January 1, 2013

Happy New Year. It's 2013!


2012 was a pretty incredible year. It was full of adventure and the highlight was reconnecting with the people and places that matter most to us. We settled into our Richmond life after the big move at the end of 2011, and I focused the last half of the year on getting my birth work off the ground.

If 2011 was about establishing rhythm and routine, then 2012 was most definitely about settling in and finding joy.

For the upcoming year I'm not brimming with an ambitious to-do list. I'm feeling right at home and so full with all that I have right here in my lap. 

If anything, I want to keep a strong focus on the experiences and people that bring true pleasure and delight to my heart, which means that I need to continue to practice setting healthy boundaries for myself around work, and home, but especially in the relationships I share with those I love most.

This year I want to focus broadly on just six things in order to help guide my energy:
Writing, Marriage, Friendship, Work, Health, and Home.

WRITING

First, my writing is so very important to me. I regret shoving it to the side over the last 6 months, although the excitement and demands of building MamaBorn have rightfully taken much of my attention. I'm very excited to have the opportunity (a gift from a generous friend) to attend the Motherhood and Words writing retreat in Mid-February, and hope to take pure advantage of my blog here to share a more intimate portrait of life from my perspective and to experiment with new styles of writing as I continue to hone my craft. I am also looking forward to attending BlogHer '13 in Chicago come July.

MARRIAGE

Over the Summer, while walking with a girlfriend on a narrow path deep in the woods of Corolla, as we connected over our children and dreamt up elaborate plans for communal life (in another life), it dawned on me that the intention I devote to mothering is equally deserving for my marriage. The tides swept out sometime in the middle of last year and there we were, Andy and me, two people again. So we ran with it and prioritized date nights, bi-monthly maintenance therapy (highly recommend!), and made a more conscious effort to carve out time for each other when not in our respective parenting roles. After two back-to-back babies, we needed it, and we want more of it. So that is a definite for the upcoming year.

FRIENDSHIP

My need to nurture friendship and to lean on and learn from my girlfriends for encouragement and perspective seems greater now than ever before. With time we have become geographically removed from one another, which demands logistical planning and extra commitment to connect in person. As the boys are growing older and as their need for physical attachment wanes, I find myself with a lot of freedom for time and space away from home. I cherish the grounding effect that comes when I have the opportunity to connect deeply with people who understand me in the ways I need to be understood. I hope to regularly indulge myself in their love and acceptance all year long. Beyond the usual get-togethers, a few weekend getaways will be something to look forward to.

WORK

Over the Summer I transitioned my career from a programmatic role in public health to a birth educator and professional doula serving families in my community. My work now exists as a simple extension of who I am as a woman, mother, and lifelong learner. MamaBorn is everything I believe about birth and mothering and life, all rolled into one birth services concept that already feels like home sweet home. While frightening at times (I won't lie!), for me it has been an exercise in courage to follow my truth, and at the end of every day I'm left energized and affirmed knowing that I am right where I am meant to be! I'm excited to continue to grow my brand, advocating at the grassroots level for informed choice and birth rights, and especially to walk with women and their partners through the fragile and life changing event of birth. So inspired by life and birth I recently made a pact with a few close friends to delve into the world of ink. My first tattoo is on the books for 2013!

HOME 

Our home, our home. We are not loving the place in which we live at the moment. We're renting. We're busy. We're not all that invested in upkeep. We're feeling cramped for space. We have 8 months left on our lease. I'm under the impression that a few investments in comfort and convenience could go a long way as far as every day goes, not to mention the positive effects of yet another effort to declutter these tiny spaces! More interestingly, in a few months we will have to make a decision to either sign on for another year, or to look for a new place to live. Although living in the city has turned out to be pretty great for many reasons, we're ultimately craving more nature space and privacy. We've become increasingly unsettled about our living arrangement and it is because the way in which we are living (as lazy renters in a home not well designed for the way we would ideally use our living space) is out of sync with our core values. We spend a majority of our time in and around our home, it feels crazy not to be in love with it. We've continued to scout for properties to build on but haven't found anything near perfect. A change in attitude about our current place or a move to new digs on the other side of the river is in order.

HEALTH

This one has most to do with the food we eat. I want to continue on our path to eating good food from animals that led good lives, and to finesse our locavorism. Back in the Fall I committed to an 8-week Paleo Challenge that highlighted for me the benefits of eating a diet free from grains and sugar. I've found it more difficult to get on board with some of the other tenets of the philosophy, and have found that I favor more those supported by the Weston A. Price way of eating. All to say that implementing an eating philosophy that jives with our consumerism mentality in a way that still leaves me inspired and having fun feeding my family every day will be something to look forward to. With equal impact, exercise continues to be a daily source of positive energy. No pregnancies are planned for this year so I'm looking forward to becoming faster, stronger, and more mobile in the upcoming months. I haven't identified any concrete performance goals yet but last year I made huge gains in skill and strength and hope to continue the trend. I would like to run a race this year; another marathon would be a major training commitment so I'm thinking a half marathon might be a nice challenge. My post baby weight-loss saga continues, and to sum up my bottom line excerpted from a post I wrote earlier last year: "I have a desire to experience my life with my boys, through my body, feeling it all, and without regrets. I don't want to hide in this body. I want to live in it. And I want the freedom that comes with that." Pretty simple, I think. This year is the year.

I declare the theme of 2013 to be about feeling inner peace and living in the present as I center myself and nourish my mind and body in the best possible ways.

What are your plans?  

2 comments:

  1. Gosh you are a fantastic writer! I love everything you've written here but what resonates with me the most is the part about not hiding your body but living in it and loving it. I thought this might be the year that I was able to do that after having a baby and all, but it still proves to be my most difficult challenge and I want to try for 2013 to be the year I finally accept that aspect of myself. I do well at accepting a lot of other shortcomings that I have, so why can't I accept my body - the one that has given me two beautiful children and allows me to be an active part of their lives everyday?!

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  2. I think your goals are fantastic. We seem to alternate years, work on the family, work on the marriage, responsibilities and TTC really took it out of us this year, so next year I'm excited to work on the fun parts of marriage.

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