No surprise, but this past week I’ve been contemplating what I wanted my focus word to be for 2025, as well as critiquing how I think I did with my word from 2024.
To be honest, not great for 2024. Or rather, I give myself mixed reviews. The word I chose was RECONNECT. At the end of 2023 I acknowledged that there were “many parts of myself that I [had] felt disconnected from for many years. Things and relationships I felt I had to set aside because I only had so much bandwidth in the day to day of trying to keep a family running as a solo parent and amidst ongoing grief and trauma. There [were] a lot of things I [had] let slide, become too lax with, and I [was] feeling an urgency to reconnect back to some of those core values and goals and standards I once had.”
I still identify with all of that. In hindsight I think a better word for 2024 would have been UNTANGLING. An unexpected side effect, so to speak, of my remarrying is I have been able to occasionally step off of that frantic train of barely surviving and needing to do all the things. I’ve had time to actually breathe, to look around and take stock of where I am. And that also means that my brain has finally had a free moment to try and process through some of those traumas and ingrained fear responses that I’ve adapted as a means of self defense and survival. Sound extreme? It’s felt like it at times.
I’ve put in some intense work this past year with weekly counseling, EMDR, and ART, and rather than reconnecting back to myself, or the self I used to identify as, there’s been a lot of needing to fully acknowledge the profound losses and ugly emotions. Of deep grieving. And even questioning myself in ways I haven’t in the past, or at least facing some of my deepest fears and shame. There’s a lot I’m still untangling. Healing can be so messy sometimes.
Amidst all that, there have been some challenges with children that have stretched me farther, and in more painful ways, than I ever have as a parent. I’ve encountered new health issues and limitations and setbacks that couldn’t be ignored.
So I don’t feel like I did a great job this past year reconnecting with others. My focus has been more on prioritizing my health (physical and mental/emotional), on strengthening my new marriage, on trying to support loved ones with their struggles. I’ve felt disconnected from many things that make me, me. Time with friends. My writing. Music.
Lest you think 2024 was all dismal and hardship, that was far from the case. We are growing as a family. We made many wonderful family memories, including a perfect vacation to San Diego in October. My marriage is stronger. I am getting healthier. I am healing. I can see it. I’m hopeful. I’m not hiding away from the steps needed to face some uncomfortable things.
One big positive from 2024 was discovering how how much I enjoy serving in our community. While it’s been a big time commitment, it has been so rewarding teaching our volunteer accent modification (pronunciation) community class with Jaime each week. We’ve had the opportunity to volunteer at several locations, with invitations for others in the coming year. I’m creating a curriculum that hopefully other My Hometown locations will be able to start using, with plans to recruit additional speech pathologists (or SLP students, since I still have connections to BYU) to volunteer and thus be able to serve more people. I have so much more compassion now for the immigrant population. I’ve been doing more parent and teacher education seminars and training, and expanding the reach of my clinic and those I am able to help through my profession. I’ve been able to continue to minister to the widowed population.
That leads me to the word I have chosen as my focus word for 2025. BUILD. I want to do more than reconnect to some idealized version of myself or my life. I want to be better at reaching outside of myself and my own struggles and intentionally build up those around me. I want to to lift others, and I’ve set some very specific goals about how I plan to do that this next year. I will continue to build myself, yes, but I would like to be more externally focused than I have felt at liberty to be for far too many years. I want to leave a positive mark.
