It’s a hard thing to acknowledge your normal life will probably not be normal for the foreseeable future.
Yet here we are.
2020 taught us anything was – and is – possible and that flexibility, adaptability and resiliency were important character qualities.
Kelly and I think 2021 will bring much of the same. Political disruption won’t magically end with the turning of the calendar year. Racial wounds won’t suddenly heal. Vaccine arrival doesn’t equal instant herd immunity. We are on a long road.
With that in mind, we have made the decision as a family to continue the 2020 path into the new year.
- We’re not travelling for vacations, other than a week-long getaway to a beach or mountain cabin as well as long-overdue visits to family after everyone is vaccinated.
- We’re not running organized half or full marathons, as we don’t think any large-scale races will be able to proceed until late in the year. There’s not much sense in stressing over locking in race commitments and booking travel with the prospect of postponements and cancellations.
These are tough choices for people who love to travel and love to travel to run races. Yet life is full of tough choices. As Kelly says, “Not everyone gets to live in Malibu.”
Instead:
You’ll find us taking cooking classes. During 2020, my husband discovered a love for cooking along with a surprising skill at combining flavors. I’m thrilled to have company in the kitchen.
You’ll also find us working on our next home renovation project: Our backyard remodel. We’re rolling up our sleeves and doing a lot of the labor ourselves. (Pray for us!) It will take us a few years, probably, to get the project totally done because the final plan (designed by me) is pretty extensive. Nothing worth doing can be done overnight anyway.
We’ll still be running and training for who-knows-what (life and stress relief maybe?) with our friends in Dallas Galloway.
We’re hopefully we’ll be back physically in church as herd immunity takes hold and certainly after vaccinations roll out. (And we’re rolling up our sleeves for the dose as soon as it’s our turn.)
We plan to start Glory Be in formal dog training classes now that she’s over a year old. Our naughty but sweet pup needs help learning her manners and listening skills. Her people need help learning everything.
We’re going to fuss on two boy kitties. Lots of petting, snugs, brushing and chase the fuzzy toy sessions are on the way.
We plan to be on first name, stop-and-chat basis with even more of our neighbors before the year is up.
After a year of rediscovering and returning to simpler things while the world did its best to throw us off-kilter, we hope to find stable footing in what’s become a new familiar.
We’re calling 2021 the year for us to be CENTERED.