2017: What This Year Has Taught Me

In just two days, six hours and some minutes, 2017 will finally be over. That is how much remains of this year at the time I begin writing this post, on a Friday evening in Michigan while my dog paces the living room, while snow falls gently outside, while I keep refreshing “Find My Friends” to see how far away from home my daughters are as their dad is currently driving them home.

In two days and six hours and some change, the ball will drop, friends will toast, and a new year will roll over… and we’ll have that fresh start that everyone seems to think is coming our way.

I don’t know if I believe in the kind of fresh starts that come with a new year. Not anymore.

Midnight will roll around and the only thing that will have changed is the calendar. For those of you who are still writing checks, you’ll have to deal with trying to get the year right. But ultimately we’re the same people living the same lives and likely making the same decisions over and over (except for the first few weeks when we all vow that this year is the year we’re going to stop eating garbage and for three quarters of January we are going to EAT SO MANY VEGETABLES, and then we’ll go back to licking the sugar out of the bottom of a bag of Frosted Flakes again, because that’s the way it goes).

I could hope that things would be better or different in the new year, but I know better. The past few years have taught me that, if nothing else. Each year, I have rejoiced while saying goodbye to the year we have just endured, and then the next year brings more of the same, if not worse. It’s as though the collective universe looks onward in January thinking, “Hold my beer…”

This is not your uplifting end of the year post. I’m sorry about that.

But for all the cynicism I feel about the new year ahead, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that I have truly learned a lot this year. This year was one full of so much emotional turbulence and loss. It was filled with challenges and some triumph, and it had moments of struggle and grief.

Love is one of the most amazing things in the world, and yet by opening your heart and loving, you are vulnerable to some of the most crushing pain in the world. I’ve felt a lot of that pain this year. It’s been tough, I’m not going to lie. We are all scabby open wounds, in our family, and the pain of someone poking at these wounds is devastating. Especially when it’s your family.

Sometimes the people who are supposed to love us the most end up disappointing us. And the pain that comes from it, from harsh words or broken promises, is a spectacular hurt. When it feels like it’s so easy for those you love to lash out at you, well, sometimes you can spend a lot of time wondering what the hell is wrong with you. You’re the common denominator, right?

So. Yeah. I’ve spent a lot of time this year wondering what’s the matter with me.

In 2017, my brother died and I found out that mine was not a family that rallied around each other when times were tough. Some of us did, some of us didn’t. I found that the friends I thought would be there, weren’t really. I had no idea when I was raising my middle finger to 2016 last December just what the year ahead had in store.

I mean, I guess we never know. It’s why I hesitate to get too optimistic about 2018. I mean, I’m still me, you’re all still you, and all we have is our brief intention to do better, at least for a little while.

What I can say is this: the lesson I have found to be most prevalent in my life this year is a simple one. In short: Your words matter. What you say matters, what you don’t say matters. How you say it, why you say it, why you don’t say it, when you say it. All of that matters in large ways and more than any of us can truly comprehend.

We choke down negative feelings and don’t air our complaints until they burst out of us sideways, taking along innocent bystanders in the process. We fail to reach out when someone is grieving because we don’t have the words to say. We recoil when someone is hurt because hurt is messy and their sadness feels like blame.

When my heart was hurting most, I know who was there for me and who wasn’t. I remember who reached out to me, and who was absent. I had no idea until this year how truly impactful it was to tell a grieving friend, “I am so sorry” or even “I really wish I knew the right words to say, but I don’t have the words and this is really just so awful.” Too many people waited for the right words to come, and said nothing. Their absence was palpable. I didn’t need solutions. There was no way anything could be fixed. All I needed was for the words that beneath their surface said to me: I hear you, I see you, and I know I can’t make this right but I’m sorry.

The day before my brother’s funeral, a family member told me they’d been upset with me. His plan had been to resolve it before the year was over. At that point, he’d been hanging on to that festering feeling for months. What you say, when you say it, and why you say it matter. How many more months would have gone by? Years? Who knows.

This year has been a heaping pile of suck in so many ways, but I am grateful to have learned the lesson that showing up matters. I wish I hadn’t had to learn it the hard way, and I wish that it hadn’t come with the revelation that I hadn’t been a great friend in the past when they had experienced grief, loss, or strife. I know there were times I said nothing thinking my silence would not be noticed. There were times I didn’t do anything because I didn’t know what I could possibly do that could make an impact. I know now: I can’t fix it, I can’t erase hurt, but I can be a person who shows up, who offers kindness and an embrace, who hears you and sees you and acknowledges your pain.

Empathy. As we say in my house, it’s not a flower that blooms in everyone’s garden. That we truly discovered this year. And at least my daughters and I are a tiny bit wiser in having learned that lesson. I guess we have 2017 to thank for that.

This year has been hard. And if I’m being honest, I’m sure 2018 will have its challenges as well. I am far too cynical to get optimistic about it, and I hate that about myself right now. I’d like to have a clean slate and a happy heart and march forward into January with optimism. But y’all know me, that’s NOT how this mom is wired, after all.

I feel like it’s a shameful thing I’ve just done, written over 1200 grim words without mentioning any of the joy of the year, or that I am loved, or detailed the high moments. I hope that you will forgive me that. I am not unaware of the things that are good. Please trust that I know it, I see it, and I feel it.

We are now two days, five hours and some minutes away from a new year. What does 2018 hold? We’ll find out soon enough, I guess.