As 2021 comes to a close, I’ve been seeing a lot of year-end round-ups on my social media feeds. You know the type: “here are all the great things that I did this year.”
I don’t know if it’s the return to pandemic lockdown or the frigid Prairie cold, but I’m grumpy.
These sort of posts make me grumpy. I’m not sure why, but I suspect it’s because I’m tired. I’m tired of this urge to count out our acquisitions of success – books read, stuff done, things published – as if they’re gold coins piled in the palm.
Don’t get me wrong: it isn’t that I begrudge anyone their success. I’m the first person to cheer for that writer who finally – finally! – broke through their anxiety about submitting work and got a poem or a story published, or anyone who managed to read something other than their relentless Twitter feed this year. And this isn’t sour grapes, either. I’ve had my share of successes in 2021, which I’m proud of, but they probably aren’t the things that I’ll remember when I’m 80…
Because I also did other things, things beyond my career. For one, I went back into therapy and made some real progress healing old wounds that I thought would remain mostly unbearable (EMDR makes miracles, I tell ya!).
I grew my own pumpkins and potatoes (and tomatoes and catnip and kale and melons and more).
I dyed some yarn an amazing deep fuchsia using lichen harvested during a canoe trip in 2020.
I watched a monarch chrysalis form on our garage door and eventually emit a butterfly.
And, on a July afternoon paddle north of Hollow Water First Nation, on Treaty 5 territory, on the 40th anniversary of the car accident that forever altered my family’s path, J. and I saw seven bears.
These are the moments that birth poems. They are not accumulations. They are not events that make money. They come and go with the seasons. And, more importantly, they are the background to the effort – for some of us, searingly hard, some days – to survive.
Now – especially now – during these long, hard years of collective trauma, we need to make room for this sort of simplicity, for these lists that account for the bare minimum of, simply, keeping going.
Because my list some days might have been – and was – considerably less remarkable:
I had a shower. Or:
I walked the dog. Or:
I tidied the kitchen. Or:
I watched a few hours of Netflix and called it research. Or:
I wrote for 15 minutes.
As we see our way forward into 2022, let’s make room for being under-achievers, shall we?
Of course, we all need to do what we have to in order to survive – both physically (ie. eating) and spiritually (ie. writing), but none of us needs the pressure to be a good capitalist and account for our worth on this planet.
You are worthy. You are enough. No matter what you get done or don’t, you – in the words of the late, great Mary Oliver, securely have “a place in the family of things.”
What was this year like for you? What moment of exploration, creativity, or, simply, survival, helped you get through?
Happy New Year! I wish you health, love, and light in 2022.
Yes, yes and yes 😊 Some days, it was an accomplishment just to wear pants…
I am definitely making room to be an underachiever this year!
All. Of. This. ❤️
🙂
Thank you for this Lauren! The things that I have come to call the little victories are indeed providing to be fruitful with some effort and pruning. Outwardly they are unimpressive and without any merited fanfare, but within, a sense of resilience and renewed purpose. The vanity of chasing the wind in seeking credit and accomplishments ebbs in the tide of these simple little victories which propel me towards the health, love and light you have wished for all of us in 2022, and I wish for you and your family!
Mark
Little victories are where it’s at! Keep accruing them… wishing you well 🙂
Thanks, Lauren. A lovely review of what looks to have been an eventful year (as they all can be, if one looks at it as you do).
Thanks 🙂 Hope you all are well!
Love this!!!
Thanks, Joanna! Happy New Year to you!
Yes! Making room for underachieving is just the thing! So tired of keeping up with the – whoevers. This year I started writing again with my online critique group via zoom. They have been a blessing. It’s very little writing, but it’s more than I was doing – and I’m thrilled! I also started therapy this year and agree that EMDR is amazing! Kudos to your accomplishements this year no matter how small. Blessings for 2022.
Ugh! The typos. Always reread before posting lol!
Thanks, Heidi! Very little writing is better than no writing 🙂 And I’m always happy to hear from others who’ve discovered amazing EMDR. Take care!
Smoooooooches!
Smooches back (and hugs and some dancing and a few raspberries 😉
I started a journal of “21” things last January….books I read, places I went, etc. and I failed miserably. Every so often I’ve felt a bit of guilt over it until this. Thank you for sharing this. You’ve given me a new–and better–way to look at what I do or don’t accomplish. I think I’ll go into this year looking at goals differently. Happy New Year!
Glad! Happy New Year to you and yours!
I really enjoyed reading “Waiting” when it showed up in Poetry Pause just lately. I meant to email to tell you this but it’s one of many things that disappeared into the relentless anomie of the last two years. It’s getting harder and harder to find something to say, or the will to say it, I suppose.
Thanks, Phyllis. I agree – it took me forever to write this post. I’ve been trying to write one for a couple weeks and finding words has been hard.
You shared the wonder of that little monarch with my grandkids and me. During the drought and the heat and the found children and the masks and the barely hanging on…you shared that garage door miracle.
That was one of the highlights of the whole thing, for sure! To see their little enchanted faces… xo.
Love the video, the beauty of that moment captured in time because you were open to being still to take it all in. Love the post too. I recently saw and posted something that said that all of our accomplishments, goals, etc. do not determine our worth so I’m with you 100%. In 2022, I plan to be open to failures that may mean I’m learning and growing in my writing, coaching, social activism and maybe life in general. I dunno about you, but I tend to learn more from these hopefully gentle failures than from my successes or “accomplishments”. We’re in this together, have each others backs. That’s what really counts.
Appreciate this, Leanne! It is so true that we learn more from (hopefully gentle, as you’ve said) failures than from successes. I wish for both of these for you this year (but hopefully more of the former than the latter, if I’m honest)! Take care!
I share many of your feelings.
Getting out of bed is an achievement.
Going for a walk in the bush or a swim in the river heals.
I am thankful to know people like you.
I need to keep talking to my counsellor.
She reminds me – I am enough, just I am.
Thanks for sharing this, Donna. Agree that getting outdoors is a big one! Wishing you well!
Sending wishes of love, health, laughter, and light to our friend from the North. After all these years, I continue to be amazed by your amazingness, Lauren.
xo Margo & John
Aw, Margo! 🙂 Lots of love to you both, too.
Thank you for this perspective, Lauren. Happy New Year!
And to you, Cathy! Take care!
Thanks for this, Lauren. Love the video. My best to you in the new year.
All the best to you, Leona 🙂