2 bundt cakes and 15 books

 How do you measure a year? 

Is it counted by how many Trader Joe’s frozen soup dumplings I’ve eaten? How many days I’ve worked which is under 60. Is it how many friends we’ve made? Right now in early November I did a little tally and found that I’m gonna count it as the year with 2 bundt cakes and 15 books.

So far, this has mostly been a year of loss. Job loss and family loss. Matt lost two friends and one grandfather. We lost our dog too. Woz went to doggy heaven under a series of unfortunate events that is still hard to talk about. Then his parents, who’ve been instrumental with enabling Matt and I to have any sort of weekends alone together, moved to New Mexico. We took a break from hosting our home church and merged with another group and no longer hosting. Two entertainment union strikes kept a lot of our friends unemployed and my usual work was non-existent. We were sick for maybe 2 months total this year with colds and really intense viral stuff that felt RSV-ish. Loss and loss.

There’s also been some good stuff. I rented so many movies and 3 seasons of Gilmore Girls from the public library. Did you know there’s this thing called the library and it lets you borrow books and tv shows and movies for free?! Crazy right? Earlier in the year I deleted all social media off my phone and logged myself out of all accounts. I don’t miss it in the slightest though my propensity for oversharing is suffered by my group text friends. In place of social media, I added learning another language and reading books. I’ve done over 300 days of either French or Japanese lessons on the Duolingo app. I can ask for rice and water in Japanese and where the train station is in French. Où est la gare? 

My personality type dictates that I measure my success in achievements and affirmations. My other personality type dictates that I fill my time with beauty, art, and nature. Right now only one of these mes is steering the ship while the other is asleep in a cabin possibly tied up in a mutiny type situation, I’m not sure. I’m living my best and broke-est life right now. It’s weird. 

During the dark pandemic days we quickly realized that the things that give our life meaning have nothing to do with money or possessions or jobs or success. I know that. But the waiting, this fallow season is unsettling. I trust God will provide and trust that something is on the horizon with no evidence other than just feeling and faith. 

I don’t feel depressed. I don’t feel settled. I don’t feel worried. I just find myself marveling at the strangeness of this abundance of time. I mean, how much time is there in between raising children and social obligations but I’ve had moments where I have an hour to kill and had earlier in that day done all the things I wanted to do that were leisurely during the designated leisure time. I had watched a thing, read a thing, crafted a thing. I had an hour of leisure time to kill, that’s something that people kill themselves to accomplish even just an hour of a week. I am not those people since I have designated a weekly practice so restful joyful artful time is never too far away but if there’s too much of a good thing here at the end of November, that time has come.

In the time I started writing this post and finished it I had read two more books. 2 bundt cakes and 17 books.