What Worked and Didn’t Work for Me Last Year
It was a long (and sometimes) hard year, but it was one full of goodness, too.
“Are we in the future now?” I thought in a daze as I recovered from a bad virus on NY’s day, and realized how strange 2025 sounded to my ears. Back as a young child in the 1990s, the year 2025 sounded incredibly far away and futuristic. I’m sure I imagined flying cars and space travel would be our norm, instead of the apocalyptic images of a burning LA (close to the city of my birth) that our new year has brought us.
The future, it seems, is here, and as disappointing as reality would have been to my young imagination, and as full of fears and concerns as this world is, it’s also just as full of joy and hope.
I love new beginnings and new years, and I also know that we can’t control everything and that our plans should be held lightly as I wrote about here. I also think it’s wise to reflect back on the year you’ve had, acknowledge the good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly, and then consider, prayerfully, what to keep and what to try to change in the new year.
I’ve been enjoying others' reflections on this topic, so thought I would share my own as well. I can relate well to many other writers sharing what a difficult year last year was for them while acknowledging the many good things in it too.
What didn’t work:
Our balance of living in the day and planning for tomorrow
We seek to live a full life, but if we aren’t careful we forget to plan for tomorrow because we are busy each day. I think it’s good to be mindfully present each day and to not worry about tomorrow as Jesus instructed. I also think it’s wise to look beyond surviving your daily schedule and planning (with an eye toward knowing God can change your plans) for tomorrow. Because of some uneven health this year, it made this balance harder for us, and we are seeking to correct that balance.
Health
I, as well as members of my extended family, have faced some challenges in our health. These lingering or creeping issues are ones that we do need to better strategize for. This last year did not bring the healing we had hoped for, and what we tried was not effective, so it’s mostly back to the drawing board. (The one exception is that at the end of last year, I went on a more restrictive healing diet for myself, which was helpful.)
Not getting enough rest on trips
We had some splendid trips this last year, but none of them were restful. There were many aspects of our trips that worked well, but we also really needed to find rest, and only halfway accomplished that aspect. (Sadly, our last trip at the beginning of this year should have given more of that to us, but instead, we had a terrible virus interrupt it!) Here’s to hoping for a more restful trip this year for us.
Not reading enough together as a family
Reading together as a family has always been an important part of our family culture, and I do not think we accomplished this as much as we should have and I’ve missed that time together. We aim to do better this year.
Not enough writing time for me
Writing is a vital part of who I am as a person, and I simply did not find the time I was hoping for to write as much as I wanted (and I dare say, even need!). I’m looking to carve out more writing time for myself this year. (As a writer, I nearly always feel this though!)
What worked:
Teamwork
Our family worked well together as a team, whether looking to household chores or supporting each other in our various endeavors, or even doing crazy things like being in a play together! This made 2024 possible to survive despite some challenges and some very busy schedules. We are only better together if we work with each other and for each other, and I think we did accomplish that last year.
Beginning more liturgy/habits as a family
Influenced by the book, Habits of the Household, we’ve (unevenly) added more habits into our daily life as a family and seen the positive impact of this sort of purposeful daily liturgy. We plan to continue important daily habits we’ve had as a family for many years, while growing them too. We liked the Habits of the Household book as his suggestions are very practical and simple to implement.
Walks and more walks
Fresh air, exercise, and the mental uplift of daily walks have been so good for me! Part of the draw to get a dog was the fact that he would force us to take consistent walks and that’s been true. I’m thankful to live in a beautiful little town for walks, with walking trails nearby as well. But even a short little neighborhood walk is well worth the small amount of effort it takes.
My first international trip
I haven’t gotten the chance to debrief our wonderful trip to Scotland (mostly because we came home to a family member having a medical crisis), but my first overseas trip was a beautiful experience. I greatly enjoyed the two days we had (with some friends) to explore beautiful Scotland. But even more than exploring, I enjoyed getting to meet various people involved in ministry in Scotland. It made me realize that while traveling would always be a lovely experience, this trip was much more meaningful to me because of the people I got to meet. It’s made me consider how to keep that priority in any future trips we may take.
Extracurricular activities
I know that adding in the “extras” to family life is usually what is first on the chopping block when life is busy or stressful. I’ve seen many families acknowledge that the “extras” are what didn’t work for them, and that’s valid. But I also wanted to share why these extras were what worked well for us, and in fact, were a vital part of our last year. Sports, while adding in a busy pressure on our schedule, allowed two of our kids the pleasure of being with friends, while also getting important exercise that they enjoy. We happen to live in a town where the small public school is not only very welcoming to homeschoolers coming in but has a good balance in their attitude toward sports (asking kids to work hard without inappropriately pushing them). This is largely why our kids have had such a positive experience.
It did mean certain sacrifices for us, but all of them were well worth it, despite one of our kids dealing with some hand injuries this year that made her sports seasons less than ideal. All our kids to various degrees were also involved in theater this year, and while again, putting pressure on our schedule, it was well worth the effort. Because of our commitment to the creative arts as a family, and the huge amount of enjoyment we derive from it, instead of being “extras” this last year, the theater was often at the heart of our schedule. Our youngest is in ballet, and we’ve enjoyed watching her learn to enjoy this art form more as she’s gotten older as well.
We’ve had no regrets about our “extras” this last year and were thankful we were able to squeeze them in.
I’d love to hear what worked and what didn’t work for you in 2024!
(You can also read what worked and what didn’t work in my cooking life last year.)