The New Year's Hopes and My #OneWord365

In the past, I have considered January one of my least favorite months---the end of festive celebrations, return to routines that aren't always enjoyable, and, basically, just winter. Cold, dry, dark, empty winter.

I have often tried to fill that January void with the hopes of a new year---a clean slate, a fresh start to long-held dreams, the lure of goals I am working towards. I have often sat at lengthy times with my journal, pouring my heart out onto the pages, not only for what I long for, but for who I want to become, and what I want to let go of.

At the turn of this new year, my thoughts were overwhelming, too many to even organize onto a journal page---who I want to be, the baggage I want to drop, the people I yearn to help, the areas I want to make a difference, the dreams I strive for, goals I long to reach, the pleas with God that are so strong they burn in my heart and keep me awake some nights.

Because This is What Achievement Really Looks Like

"So what was it like?" I asked her. "Did you feel comfortable? Or was it distracting and challenging at all?"

I was asking this question to a retired woman I have been teaching piano to for the past few years. She had a heart that yearned to serve. Even amid the frenzy of tending to a husband with multiple serious health problems, keeping up with her grown children and grandchildren in another state, she carried a determination I wish all of us could hold on to. The fact that she was only one of a few adult students in an academy of mostly children did not deter her. Deep within her heart, she felt certain that she needed to help with the music at her small church in a nearby community. She came weekly for a piano lesson, her books open to the hymn she was currently working on, and even signed up for voice lessons for the Sundays she could help lead the singing.

From Holiday Blues To A New Year Of Hope

As a child, I was glad that a New Year's celebration came only one week after Christmas Eve, mainly because I always got those "post-holiday blues" when Christmas was over. I anticipated that special day of December 25 months before its arrival. I participated in all the usual festive activities---mailing letters to Santa, helping bake Christmas cookies, listening to my Grandma read me Christmas stories, being either Mary or an angel in the Christmas play (because what other part could a girl be, unless the director thought the play was desperate for another wise man or shepherd?).

But I had an active imagination and could play independently for hours, so my enjoyment of the holidays went beyond the usual. I dug my mom's old Christmas records out of the closet---three I especially remember: one by Perry Como, one by the Oak Ridge Boys, and one of instrumental music called "Holiday Strings"---and began listening to them long before the holiday season was near. I would line my Barbie Dolls up on my pink bedroom carpet and stand each one up to take her turn singing when the song on the record changed. I would read Christmas stories, then choose my favorite character and reenact the story quietly in my room. Lying on my bed with a notebook and pen, I would pretend I was a playwright before I ever knew the word "playwright," and would write out scripts for Christmas plays, including specific cues beside each character's name. I felt fascinated by silent Christmas Eve nights that transformed into joyous Christmas mornings with gifts under the tree, an emptied milk glass, and only cookie crumbs left on a plate. And my young heart was lured by the mystery of a divine baby in a manger who was somehow God's son, whose birth was so significant that angels burst into the sleepy shepherds' night and a sudden star caused wise men to embark on a lengthy journey.

The Soothing Stillness Of Snowfall

Just a couple of days before the Thanksgiving holiday, I was driving to my afternoon job when the heavy clouds in the sky began releasing soft white snowflakes, dancing through the air and falling to the ground so far below. Most people wish for a white Christmas, but snow wasn't even on my mind that Monday before Thanksgiving.

I am usually not a fan of snow, mostly because slick, icy roads have placed me in frightening, dangerous driving conditions in the past. I hate being cold and having to bundle in layers just to walk outside. When snow begins melting, with patches of the dead, dry earth making the ground look like a shoddy, poorly stitched patchwork quilt, I dislike the messy appearance it leaves behind.

The REAL Reason I Am Not Yet Married. It All Goes Back To One Thanksgiving...

My cousin Jessica and me

I always loved holidays as a child, especially Thanksgiving, when fall hung crisply in the air, and my entire crew of relatives packed into Aunt Martha's white, A-framed house, each family bringing a dish or two, until her crowded kitchen was filled with abundant aromas of enough food to feed a person for days. After a huge lunch and a brief pause while everyone sat around relaxing until their bodies could hold some chess squares or chocolate mousse for dessert, the day was filled with laughter and talking, games and reminiscing. When the early nighttime came, the cozy glow of soothing yellow lamplight filled the little house at Aunt Martha's.

Challenging Perfectionism In 8th Grade Spelling Bees

I writhed with dreadful anxiety each year when it rolled around---the time for the annual class spelling bee. I had won quite a few spelling bees in the past, competed for the school and region, and ranked among the top students in my grade. Therefore--it was expected. "Misty will win," students predicted before we even lined up across the chalk board at the front of the room.

Inwardly, I groaned and wished to disappear into the floor. "Just something else to feel pressured about," I lamented to myself. Though only in 8th grade, I was so tired of the academic expectations, so worn out from constant pressure to succeed and be 'the best' that there left very little room for me to enjoy my middle and high school years. Except for a few, rare bright moments that stand out in my memory---I was miserable.

That 8th grade year---I made up my mind. I determined not to win. I had already been placed in advanced classes and was struggling through Algebra, which I had been placed in a year early--and received my first B. The subject just didn't click with me. Letters--in my mind--were meant for creating descriptive, poetic words of self-expression---not to be used as pieces of equations that would most likely remain irrelevant to my life. The fear of exiting Algebra with a C--"average"-- was already weighing down on me. No way was I going to win a class spelling bee just to be handed pages of hellacious words to spend hours studying, so I could potentially go on to compete against the entire school---then county---then state. I was already spending hours each night trying to conquer Algebra and setting my alarm for 4:30 each morning to try to figure out what my tired mind had been unable to comprehend the night before.

My 7th Grade Thanks To The Soldiers

I was not even school-age when they came to the church I grew up in---the new pastor, his wife, pretty daughter, and mischievous son. Years later they would tease me about being so shy that I would hide my little toddler self under the kitchen table when they came to my house to visit. They pastored our small church for at least twelve years, long enough to become family to the church members of the quiet town, long enough to watch me grow from a toddler to a teenager.

When their son was 21, he was deployed to Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm, which struck at the beginning of my seventh-grade year---a personally turbulent time for me. I had lost my aunt right before beginning 5th grade, then lost my grandma the summer before 6th grade. Now I was beginning middle school, the emotional hormonal roller coaster of puberty; my grandfather was having serious health issues that he would discover to be cancer, and our pastor's son--the teasing "big brother" to all the younger kids in the church--was being sent across the globe to fight a war we could sit and witness on our TV screens.