Good evening friends!
We are about to end what has been the most upheaval-packed, devastating, difficult year in recent memory, and obviously: good riddance. As is our annual routine, it's time to assess how I did in upholding my resolutions for this year and set intentions for what, in the name of all that is good, will hopefully be a gentler and brighter year.
To further commemorate 2020, this post will be enhanced with some excellent memes lampooning this, the shittiest, shittiest year. We'll start with one that's also a throwback to last year's theme (and a show so excellent I am yet again rewatching it, after finally having roped Husband into watching it with me):
My 2020 resolutions were:
1. Share precious things with my child.
I'm pretty satisfied with how I've done on this one! Happily, it's gotten easier and easier to do this as my child has gotten older over the course of this year. I've gotten to play with them, enjoy music with them (they even ask for music through sign language now!), introduce a range of foods, and carry forward and develop new family traditions with my child as they've become more and more able to communicate enjoyment and curiosity.
I was able to put into place some of those new traditions in the last month, and I'm really happy to have set a precedent I can hopefully continue as my child grows up. For example:
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| Lovely saffron buns inspired by Sweden and Norway's Saint Lucia Day! |
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| A classic British-style Christmas cake with a recipe by none other than MARY BERRY. YES THAT MARY BERRY. |
The moment I realized my child's eyesight had developed to the point that they were actually looking at the illustrations of books I read to them is one of the most exhilarating moments of the year. That said, their emerging manual dexterity has brought with it an ability to destroy books (even--dare I say especially--board books?!), so I am currently instead eagerly amassing a growing library for when reading my child stories does not include delicately yet frantically liberating fragile pages from the iron grip of chubby tiny fingers.
All that to say: It's so exciting looking forward to the ever more things we'll be able to do together as they grow up.
2. Stay in contact with friends and loved ones.
I'm also pretty happy with my fulfillment of this goal! God I miss being with all the people I love and enjoy. It feels thoroughly indecent to give this pandemic credit for anything good, but I will acknowledge that it's forced my hand in staying more actively in touch with people. The blunt force of profound physical isolation this year and my child's growing autonomy (or at least, their development beyond sleeping on me for most of the day) has at turns driven and facilitated a lot of connecting with friends and loved one this year, and I am so much better off for it. A clear difference between bad weeks and good ones is that I've spoken with more people I care about during the good ones. Perhaps one of the (admittedly razor-thin) silver linings of the pandemic is that we've all gotten pretty accustomed to teleconferencing platforms as a standard way of staying in touch with people, bringing us closer together and allowing us to be present in each other's lives even if there are barriers to us being together.
3. Be a mindful, attentive, and curious parent.
Three for three so far: I'm also pleased with how I've handled this goal! Honestly, mindfully attending to my child has been perhaps the biggest way in which I have mentally and emotionally survived this year. It helps that my child is the most deeply lovable, sweet, and enjoyable human being, and also that they are ever more able to communicate what they need or want in a way that I understand. For example, they have gotten really good at cheerfully pointing at a desired thing and saying, "Dat?" which I appreciate as an early form of politely requesting things. Making them happy and learning what they're interested in is fascinating and wonderful.
That said, I can absolutely work on not getting sucked into my phone--as can we all, I suspect. I like to teach my clients that mindfulness isn't about perfectly attending, but about gently bringing your mind back to what you'd like to focus on, over and over again. Thankfully, it's incredibly reinforcing coming back to my child over and over again.
4. Engage in political action.
I definitely could have done better with this one, especially in terms of my consistency. I went through phases of consuming a lot of antiracist media, contacting elected officials, and a bit of political campaign contributing, but then went through phases where this felt beyond what my energy and depleted emotional strength would allow for. I know the goal isn't perfection here, but it is to do this in a way that isn't so feast or famine.
5. Watch 52 movies.
Finally, happily: a perhaps alarming degree of success, facilitated both by my previously very sleepy baby and also by the fact that there isn't all that much else to do this year. This year's year-end round-up will include quite the list!
So again, I am loath to admit anything good coming of the pandemic, but I have to acknowledge the not-coincidence that I've done a better job achieving most of my resolutions this year than in most previous years. Of the good things that could continue once the pandemic ends, hopefully the ways in which it has forced us to be present, mindful, engaged, and connected will endure.
With that in mind, we can move on to my goals for next year.
Resolutions for 2021
1. Keep developing family traditions and learning about family heritage.
I'm glad the winter holiday season prompted me to take a crack at bun-baking, Tomte-placating, and cake-making, because otherwise I wouldn't have gotten much accomplished in the way of weaving our heritage into our annual rituals. I would love to do that throughout the year. In recent years I've also been hoping to successfully build a routine around learning Swedish and, more recently, thereby expose my child to at least some of that language. My little app makes that so easy!! I hope I can actually keep that up.
2. Invest in my home.
This ties together a couple of important goals of mine, some of which are particularly developed with an eye toward the post-COVID era. The main things I'd like to do are:
--Nesting: We've managed to do some really great work making our new home more and more what we want it to be. I would like to keep that up in big and small ways, including continuing to decorate (having missed the day in grown-up school where everyone else learned how the hell you frame things??) as well as some bigger projects.
--Supporting local institutions and businesses: I really want to be able to support the museums, cultural institutions, shops, and restaurants I love in the City Where I Live. This goal also enables me to divest myself as much as possible from Amazon, because Jeff Bezos is the fucking worst and he doesn't need any of our damned money.
--When it's safe, exploring more: We were still relatively recent returnees to City Where I Live when the pandemic struck. There is so much more to this city that I want to discover, and so much I want to share with my child. I'm so excited to learn about the ways we can enjoy this city together.
3. Build a practice of sustainable antiracist civic engagement.
As I was thinking about this goal, I asked myself the questions, "What are the things that have been possible for me to do? How might I evolve and evaluate that?" My dual goals here are to be both realistic about what I can sustainably do as well as being accountable for actually doing it.
This year, the things I've been able to consistently do are read articles, share information on social media, watch movies dedicated to antiracist topics, contribute (humbly yet thankfully regularly) to some antiracist organizations, and more recently, whenever possible buy gifts for people from Black-owned businesses. I only contacted elected officials in fits and starts. In previous years, I've read books and participated in both ongoing and one-off antiracist discussions and learning opportunities. I'm really gratified by each of those activities. Some are of course more emotionally difficult than others, but the good thing is that having a range of things I can do means I can titrate according to how my emotional stamina is doing.
The second question led me to the following idea: Maybe as a measure of holding myself accountable, I could share the resources I've found on this blog once a month? That might mean writing about a movie I've watched, an article I read, a cause that matters, or a business that sells really cool stuff. I can keep those posts really brief to ensure I actually write them, which marries nicely with my next resolution. Hopefully this approach means that I sustain antiracist engagement throughout the year.
4. When possible, dedicate time to my interests and hobbies.
There have been admittedly rare moments where I had a little period of time to do whatever I wanted, and I often felt at a total loss for what to do with it. It reminded me so much of the feeling of coming to the end of graduate school, when I was suddenly confronted with all the interests and passions I'd put on hold while learning to be a psychologist. Having reflected with a bit of horror on the paralysis of those moments, I remind myself that some of the things I like to do are:
--Reading
--Meditation (including learning more mindfulness and self-compassion practices)
--Learning (including about therapeutic techniques, because being a therapist is just so interesting)
--Writing (which marries quite nicely with resolution #3)
--And obviously, finally:
5. Watch 52 movies.
My happily abundant success on this evergreen resolution this year was in part facilitated by the caveats I put in place last year. They took the pressure off to always watch something unfamiliar or stick with something even if I didn't like it. (Funny how lessening the grip of perfectionism empowers us to be ever more successful in achieving our goals, huh?)
I'm also incredibly thrilled that I not only managed to write a post for every month this year (because perfectionism's grip is loosened but by no means nonexistent), but also that I've written more than every other year except for 2018. I feel so deeply satisfied by that! I hope I can keep up that level of engagement in this blog in the coming year, as well.
And with that: Again, gtfo 2020, you awful stinkball of a year.
I wish you all a happy, fulfilling, healthy, safe, brave, and love-filled 2021.
{Heart}
....I couldn't help but offer you one more meme that has nothing to do with 2020 but is nevertheless hysterical. Who couldn't use a little dose of Ron Swanson, anyway?
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