what didn't work for me in 2020

looking back

I like to spend the whole month of January - at least - reflecting on the calendar year that has passed. In nature, January is a terrible time for resolutions and new things, but the winter is a great time for reflection. Part of that work for me is naming what worked and what didn’t work for me from the prior year. I shared my long list of what worked for me over on the blog, but I wanted to share my “what didn’t work” list here just with you newsletter subscribers.

What didn’t work for me in 2020

1. Trying to control too much. This is one of those that I have struggled with as long as I can remember - and one of those that I thought I was getting better at…but then Covid hit. The Pantsuit ladies kept saying that Covid was an accelerant, and I often said it was a revealer. One of the things it revealed to me (over and over again) is how much I still, despite knowing better, try to control things and people.

2. Lack of routine. I don’t like routine. I like to think of myself as super laidback and spontaneous. But. Life goes more smoothly when I am actually in a routine. I hate it, but it’s true. For so much of 2020, there was no routine, or it was just especially hard to stick to any semblance of one. I have to find some structure in the year ahead for my own well-being.

3. No office/Sara space. Our house is small by suburban American standards. We like it that way, and we bought this place for the land, not the house. However, the space itself became a little hairy around May when we were all trying to do school and work and life in this space together. I usually have at least a few days to myself at home during the school year, and I didn’t have that for months on end in 2020. It showed. While I love working from home, I don’t love it quite as much when everyone else is working from home simultaneously, and I have nowhere to go for some quiet and concentration. We are brainstorming different ways that we can make the space work better for us.

4. Lack of alone time at home. See above. I don’t know if it is just a season or being a mother or what, but I have noticed myself needed more and more “Sara time” as I’ve gotten older. I have always tested as an ENFP, but I’m beginning to wonder if I’m more of an introvert these days. Regardless, I do better when I’m getting some consistent time to myself to work, write, catch up, whatever - alone and at home.

5. Too much doom-scrolling. There was so much to be doom-scrolling about for so much of 2020, and I completely fell into the adrenaline loop. I have pretty strict boundaries around my phone in the evenings, but I definitely need to develop some more and better ones for the rest of the day. I also look forward to the Biden/Harris administration making politics boring again (#makepoliticsboringagain) by doing the often unseen, unglamorous, boring work of running a functioning federal government, which should help.

6. Inconsistency. I can’t tell you how many conversations Grant and I had over the course of 2020 that started with, “it’s the inconsistency!" By that, we meant the rampant inconsistency of so many of our leaders in 2020, as well as just Americans in general. The Republican party under the Trump Administration was just one giant inconsistency, leaving nearly all of their principles behind in the pursuit of power. But regular Americans were inconsistent too. The same people showing up with guns to state capitols in March protesting about the shutdowns were losing their minds over largely peaceful Black Lives Matter protests over the summer. So many people who would say they’re pro-life refusing to wear masks. Church leaders openly flaunting stay at home orders when they supposedly follow a guy who says to love your neighbor as yourself. I could go on and on, but it truly just exhausted and depressed me. We’re all inconsistent, but before the last few years, I felt like we at least endeavored to try to consistently apply our values and beliefs. We held our leaders to that accountability at the minimum. I don’t know how to right the ship, other than to start with me and my circle of influence.

7. Arguing with people who have already made up their mind. I think I’m pretty persuasive and convincing, so a continual stumbling block for me is thinking that if I just explain myself thoroughly enough or offer enough clear analogies to the other person, I can get the other person/people to see where I’m coming from. Obviously, being married for fifteen years is a pretty good way to shave off some of those tendencies, but I still fall back into that inclination. Over the last four years, I’ve repeatedly had conversations - mostly with close family members trying to open their eyes to the inconsistencies of their loyalty to Trumpism or to err on the side of compassion, especially for the most marginalized of our neighbors. At many times in 2020, I realized I was sucked into an argument again where the person I was speaking to was intrenched in their way of thinking and nothing I said was going to make a difference. I would like this realization to occur before I start the conversation if possible instead of when I’m already stuck in the middle of it!

8. The tension between speaking up and respecting where people are. Tension is a good place to be because that is where growth is most likely to happen, so I won’t say that this didn’t work for me so much as it kept coming up all year long, and I haven’t figured out what to do about it. I say a few phrases at home that I say so often that the kids roll their eyes when I say them:

   • Your body, your yoga. By this, I mean that what works for me might not work for you - we all have to figure that out for ourselves. Every body is literally different (not to mention our minds and spirits). Stop comparing yourself to others, and practice figuring out what makes you come alive.

   • You can’t take someone where they don’t want to go. By this, I mean, that just because I value something doesn’t mean someone else will; that just because I’ve grown in a particular direction doesn’t mean that someone else necessarily should; that just because I see something in a certain way doesn’t mean I can expect others to see it that way too.

   I also rail against injustice quite a bit at our house and have very strong opinions about what we value - or what we should value. I realized - for not the first time - that my often repeated phrases were sometimes in conflict with the strong opinions I have around what we eat, what we buy, who we support, living lightly on the planet, etc.

   Where this tension came up most frequently for me in 2020 was around racial injustice. My values required that I show up for Black Lives Matter protests and that I spoke up when I heard racist things being said afterwards. I believe strongly that there are certain things that are just right and certain things that are plain wrong, that in some situations, there is no gray, no both/and. Racism is very clearly wrong, but it’s also the water we swim in, so we have to be on the lookout to root it out.
   
   I also experienced this year the deep exhaustion, grief, and banging-my-head-against-the-wall-feeling of repeatedly trying to talk to loved ones about things like white supremacy or the prison industrial complex or the deep seeds of racism that our country was founded on - and my own often repeated phrases rang in my ears. Obviously, I’m very privileged to be exhausted or hurt from conversations instead of being in actual fear of my life. And I’m still a human being, trying to do my best, trying to learn and do better. I’m hopeful that naming the tension is at least a step in the right direction.

9. Not having a dog. We had to put Roxy down way back in January, and I still miss her so much. We really just want to find a puppy that was like Roxy once she was ten, when she finally calmed down, but still liked to play.

10. Not writing things down. I had a really hard time doing any kind of writing from about March - August. I was supposed to be working on a book proposal, and I couldn’t even stick to my very minimalist journaling habit. In the summer, I realized that the lack of writing things down was started to negatively affect many seemingly unrelated aspects of my life. I need to remember how important it is for my mental health to keep writing things down, even if just for myself.

Let’s chat

I’m going to skip the normal end of the newsletter stuff because I’d love to hear from you - what worked or didn’t work for you in 2020? Leave your reflections in the comments or just reply back to this email if that feels better. I wrote down this John Dewey quote from somewhere that I like to remind myself of every winter/reflection season: “We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience.” So let’s reflect back and learn from one another as we lean into this new year.

Cheers to reflecting on what is working and what isn’t working in the week ahead!

Sara