Happy cold, snowy New Year’s Eve! I’m going to take a wild guess that the thirty and above crowd is safe at home eating lasagna and/or leftover popcorn from a tin and checking Facebook, watching football, or playing Catan. We might be soaking dried black eyed peas for tomorrow if we are the planning, sentimental type. More likely we are hoping there’s a can of orange rolls in the fridge to bake in the morning as some sort of cheap holiday “brunch” offering. A back-up plan for the holiday no one plans. Most of us aren’t crazy enough to stay up till midnight for the fleeting gratification of welcoming the baby new year. We know good and well we will pay for that lost sleep tomorrow, even as 4:30pm ushers in darkness and five more hours with under-exercised children and pets.
I’ll give it a go, though, because I’ve been sleeping through the night for several months. We’re on the tentative exit ramp from the infant interstate. I’m clear headed enough to remember the past year and hopeful enough to face forward. So here are some final thoughts in 2018. I’ll try to corral them before midnight.
We went on a vacation for the first time ever this year. It wasn’t well-planned. I bought plane tickets before we even had passports. I should’ve brushed up on my Spanish. All that aside, we had fun and didn’t work for a straight week. It’s good to see the world again when you’ve been home raising kids.
We sold a house, moved out, bought a house in another city, moved in. This all happened in June. We went from a town with three gas stations to a city with Target, Costco, and thirty Mexican restaurants two minutes away from our house. My life is so convenient I can’t believe it.
I think my kids are growing up. They play air hockey and smell gross, something I don’t see going away for awhile. But they’re also fantastic and play Rack-o and dance party with me. A couple of them can get their clothes on by themselves. We go through pounds of chicken nuggets and gallons of ketchup. They like to argue; I hope they don’t get that from me. If I were to make a pie chart describing how they spend their time, half or more would be marked “fighting”, but maybe it’s a boy thing. Tonight before I put them to bed (no way would I let them stay up till midnight) I tried to, per usual, turn their days’ trouble into a heart lesson. So I read them 2 Samuel 10, which is a story about a misunderstanding between two kingdoms that led to beards and pants getting cut off and eventually forty thousand soldiers getting killed. I’m trying to do my best.
Things that impress me about my kids (versus bragging):
Musicality. They can tune any instrument without a tuner.
Ball maze dexterity.
Kindness (outside of the brotherhood relationship). Ha.
Tap dance skills.
I’m contemplating a word for 2019. It seems like a popular thing to do, but as you probably have gathered by now, I’m wary of popular things. You know what else is popular? Enneagram. I, being a 5 and not knowing it, researched into the whole model of personality types and came to the conclusion that it is completely accurate. It’s also completely self-absorbing, so if you are into that whole “mm-hm, mm-hm…now let’s talk about me” dialogue, then you should buy the book, pay for the test, and start diagnosing yourself immediately. It’s fun to the point that no one really cares about you as much as you.
But back to the word of the year (and me. lol). I really admire words like generous and patient but I’m not bold enough to stick them on my chest like I know what I’m doing. In the past I’ve focused on trying to not complain, be more grateful, less judgy–at least all these things that make me appear to be a good person in front of my children. But really the only hope I have is the promise that God is still working on me. And He aims to conform me to the likeness of his Son, Jesus (Romans 8:29).
So I’m thinking my word of 2019–or perhaps the rest of my life–will be conform.
Conform. Can you believe it? It sounds like such a boxed-in, rigid word, not exactly suited to a life of freedom. But being conformed to the likeness of Christ is my only hope for joy and transformation. It is freedom.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:17-18
Moving on to podcasts. These seem like a nutso phenomenon, as if talk radio, ESPN, Dave Ramsey and Dr. Dobson weren’t sufficient. As if Sirius and XM radio, Delilah, all the audiobooks in the world and our entire cassette tape and CD collection weren’t enough to fill our ears. We need more, don’t we? But I listen to kids spout off a hundred Pokemon facts a day. I feel like less is more.
There are podcasts that discuss pop culture. Enneagram. Child rearing. How to make passive income, how to get out of debt. How to gain an Instagram following. How to become an influencer via social media. I happened upon this last podcast this year. I was a little shocked.
Do you know what an influencer is? By definition it is someone who has the ability to persuade other people “by virtue of their authenticity and reach.”
This is preposterous, first, that social media is the medium for authenticity. Second, that one could fake authenticity enough to persuade other people to follow their lead. And yet…the tidy, staged, hashtagged little boxes make it so hard to look away.
We’re obsessed with perfection, living our best lives. We are losing touch with reality.
Now for a confession: I read CNN news. This is mostly because it’s convenient, not because I have a huge opinion about what news outlet is best. But now I need to get it off my phone. Does anyone else think cable news is trash? Speaking of losing touch with reality, this week on CNN there was an article about a man who married a hologram (does a hologram not have a choice this day in age?). Under that, an article on the benefits of cuckolding (adultery) in a relationship (is there any quicker way to ruin a marriage?). And always, always an article on Anderson Cooper setting things right in the world (I thought he was just an impartial journalist?). Dear CNN, give me some news other than climate change and Trump rage.
That’s all I’ve got to say about that. It’s 10:30pm and a wise woman once told me that is a great time to go to bed.
So, goodbye 2018! Bring on 2019.
