to be my people anyway. I already knew it, but I think this year it sunk in for me in a real way that genuine depth of relationship can’t exist apart from that opportunity being extended, I don’t think. Until I’ve offered people a chance to love me at my low points, and vice versa, there’s only so close we can be. So incredibly grateful to know so many people who are fully behind the curtain in my life and love me well even still.
The importance of being clear in communication, which is something I’m still working on, because I always want to be very nice, and sometimes I am so nice that I am not clear, and then it is worse for everyone. So. Yes.
I can have a very full and interesting life without traveling. Thanks, COVID and a very weird work year, for forcing me to remember this.
But also, go on trips when you get the chance, because the whole world might shut down because of a global pandemic, who knows. I almost didn’t go to Israel with my parents last year, and I think about that a lot now. Super glad I did. Also glad I went to Big Bend right before everything imploded. Which… that was this year. That feels like three years ago. It’s insane.
To sometimes think before I say something I think is really funny in my head because occasionally it turns out it might land really badly outside of your head. The fact that I do this semi-regularly now is sometimes my only sign that I’m maturing at all.
To genuinely love my body and feel at home in it. It’s taken a long, long time for that to be true. Going to write more about it at some point, but just so grateful to be where I’m at with it all.
So much. About. German Shepherds. So much.
When to say no. (Again… still learning this one, and probably will be forever. But getting better at honoring margin and its importance in my life. Slowly, slowly, slowly but surely.)
How little I know. Which sounds weird, maybe; but I feel like the older I get, the more aware I become of my own limits and the more my curiosity grows. Kind of hope that’s always true.
