It's time to take stock of how well I followed through with my goals for 2019 and to set resolutions for the coming year!
This year, I will honor what is fast becoming one of my favorite shows of all time: The Good Place. In the same spirit of another soothing, thoroughly enjoyable show recently alluded to on this blog, this show has been a comforting delight in rerun mode, only to become a fresh and novel delight now that I finally have access to the current (and very sadly final) season. I love it because it's basically a lighter, sweeter, and more humorous version of one of my other favorite shows ever (well, only season one, but still). I very highly recommend it!
Without further ado, let's roll!
My 2019 resolutions were:
1. Participate in concerted anti-racist resistance.
I operationalized this resolution in the following way:
--Ongoing involvement in anti-racist organizations and participation in at least one related training.
--Advocating with elected officials especially related to issues related to systemic racism.
--Taking opportunities to have conversations with other white people about racism.
--Practicing my right to peacefully assemble and demonstrate at least 3 times.
--Supporting businesses and projects created by people of color.
Overall, I would say I definitely have room for improvement in this domain. My involvement in a local recurring anti-racist study group waned over the course of the year as the group's momentum flagged a bit due to changes in membership and format. I attended some one-off symposia on topics related to racism (including one on the racist history of the war on drugs and one on the history of a major supreme court decision that determined the rights of Black Americans). I also continued self-directed education through reading books and articles, but that's more of a supplement than a substitute for in-person engagement with this work.
I've advocated with elected officials especially using a very handy now-old-standby app, although again my engagement in that advocacy fluctuated a lot over the year.
I've broached issues related to race and racism in in-person conversations and online, but it's another issue altogether to assess how effective those conversations have been. It's a lot easier to control how my thoughts come across and gauge the tone and productivity of a conversation when it happens in person, of course. Recognizing that in many/most cases online discourse is an exercise in shouting into the void, I could still stand to improve how I participate in those conversations to increase the (admittedly tiny) chances that *someone* actually pauses and considers my perspective instead of reflexively regressing into sarcastic despair.
Frustratingly, I don't think I accomplished my 3 demonstrations/year goal this year. I attended one local memorial demonstration for a victim of police brutality that was incredibly powerful and hope to do better attending similar demonstrations in the near future.
Finally, while there are some PoC-owned businesses I've patronized over the year, I could be a lot more concerted about that. This was something I especially did while holiday shopping in 2018 at several local arts fairs, but since my child was born in the weeks before the holidays, going out to shop was not a viable option this year around. I would love to keep doing that in the coming years as well as finding businesses to support year-round.
2. Grow roots in New Home.
I aimed to do this by:
--Trying new restaurants, going to events, and exploring New Home.
--Regularly spending time with family and new and old friends.
--Nesting.
I did a decent job of this one! Husband and I ate some delicious food, got to spend time with people we love and are just getting to know, and made the ultimate nesting maneuver (see below). New Home makes these things easy, which is part of the reason I love New Home so much. And still, I feel like there’s so much more to explore!
3. Learn about my heritage.
I unfortunately made pretty minimal progress on this one. I struggle to keep up with regular language learning and haven’t really meaningfully done much else to learn about my heritage. I’ll need to work more on this one.
4. Find and enforce balance.
Can I just say: LOLLLLLL
In the run-up to the birth of my child, in addition to my pre-existing jobs, I wrote a college course from scratch and taught it while buying a home and moving. I basically smashed this resolution into a million little pieces.
...But all of that was in pursuit of a life that ever more embodies what I want for me and my family. If I’m lucky, I’ll get to teach that course more than once, and I won’t be moving again for many many years.
5. Watch at least 52 movies.
I did the thing!
Hopefully I will be able to complete my year in movies review shortly!
Especially in light of very recent life developments, it's been interesting to attempt to set both thoughtful and realistic intentions for the coming year. I honestly feel a bit anxious about this process because, never having been a parent before, it feels nearly impossible to accurately anticipate how the next year of my life will go and therefore impossible to accurately gauge what aspirational goals I will be able to accomplish. And resolutions are meant to be reaches, right? I have no idea what a reasonable reach looks like in the first year of parenting.
As I already shared, I know I want to maintain my selfhood as I grow into parenthood rather than disappearing into parenting only to re-find myself when my child someday launches into independence. I also very much want to be a mindful, attuned, flexible parent, and see staying in contact with who I am outside of parenting as a way to do that.
Resolutions for 2020
1. Share precious things with my child.
I realize now that there’s perhaps a false binary set up in the premise that there is a parenting self and an everything else self. Of course aspects of yourself are more and less apparent when you’re parenting, at work, with friends, with your partner, or alone, but respecting and maintaining one’s personhood means inhabiting each of those roles with authenticity. I’m extremely lucky that this is easy to do in each of my roles, in large part because the people I’m around in the different realms of my life allow me to do it.
All of that is to say that parenting can actually be yet another way my identity is not only expressed, but gets to further blossom. Already, sharing things that are precious to me with my child—music and people, especially—have been some of the most deeply emotionally rewarding and powerful moments of my life. So for this first resolution, I want to commit to actively sharing parts of myself with my child, as evidenced by:
—Playing my favorite music for them
—Reading them my favorite stories and finding new favorite stories
—Exposing my child to languages other than English*
—Engaging in curiosity-driven learning with them and discovering new things together*
—Playing with them
—Sharing food with them (when they’re ready!)*
—Developing and sharing family traditions with them*
—Engaging in anti-racist parenting (and actively learning how to do that)
* = Bonus, this is a way in which I can build more of my heritage into our everyday lives!
2. Stay in contact with friends and loved ones.
I don’t think I could overstate how valuable it’s been to have the support and knowledge offered by multiple people throughout my pregnancy and following the birth of my child. There are so many aspects of those experiences that were made easier because of the wisdom, experience, and love people have offered me. Knowing that many experience parenting as profoundly isolating, I want to ensure I fend that off by actively staying in touch with the people I love. I will do that by calling someone during my commute and texting someone else at least once a week.
3. Be a mindful, attentive, and curious parent.
I want to do my best to actively attune with my child rather than slipping into autopilot. In only two months, there are already many ways in which my child expresses what they need or want, and the number of things they need or want has increased! Even in the midst of all this rapid change, careful attention to their cues often points the way. Since their repertoire of communication, abilities, and needs grows all the time, staying attentive and curious about what they’re expressing will make me as skillful as I can be. As much as possible, I want to respond to them with accurate empathy so they learn they are consistently and lovingly heard.
So how will I know if I’ve accomplished this? For now, the main thing I’ve been trying to do is closely pay attention to my baby’s vocalizations, facial expressions, and body language and trust that they know best what they need. I’ve learned this most clearly through my child’s expression of their appetite: there have been several times where I’ve had to check my incredulity that the baby is *seriously* still hungry because, *seriously*, the baby is still hungry. It’s not like babies can lie, after all!
As we like to say in therapyland, “You are the expert on you.” So: baby is the expert on baby. I just need to be willing to listen to what they have to say and not get overly bogged down in my contradictory preconceptions of what makes sense.
4. Engage in political action.
In the name of all that is holy, this is hopefully the home stretch of a catastrophic presidential administration.
Especially now that my much-anticipated child is actually here, it feels ever more urgent that the governmental ship is righted. I want to play an active role in ensuring that actually happens. So, I will:
—Actively support the rival candidate
—Engage in advocacy with my elected officials especially on issues related to equity and justice
—Engage in anti-racism as much as possible, both through self-directed learning and in-person discourse, training, and demonstration
5. Watch 52 movies.
I’m going to impose a caveat for this, my first year making this resolution as a parent. While I’m still aiming to watch 52 movies in 2020, I am going to make the following adjustments to the goal:
—It’s okay if I don’t watch a movie in its entirety.
—I still get to count movies I’ve seen before.
Hopefully these are accommodation enough to ensure I still meet this goal. We’ll see!
So now: into the new year, with gusto!
{Heart}
