I wanted to come up with something profound and wise and coherent to say as a reflection on 2023, but I couldn’t settle upon one, single thing, so instead I’m going with 23 things that have floated through my mind this year. Many of them were things that I wanted to write full posts about, but could never scrape together enough to say to make them worth clogging up your inbox. I had fun with this, and hope you’ll enjoy this very random assortment of thoughts, observations, and catty comments for 2023.
Many things do get easier as you have more children, in that you feel like you’ve found your groove as a parent, you can anticipate challenges, and you have a better handle on the fact that, for better or worse, everything is a phase (and usually a short one). On the other hand, you simply can’t hack motherhood; I suspect that even if you have 10 kids, the tenth one will surprise you and throw curveballs that send you down Google rabbit holes/into fits of despair.
Keeping social media on our iPad/laptop has been really helpful for me in significantly cutting down mindless scrolling and the impulse to open apps whenever I have 0.5 seconds that my hands aren’t occupied. I started this approach in January and it has worked really well. That said, I logged out of IG for Advent and not only have I not missed it, I’ve barely even thought about it, so that’s something to consider going into the new year.
Substack is getting cliquey and echo chamber-y, and I have the impression that users are becoming increasingly focussed on upping their number of subscribers. Fair enough I guess, but it’s off-putting to me and has dampened my enthusiasm for this platform.
I simply do not understand the whole Taylor Swift thing?
This has probably been the driest year for my faith life since becoming Catholic in 2016. I can’t pinpoint exactly why, but I’ve had very little in the way of spiritual consolation this year. I haven’t experienced major doubt, but I haven’t felt close to God.
Lots of genuinely smart, interesting people with original ideas and valuable things to say, lose credibility (IMO) by becoming deliberately provocative and disagreeable.
This year I gave myself permission to read whatever I felt like - no ambitions to knock any weighty classics or theological tomes off the list - and also opted out of having a goal for the number of books read. I wanted reading to be a postpartum pleasure, not another thing I felt like I wasn’t doing enough/right. But in the end, I feel somewhat disconnected from “me” having not spent much time reading this year. Somehow I need to find a way to keep challenging myself with my reading goals, without burdening myself. Suggestions welcome!
Something I often to say myself and others is that the hardest part about having kids and especially babies is the unpredictability: never knowing if or when the baby will take a good nap, whether you’ll be able to honour that commitment or if you’ll be too busy caring for a child with stomach flu, whether you should count on 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep or 2. But whilst it’s true that this is absolutely a very hard part of parenthood, it’s also just an unavoidable part of life, and having kids kind of just gives you a crash course in dealing with it.
“Self-care” (if we can still say that without eyes getting jammed permanently in the backs of heads) can mean opposite things on consecutive days. One day it might mean leaving the mess for tomorrow and resting now; the next it might mean having a really good tidy up. One day it might mean cooking a nutritious, from scratch meal; the next it might mean pasta with a jar of sauce and a bag of grated cheese. Basically, it means being in tune with what we actually need in any given moment.
If I am in a bad mood, the first thing I should do is ask *myself* what *I* can do to get myself into a better mood, instead of making it other people’s (read: my husband’s) responsibility.
Having a cleaner is the best money we’ve ever spent. Some people will tell you it’s therapy, but I am telling you it’s a cleaner.
It’s always better to be direct. You can be direct without being rude. If people perceive directness as rudeness, then that’s not your fault.
There’s a fine line between setting a needed boundary, and being uncharitable. That line requires constant discernment.
I remain convinced that young people these days have terrible fashion sense, and I am both aware and completely unbothered that this makes me sound like the frumpy, uncool mum that I am.
I think the sharp rise in Catholic products and celebration of liturgical-adjacent decor is just a very thinly veiled attempt to help us feel better about slapping a Catholic label on frivolous consumerism.
Relatedly, much of the “liturgical living” movement appears to me as a diversion from the real meat of the faith.
As I age, I increasingly find myself with bad breath and stuff stuck in my teeth, and I get flashbacks to finding my parents so gross when I was a kid.
Very often when I pray about making a change or taking action on something, the answer I get from God is to do nothing. This feels like a radical message in the face of a world that celebrates dissatisfaction and agitation.
A Very Bad Day recently prompted me to think about the tension between our hopes/ideals, and our realities/limitations. I think I will carry this in to 2024 as a point of deep examination and reflection.
There is absolutely no way to package the unthinkable, hellish suffering experienced by some people, versus the relative comfort and ease experienced by others, that is not trite and galling.
I would be a wonderful cook if I didn’t have three young kids.
It seems like almost everyone is convinced that the world is becoming a worse and worse place. I truly don’t think that is the case, but if we believe it is, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I find New Year’s Eve to be the most terrifying and emotionally turbulent day/night of the year, as it feels impossible (to me) not to stand on the precipice of a new year and wonder which terrible things are coming. So many loved ones have faced major, life upending tragedy this past year, and it feels like the degree of separation between me and those tragedies is getting ever smaller. But, on NYE 2024, I’m going to try to stand on the precipice and wonder which wonderful, beautiful things are coming. I have no control over what lies ahead, but I do know that there will be goodness, truth, and beauty.
As the French say, joyeuses fêtes de fin d'année - have joyful end of year celebrations. And if you can’t manage joyful, just try to make it to the other side.
Mmmm yes. So good.
My only encouragement as someone who has been Catholic forever and have been told by my spiritual director that the feeling nothing is actually our normal spiritual state once we reach a plateau of spiritual maturity. We’re not riding the waves of spiritual emotions anymore, we’ve matured. Which is at the same time disappointing but also encouraging, you know? I also read some saint recently talking about this exact thing and basically saying, welcome to normal life, and I can’t remember who it was. I’m going to try to find it!
“Lots of genuinely smart, interesting people with original ideas and valuable things to say, lose credibility (IMO) by becoming deliberately provocative and disagreeable.” SO agree. But it’s what gets views and likes! Yet more tribalism is the literal opposite of what we collectively need.
Getting a cleaner again in the new year. It IS the best, even if it’s only bathrooms and kitchen and like once a month.