My word for last year, a word that encapsulates something I want to focus on and grow in, was beauty. And certainly, it was a good word to choose….I had one of my most beautiful years in decades. I spent more time enjoying coffee with my eyes closed, listening to birdsong, reading books, and laying in the sun, than I had in a long, long time. I began learning how to slow down. Immerse myself in the moment. Just be.
These practices were simple. They didn’t cost any money. They didn’t require being alone or take up a lot of time. It took a bit of practice, but scattering these beautiful, life giving moments throughout my day like glitter became more second nature as the year wore on. And while things kind of fell apart towards the end of the year, as I battled debilitating and discouraging pregnancy nausea, I’ve been able to easily fall back into these soul sustaining habits as we’ve entered the new year. It has truly been lovely. My life has been transformed by intentionally seeking and creating beauty through simple, everyday means. It’s become the focus of my message when I talk to people and when I share content online. I want other people to be able to find the same enjoyment in their own unique environments and situations. I want people to know how accessible beauty is.
It was also the first year that I have ever had items on my vision board that weren’t for any kind of productive purpose. I wanted to do or learn things just for the sake of it…just because they would bring me joy. Not because they would directly add to a skill. Not because they would make me money. Not because they would gain me notoriety. Just because. Aristotle said, “To always be seeking after the useful does not become free and exalted souls.” I love this quote because it validates beauty for the sake of beauty, enjoyment for the sake of enjoyment. Doing things that you love simply because you love them. I am now just as likely to invest in my soul as I am to invest in our finances, our household, or my education.
As I look back on 2024, however, I see that while the word beauty certainly encompasses a great deal of it, another word that could characterize my year would be pivot. The way we ended the year was completely unprecedented, and I had no inkling of the changes that would occur as the year began.
Most of the items on my vision board for 2024 were not accomplished. A couple of them were because I didn’t work hard enough on them. For instance, I wanted to read 50 books, and ended up reading 38. I can look back and see that I…too often…chose TV or scrolling over reading, and that’s something I want to improve in. I didn’t learn how to braid my hair in pretty and fun ways. I want to get better about managing my time in the morning so I can take a few minutes to do my hair nicely instead of always feeling like I’m trying to catch up.
But a good deal of the goals that I didn’t accomplish were because I needed to pivot on my priorities and expectations. And that’s ok. There’s a fine line between sticking with hard work and seeing something through, and being so bullheaded that you stubbornly pursue some arbitrary objective just to cross it off a list. I’ve been guilty of the latter many times, and I had to take a really hard look at my true priorities and heart motives a few times last year to decide if I needed to be persistent….or if I needed to pivot.
I love homemaking and homesteading tasks. Growing a garden, raising animals, making cheese, making pasta…these are all things that I want to know how to do, and do well. I had the idea at the beginning of 2024 that I was going to learn a new skill a month. Some of these were related to usefulness (like sewing a skirt) and others were related to enjoyment (like learning how to sing harmony).
I didn’t accomplish a single one.
Is it because I decided that I don’t care about those goals? No. But I did realize that our season in life and my current responsibilities (as a homemaker, wife, homeschool mom, and family budgeter) called for me to focus on other things.
Something I’ve never been good at is focus. I start a million projects at once. I do the beginning of many jobs when cleaning, instead of sticking to one task until it’s done. I try to do everything and be everything at the same time, instead of being honest about my human limitations and adjusting my actions accordingly. Sometimes it’s helpful to be able to multitask, in this way. Often, it leads to an inefficient and scattered way of life.
Being able to identify where I needed to shift my priorities and abandon previous goals was a huge step for me. It took a huge weight off my mind, to not have so many ideas and pursuits that were constantly vying for my attention. It allowed me the space and time to invest real energy into worthwhile things and produce something of quality. I’m learning how to treat my time like any other finite resource, and realize that for everything I say, “yes” to, I’m saying “no” to something else. “Yes” to hard work towards priorities, time with my children, spending time outside. “No” to a haphazard, frantic, restless way of life.
Despite the lessons in beauty and the time I invested in things that brought me true joy, it was also a really hard year. My husband and I struggled with becoming more and more defeated by our living situation. We all battled health issues. Costs of everything…insurance, groceries, utilities…got higher while income mostly stayed the same. It was a strain on our relationship. It was a strain on our home environment. But I daresay that these challenges made my ability to find pockets of delight and solace that much more meaningful. If I could be content in this situation, I could be content in a lot of other places, too. If I could live a life full of rest and beauty surrounded by a lot that isn’t very beautiful, I could certainly find the same loveliness in improved conditions. This has proved true, as at the end of the year, we found ourselves with the unexpected opportunity to relocate to Arizona, to a home that is a huge step up from our home in Texas. It’s much smaller, but it’s tidy and functional and not falling apart and not covered in mold. We’ve been here two months and I still feel like I’m living in luxury. I am so thankful that I was able to learn what I did during the hard season, because I’m certainly reaping the rewards now that aspects of our life are so much easier.
I’m applying the wisdom I gained in 2024 to my expectations in this new year. I can’t do everything at once. That means that, right now, certainly things I love…things that are good and worthy…must take a backseat. That’s ok. It will give me the bandwidth to devote enough time and energy to my priorities. And while, in the past, I completely bought into the “hustle” mentality, the “no pain no gain” mentality…the mentality that sacrifices all current pleasure for possible future gain…I don’t live like that anymore. Reserving time for leisure activities like reading, sitting outside, sketching, and being, is sacred to me, and it’s allowed me to love my life while I’m working towards my dreams, instead of foregoing life until I reach them.
I hope that these thoughts and lessons that I learned may be an encouragement to your own life. Maybe these balances that I am struggling with you mastered a long time ago,, but maybe you, too, have some trouble with feeling stretched too thin and not being able to mentally focus. If so, I hope we can both move forward together, one day at a time, one priority at a time. Quality over quantity. Joy over despair. Peace over stress. One day at a time.
