Goodbye January, Hello February

What ended, What I loved, and What I'm bringing into February

Good and Beautiful Things/Issue #48

We put up extra lights this month to brighten the long month of darkness. I may never take them down.

I’m working on something a little different for next week but in the meantime, I’m taking a look back at January. The following questions were shared by Emily P. Freeman in her monthly email.

What’s one thing that ended in January that needs to be named?

Chronic pain followed me into the new year, kicking off January with a burst of frustration and weariness. This past December marked seven years with this condition¹ and since I’m forty-six that means I’ve had physical pain every day that I’ve been in my forties.

Why am I talking about something that continued in January when Freeman’s question is a prompt to name something that ended?

What ended was my sure conviction that I would eventually find the cure for my chronic pain.

That sounds like a depressing answer, I know, but hang with me here for a moment. Yes, there is grief that comes along with this acknowledgement but there is also grace to move forward.

For years I’ve been frustrated by the pain while also convinced that I could eventually stop it if I just tried hard enough. Carrying that tension has left me angry at myself for not being able to make it happen and I’ve felt at war with my own body.

By acknowledging that some degree of this pain is probably here to stay, it’s actually allowing me to think of me and my body as players on the same team now. We’re in this together as we figure out a way to live life to the fullest while holding the reality that we have limitations.

I’m purposefully using the word “acknowledge” and not the word “accept” because acceptance sounds a little too docile for what this transition has been like for me. It hasn’t been easy. Hope keeps a light burning even as I admit that I have a condition that doesn’t show signs of resolving.

What about you? What's one thing that ended in January that needs to be named?

What's one thing I discovered this month that I love?

Just as I started to figure out my rhythm of art and writing for the month of January my oldest daughter invited me on a spur of the moment trip. Everything in me knew that this was a limited opportunity, one that needed to be seized and one that I wanted to seize. She’s single and twenty-three and she has many ideas for her life on the horizon which includes moving to a new city. I’ve been on the lookout for the chance for us to take a trip just the two of us, something that we’ve never done before.

I also knew I’d been asked sort of by default. Out of our family of six, I’m the only one with a flexible schedule that has the ability to go on a trip just four days after she came up with the idea. If I’m honest, I think her first choice would have been to go with her Dad. He’s the ultra-patient, ultra-calm parent who doesn’t stress when problems come up. He’s certainly considered the “fun parent”² and he doesn’t have any health limitations. By default or not, I knew my answer was still yes.

(left) The first attempt to mark the trip on my white board calendar made it look like we were crashing (Right) Second attempt, less suggestive of a crash.

But the part of me that is not good at spur of the moment, the part of me that is not good with unknowns, the part of me that longed to finish out the satisfying rhythm of art and writing that I’d set up for January, those parts wanted to stay home. They wanted to stay where everything would remain calm, predictable and under my control. Thank goodness those parts were so much smaller than the part that was saying, “Yes!”.

So I put on my big girl pants and we planned our adventure. As I said already, I knew that I would have some limitations. But there was a certain peace brought on by going forward with eyes wide open rather than spending too much time wishing it were different.

I packed my medicines and we bought express passes for the theme parks in Orlando. I knew that logistical problems would come up and my calm husband wouldn’t be there to step in and solve them. And yet as we flew out of Nashville, do you know what I found again? My adventurous side!

My daughter and I rode roller coasters, screaming and laughing all the way through them. For three days we made u-turns when we needed to (literal u-turns, I’m terrible at following the GPS) and we also kayaked³, saw dolphins up close and grabbed a few moments by the ocean.

At the top: an in-progress sketchbook page about our trip, Islands of Adventure, Kayaking in Winter Park, the Marine Aquarium in Clearwater

I love my adventurous side.

And you know what? Art, writing and that quieter rhythm were all still there when I got back home.

What about you? What's one thing you discovered this month that you love?

What's one thing continuing into February?

I’m still feeling energized by the idea of planning goals month by month instead of for the entire year so I’m carrying that strategy over into February. 

As I think about things I want to try, I’m looking at them contained within the twenty-nine days of February. I’d like to draw more, so I’m challenging myself to draw something every day in February. I’d like to increase my reading time versus screen time, so I’m going to figure out a plan for February instead of drawing boundary lines for the next eleven months.

And I’ll take with me the flexibility that I learned this past month, that even when loose rhythms get interrupted it’s possible to find them again.

What about you? What's one thing continuing into February?

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The following poem is a response to the reading I do in the morning after my Bible Study. I read from a few books (NOT the entire pile shown above) and the books are filled with good things. But I find myself rushing through them because the piles never seem to get shorter. What if I miss something good? ⁴

I’m surrounded
by stacks of
unread tomes,
a little frantic
to grab ink blots
of wisdom and
tattoo the truth
and beauty
on my mind for
safe-keeping,
before time
runs out.

Instead, I pick up
this pen and
sit quietly.
What words are already
imprinted?
What words do I need to
release?
I set the books aside
(for now)
and listen to the words
already lurking
inside.

(Anyone have a suggestion for the title of this poem? Leave it in the comments.)

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Blessings from the Guest Nest,

Aimee

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P.S.—This section of my newsletter that arrived in your inbox is called Good and Beautiful Things. I send out another edition every few weeks called Creative Possibilities. You can learn about the two different sections here and you can manage which ones arrive in your inbox by clicking here.

1. It’s a bladder condition called Interstitial Cystitis/Painful Bladder Syndrome which causes persistent pain and bathroom frequency.

2. As my fourteen-year-old read the draft for edits, she stopped when she got to this point and declared, “You ARE a fun parent!”. (Thank you, Clara.)

3. I’m trying to watch the length of this newsletter but I have to tell you that the kayaking trip was more adventure than I went looking for. It turns out the lake contained brain-eating bacteria, our boats were very low in the water and the romantic looking canals from the tour website actually involved squeezing into tight spaces to let the commercial boat tours pass us by.

4. I actually did come up with a plan for my February reading while I was working on this newsletter. I realized I don’t have to finish the books I’m reading before I rotate to a few others for this month. Then I can come back to the books from January (if I want to) during a future month.