If you had just one word that would package you’re entire line of thought at any specific point in your day, what would it be?
The sun has rose on the first day of a new year. Snow is coming down in a barrage of sharp bursts and nothing about today elicits a desire to venture out my front door. I sit nestled in my chair, with my laptop and a warm cup of coffee ready at my finger tips. Downstairs, my husband sits with our children, watching morning cartoons. The kids are snuggled into their “grandma made me” blankets and neither have a fear, a care, or a sadness within their hearts.
2013 was almost like a dare to myself. I dare you to do this. Find the courage and dare to do this. Not to be boastful, but I dared to do a lot of things that I thought would surely indeed swallow me up into the black abyss that I envisioned as its result. I didn’t get swallowed whole. I didn’t die. I didn’t throw up. I didn’t say to many things that were completely stupid. So if I look back and find a word for 2013, it was DARE.
I want the right first word for 2014. I want to be able to look back and see that word and realize that it was the stepping stone for my entire year. Something that will have the strength to hold me up when I need the encouragement but yet passive enough to let me move forward when I feel that I have outgrown my current place in this world. I realize that my word isn’t as abstract as I thought it was going to be.
We moved a lot when I was a child. We never finished the school year in the same house that we started in. I can still feel the the disappointment and sadness when I would walk into the house and saw all of my belongings hurriedly put into black garbage bags. I grew wary of the next move. I never put much effort into solidify my foundation. I tried not to fall in love with a bedroom, a school, a friend. When you fall in love with something that is only going to be taken away in a week, a month, 6 months, the pain just gets to be to much, and eventually you just give up. You create temporary feelings for temporary things. And when the inevitable happens, you put all your temporary feelings behind you and suck it up, because you’re a kid and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.
2013 reminded me that with my family, I have built a firm foundation. I have fallen in love with my home, my husband, my children. I have put things on the walls and allowed roots to grown. I have done this because I wanted a different world for my children. I wanted them to have childhood friends that would be there from the first day of school until forever. I wanted them to fall in love with their rooms and have the illusion that I never had.
I realized this year though that I haven’t done a very good job of creating a foundation for my friends. The ground around me continues to be unstable and rocky. There is always a constant urge to keep everyone at arms length instead of embracing the friendship that they have offered. I know that I have some pretty incredible and kick ass people in my life right now, and I call them my friend, but I also know that I have not allowed myself the basic human right to reciprocate what they have always offered so openly and honestly.
So in my search for something that will have the strength to hold me up when I need the encouragement but yet passive enough to let me move forward when I feel that I have outgrown my current place in this world, I realized I already have the word. Friendship. So, my one little word for 2014 is simply that. Friendship. Building and nourishing and enjoying and realizing that unconditional love grows outside of my home as well.
So here is to 2014!