The Crappies and the Happies
With thanks to Kate Bowler and Kelly Corrigan
Oh friends, do you feel as surprised that 2024 is over as I do? How is time moving this quickly?
I understand that time periods, like the end of a year, are constructed; however, I also believe in the power of ritual and that having a framework for time, thresholds to cross, provides a container for life and our days.
I’ve exited and entered years in a variety of ways—by writing a love letter to the year behind, writing lists of resolutions, taking stock of pictures from the year, looking back at journal entries. My new favorite way to honor the year that’s been—thanks to Kate Bowler and Kelly Corrigan—is to remember and acknowledge both the crappies (those happenings from the year that left me particularly bereft) and the happies (all that was joyful). It’s extra good if I get to remember both with a friend.
Honoring both is a means of not bypassing my life, and of acknowledging that the whole of it shaped me, recreated me, into who I am as the year is ending. It is also a reminder of what has been important to me, what still is at the core of what I long for, hope for, and wish could be. What stands out to me from the year in both categories reveals a lot about who I am and even who I want to be in the coming days.
It’s also a way of being in the yes, and of life, and of learning to hold both yin and yang, darkness and light, the tension of all that is. To do so reminds me that there is never one thing, one energy, one theme for a time period like a year. There are waves that allow me to ride into shore like a confident surfer and waves that take me under and leave me with sand in my suit and bruises on my tender skin. Both have happened, so might I somehow honor it all?
This is such an interesting exercise for me. So often the crappy and the happy get mixed up together, two sides of the same coin, and I realize again, isn’t that life?
In my professional world, it was a particularly crappy moment to realize I likely have to choose between doing work I find meaningful and securing health insurance. And knowing I’m one of many, many people in this same, or worse, situation. So, the real crappy is asking the question: why is a decent salary and health insurance still considered a priviledge rather than a human right?
My personal life crappy was the heavy sense of grief over these upcoming transitions for my teens, particularly my daughter. This coming year, she’ll graduate and now all those days that I spent thinking there’s still time to do, to make up for, to connect, are mostly used up. Or at least in that way we’ve always known them.
And my world crappy is the incredible sadness I feel at the intense divisiveness particularly from the saturation of social media outlets that is so entrenched in the world of our younger generations that I fear they won’t be able to imagine the world another way.
Yet, my happies tell me another side to these stories, reminding me again that I must step further back to find another storyline within the picture of our year.
My professional happy is that I am doing work that is meaningful and that work has opened up new and intersting vista. I traveled to Italy with my family for the yoga retreat I led and saw the world open up a little more for my teenagers and my brother. I returned to school to learn through divinity classes for the work I do with my church. Throughout both yoga and church, I continued to connect with people of all ages and to invest in relationships.
My personal happy was celebrating my 50th birthday surrounded by so many humans I adore. There are parts of 50 I could bemoan, yet here I am, getting to discover what it means to enter this midlife decade. This year leading up to 50, I ate the most delicious pastas with incredible wine, saw my daughter turn 18, helped my son learn to drive, watched the sun rise at least 150 mornings, started and tended a garden, and gathered around a lot of really lovely tables full of food and laughter. How could I bemoan any of what’s led me to this new age?
And my world happy? This year I stood in the garden of a woman I’ve admired for several years, surrounded by lovely women from all over this country, all who wanted to know more about living with meaning and abiding love. Knowing these women are out in the world reminds me of how far and wide beauty stretches. Oh, and Italy. Italy is my world happy. They really know how to do life.
And what about you, friends? How will you say goodbye to 2024? Do you have any ways of marking the threshold before you cross over?
However you say goodbye to 2024, may you have a way to remember the container of this year with room for both the crappies and the happies, and someone to hold both with you.
Starting next week, I’ll resume yoga practices for paid subscribers with some other new additions as well. In the meantime, how about joining me in Portugal this year? You’ll save $200 on this experience by signing up between January 1-7 with the code NEWYEAR200. Join me for this special time, September 28-October 4, Embracing Delight, on the coast of Portugal. Sign up here: Embracing Delight in Portugal
