I crashed and burned near the end of 2020, and 2021 had an extremely rough start for me. I was so depressed, anxious, and angry all the time that daily life was a struggle, but things improved in the spring. Even though I have continued to struggle with some things, life has calmed down and I've had some wonderful experiences this year.
1. I watched the Lord of the Rings movies with Lydia. I was so anxious and depressed at this point of early January that I didn't enjoy them as much as I wanted to, but I was thankful that I got to be part of her experience of seeing these movies for the first time. We also watched The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe on the fifteenth anniversary of the day that I saw it in theaters.
2. I was able to work through relational baggage with a close friend, experiencing significant healing from past hurts. I couldn't bring up the issue when it happened, but I was able to work through it with my friend this year. I had already forgiven them, but I have now experienced emotional healing from what happened. It comes to mind much less frequently, and when it does, I can just think, "That was a bad time" and move on, without the compulsion to relive it or a rush of terrible feelings. I am very grateful that my friend was willing to discuss and resolve this with me.
3. I really appreciated the new Jon Foreman album Departures, listening to the song "Thanks Be to God" on repeat while I was spiraling out mentally and emotionally in March. This song is inspired by Romans 7, and it was exactly what I needed while I was dealing with reawakened mental health trauma from the past and the accusing, mostly irrational thoughts that came with it.
4. I rewatched series six of Doctor Who for the series's tenth anniversary. My plan was to watch each episode on the day that I had initially watched it, and I stuck to this, even though it meant waiting for MONTHS between a huge cliffhanger and the rest of the series again. I had a lot of fun reliving my past experiences and enjoying the episodes again. I also realized that my all-time favorite Doctor Who episode involves a plague and a quarantine facility, even though I hadn't thought of it in those terms until I was preparing to watch it again. So many elements of that story are eerily relevant ten years later, and it is still my favorite for its incredibly resonant, character-driven, emotional storyline.
5. Dad, Lydia, and I went to a Jeremy Camp concert in June, and got to meet him afterwards! This Christian artist's music has been incredibly meaningful to me over the years, especially because of his personal testimony and very honest song lyrics about suffering. I really enjoyed the whole concert experience.
6. I got increasingly behind on journaling throughout the year. I was already behind, but everything snowballed, and I now have a four-month backlog. I am still determined to get through it all, have lots of notes, and recently said to myself, "I have so much to look forward to!" about everything I'm about to write from early September.
7. I said a final farewell to my childhood home. My family moved a long time ago, but we sold the house in June. I enjoyed taking pictures outside and journaling in the backyard for the last time, and also took Lydia over to say her goodbyes.
8. Some of Lydia's friends visited in June, and I played mafia with them on their last night all together. It happened very spontaneously. I was telling a funny story at dinner that involved mafia, and Lydia was like, "Let's play it!" We abandoned our unfinished game of Clue after dinner and turned to another murder game. I enjoyed amusing everyone with my narration, and we had a great time.
9. Dad and I went to Michigan over the week of July fourth to see extended family. I
hadn't seen two of my cousins or their families in five years, and it
was wonderful to reconnect with everyone. I had the best time, wanted to remember everything, and journaled approximately 250 pages about the trip.
10. Mom, Dad, Lydia, and I went to the mountains for a baby shower and a visit with extended family. Lydia and I attended the shower for my friends Levi and Caley, and Mom and Dad were at the nearby hospital to visit my grandmother. Lydia and I saw Grandmama later, and then we visited my aunt and uncle with Mom and Dad. It was great to see everyone, and my grandmother has now significantly recovered.
11. I watched the first two Captain America movies for the first time in years, and also re-watched the first season of Agent Carter. The second Captain America movie is one of my all-time favorites, and even though I didn't expect it to live up to my exalted memory of it, it did! Later, I had the same experience with Agent Carter. It brought me SO MUCH JOY. This show's post-WWII setting, complex characters, and science fiction angle are still all my hopes and dreams come true.
12. I really enjoyed watching the Summer Olympics with Lydia. I also discovered that my inner horse girl is still alive and well, since I stayed up into the wee hours to watch an equestrian competition long after Lydia had lost interest and gone to bed.
13. I got to attend a wedding shower and wedding for one of my dearest childhood friends, Reaghan! I soaked up every aspect of these experiences, enjoyed meeting her really sweet new husband, and am incredibly happy for them. It was wonderful and surreal to be there for this special day after all the hypothetical talk about Reaghan's future wedding when we were children.
The following pictures are of me with Reaghan, and then of me with her sister Makenzie. I once planned out and scripted an entire wedding for their Webkinz stuffed pig, and remembered that with sudden amusement at one point during the ceremony. We have grown up a lot since then!
14. I had a really fun outing with some friends from church to shop at our local dollar bookstore. The bookstore has now closed, which was very disappointing for us, but I'm glad that we made our trip happen. I had a lot of fun spending time with them, and am now even more grateful for my huge haul of really cheap books.
15. Friends of mine have welcomed their first babies into the world this year, and it has been really wonderful and exciting. The aforementioned friends from church had their son in February, my long-term friend Emily B. had her son in July, and Levi and Caley had their daughter in September.
16. My family was finally able to go back to in-person church in September. It has been wonderful to reconnect with people and experience corporate worship again, and it has also been surreal to see how much time has passed. For example, while singing a familiar song, I would automatically start thinking about life issues that I was processing when I last sang this song in church. Then I would think, "This is all history! That's not what I'm dealing with now at all." Fortunately, attending church has also helped me process and leave behind much of the anxiety and anger that I have felt towards large and varied swathes of humanity throughout the pandemic.
17. Based on a conversation with a coworker, I started reading Judy Blume books. My mother expressly forbade this when I was a child, and I can see why, but I realized that if I'm going to be a children's librarian, I should be familiar with this author. I've been pleasantly surprised by the quality of some of her books, such as It's Not the End of the World and Tiger Eyes, am skipping others entirely, and have entertained some of my friends with scathing reviews of other titles.
I can see why Judy Blume books are so popular, since she has a powerful ability to capture the voices and internal thoughts of young people. Still, I dislike her handling of some significant issues and have been surprised by how many of her books have extremely abrupt and unsatisfying endings. I don't think that I'm great with endings, but my slice-of-life stories have incredibly satisfying conclusions in comparison to most of Blume's!
18. In August, I began working as a paid intern at my library branch. This is the perfect next step in my career, and it fulfills the internship requirement for my upcoming final semester of library school. All of the details worked out beautifully, and I am glad to be at the same branch where I was already working, since I love the environment and my coworkers. I have enjoyed working behind the desk and helping with programs, and the transition has been much easier than I expected. Also, now that I have a lunch hour, I get to use this glorious My Little Pony lunchbag that Lydia once got hand-me-down from a family friend.
I'd also like to thank the local taxpayers for funding my craft project of a Molly American Girl pumpkin. We had lots of fun decorations for our week-long Halloween event, and I enjoyed participating.
19. In October, Lydia and I went to a Switchfoot and Needtobreathe concert with two other women from church. It was a really wonderful experience. I enjoyed seeing Switchfoot live again after loving their monthly livestreams during the pandemic, and I was excited for Lydia to see this band live for the first time.
Lydia and I also went to another concert with Dad in December. We got to see Andrew Peterson's annual Christmas concert, and it was a really wonderful worship experience. Lydia has now memorized most of the genealogy of Christ due to Andrew's Peterson's song about it.
20. I participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) for the eleventh time! I used to always write a blog post afterwards, but I've given up on that tradition in recent years. I was pretty tired this year after writing 142,342 words of my still-unfinished novel, but I'm proud of how much I accomplished, and I laughed hysterically over some of my best comedic scenes. I have already enjoyed going back and reading parts of this novel, which helps motivate me to eventually finish it, revise it down to a reasonable length, and work through the parts that I'm unsatisfied with.
I also really leaned into my symmetry-focused OCD by making a beautifully symmetrical daily word count graph for most of the month. The interesting shape was coincidental at first, but then I kept it going. This gave me time for other projects on days when I was "supposed" to hit a lower count, and also motivated me to write more on other days. It was fun, since it wasn't anxiety-driven and was obsessive compulsive without the disorder part.
21. I celebrated a lot of personally significant five-year and ten-year anniversaries this year. I even got to see my friend Sophie on the fifth anniversary of the day that I told her about my mental health issues for the first time. I didn't coordinate this, and it was just the day that worked in her schedule, but it was really special to be reunited with her post-lockdown on 1/14/21, the fifth anniversary of the day that I told her about All My Life's Problems for the first time. Not all of my OCD symptoms are amusing to mention in blog posts, but Sophie was totally chill with the horrifying ones, responding in such an incredibly kind and understanding way that it changed my life forever.
In October, I celebrated the tenth anniversary of us becoming friends. Then, on the first day of November, I messaged her to say that it was the tenth anniversary of the day I had started writing about the Petersons, the characters I have now written a few million words about. She asked me what my top ten favorite memories with the Petersons were, and it was such a great question! I sent her two lists, splitting up favorite Peterson story moments and favorite Peterson-related moments with her and other friends. It was a really special way to honor that huge milestone, and I'm glad that she suggested it.
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