So I’m taking these callused feet

Here’s to you 2024. I’m ready.

Cheers to 2022 and 2023, I say sarcastically as I raise my cold cup of coffee to no one.

Okay, on a more genuine note, I couldn’t really say hello to 2024 without looking back on ‘23 which very much pairs with ‘22. You are like one big blob of time, hard to pull the thread of one without tugging on the other.

Thanks to you, I became intricately acquainted with the rough crevasses of “rock bottom”. I have said goodbye to places, homes, countries, languages, cultures, churches, ways of living, routine, and friends. So many friends.

I have had to restart communities - twice! I learned again and again what it meant to be a mother as baby becomes toddler. What it meant to be married as through parenthood and and then a rather large career change (some could say this was our second baby).

Somehow, this all happened while I road the train named “Postpartum Mental Health & Recovery”. I more often use it’s endearing nickname, the sh**show. That’s a longer story for another time.

Listing it out is sort of hilarious, in the dark humor kind of way. I have had friend after friend look into my life and say, “Woah, are you okay? It’s been a lot.” My response has been to shrug, to laugh it off, and say “No it’s not that bad, it’s okay! I’m okay!” 

Why do we always think we’re okay when we’re not? Why does it take a person so long to realize they have been face down on the bottom of the rock?

In time, I have realized that when I thought I was walking along just fine, I was actually laying face down against that craggy rock, stroking the rough uneven divots, lulled into normalcy.

And to answer my question posed to no one other than myself: because no one likes it being public knowledge that you are as low as you can go. Who wants to know their friend is not strong, sufficient, amazing in the face of large and small tragedies? Or another way to put it, who wants to be known as weak, as “oh that makes sense because blah blah blah happened”, as an expected wreck.

Everyone loves a comeback kid.

Truth is, you want people to know that you’re face down on rock bottom so that they can offer you a hand up, but sometimes the pity and the story written around you in the minds of others doesn’t seem like a fair trade off. I digress… a bit of 21, and then all of 22 and 23 shows that life is expectedly unfair.

Thanks to you 2023, I found myself standing more than laying down. How? I can’t really explain how that happened except for a few things I know to be true.

I made stuff. I bought the watercolor paper and cheap paint set paired with brushes. I bought the stylus pen and researched the best free Ipad app for drawing. I paid the membership fee of Exhale. I tried to ignore the line of thinking that started with, “Sure you like doing that thing but really how often will you paint, write, or design”. Or the other thought, “Seriously you think you should spend money on that? You’re not good enough to spend money on that!”

I knew I needed to create because it was like putting air in an oxygen tank. If it’s there, maybe my hand can find the mask, and slowly lift it to my mouth. Just to breathe. One breath at a time. With a little air, I could possibly pry myself off the bottom.

I spoke my story. With the right people, at the right time, I shared my story with them. Sometimes it would come rushing out and I would have to stop and check in, or just acknowledge, “yep, it’s heavy.” Sometimes it came in parts, with cliffhangers due to the motherhood lifestyle. Most of the time, it looked like showing up at a mom’s group hosted by my church and being as honest as I could with where I was at, week in and week out. The rock-bottom and the buoyant fun. I was not good at asking for help, but I owned my story one sharing at a time. It made all the difference.

I held on, at first bits and pieces and now a firmer grip on faith, on God. God and all things related did not always feel safe. I showed up to church because the rhythm of it kept me tethered, especially when my swirling mind could not exactly decide if it wanted to be there. The timing was right to take a sabbatical (a fancy word for: I got two months off from work to spend time focusing on my spiritual life) and I knew I needed to walk it out.

Instead of doing ministry work, I was able to walk at the beach, walk around the neighborhood lake. Walk the same circles around my neighborhood and let the narrative of who I thought God was and what happened run around enough to the point where I tired myself into silence. It was there He spoke, and where I can now confidently say he is a constant warm presence. He is always there.

These feet still felt the rough bottom in 2023, but they also have calluses that keep me comfortable and ready to roll when the ground gets rough. 2023 was stabilizing. Enough to stand on wobbly legs and run into the arms of 2024 full of hope that this is the year my feet find softer solid ground.

Because year 2024, I’ve titled you “the sturdy year”. I want to be all things sturdy.

Sturdy parenting (thank you Dr. Becky, author of Good Inside for the inspiration. Maybe I’ll even finish the book that I’ve barely started!) Sturdy enough to keep my emotions in check and show up for my big feeler toddler instead of letting my emotions run the scene and battle against his. 

Sturdy wife-ing (what a goofy made up verb). Show up in all the ways my husband has asked me (verbally but mostly non-verbally). Focus more on showing up than the ways he’s showing up for me. This is always a dance, every year. But this year I feel like I have the energy to put my feet in the right places rather than being carried like a limp doll, surely tripping him and myself, a nice two-in-one. 

Sturdy living. Do stuff when I don’t feel like it. What if I accomplish stuff (sorry to be a mystery about it but that’s just how it goes sometimes) and I am still unhappy about it? Well then at least I know. Let me surprise myself by completing something big despite how I feel. How totally counterintuitive to my internal compass that would be.

I am at best, a worst-case-scenario person. If I accomplished all the great plans of 2024 , and the worst part is that I’m not content, okay then. I can live with that. Because being sturdy isn’t about doing what feels best, it’s about doing what is best. A phrase I will repeat to myself. I am sure of it.

My hopeful self speaks to my worst-case-scenario self: I hope you are more than surprised at the joy you find along the path of sturdiness.

So I’m taking these callused feet, holding them out tentatively in mid-step, face turned upward to the warming presence of God. May my feet still hold these calluses but also become acquainted with the kind of place I can firmly put my feet into in order to run. 

Here’s to you 2024.

I’m ready.

This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series "Hello".