Peace Out 2021.

It’s 5:14 am on December 17th and I’m sitting in the warm glow of Christmas lights and four candlesticks contemplating what it will be like to spend Christmas away from my family, again. My youngest sister tested positive for COVID and is now the third member of my family to become sick with a breakthrough case of COVID. My oldest sister and her husband also fell ill with breakthrough cases of COVID in November. (All recovered well, although two of the three were quite sick and all three were symptomatic.)

Because we have an unvaccinated child at home, we continue to live our lives as fully as possible and as carefully as possible. My office just pushed back the return to office date once again as we await more news about the Omicron variant. 

Sometimes I think about all the things we used to do when we were sick. We only slowed down if a sickness really knocked us out, but I think it’s safe to say most of us went to work, attended school, attended parties and gatherings, and generally existed as normal with moderate (or even severe) colds and other ailments. Now even a small cold can derail daycare, and as a result our plans to work full-time, for the week at a moment’s notice. 

For all the parents reading this, the daycare struggle has been one of the most exhausting pieces of all this.

It’s very difficult to manage full-time work when daycare is unexpectedly closed erratically and frequently throughout the year. The stress this puts on the body is immense. For me, I want to be a good employee and it’s hard to say, “Hey, I don’t have daycare… again.” Not to mention what it feels like when your child is exposed and you have to go through the physical and emotional stress of fearing the worst, taking your child to be tested by men in space suits, etc, etc…

When I think about something from a year ago I often find myself wondering, wait, was that 18 months ago, or was it 6 months ago??? I start to realize how warped the time has been over the pandemic period. 

As someone that used to be highly extroverted, the past two years have been something of an identity crisis. Who am I if I’m not the person organizing happy hours, themed parties, craft parties, family gatherings like lefse fest, and dinner parties? Or even at a more basic level, who am I without work friends, the constructs of a physical office and coworkers I see regularly, and patterns in my life such as regularly seeing my friends and family indoors for birthdays, holidays, etc?

Prior to the pandemic I operated on the knife’s edge of burnout most of the time (sound familiar?) I pushed myself extremely hard. The pandemic has forced me into a long, slow season with a very small group of core people. Honestly, I don’t know what the next phase of my life will look like. I know I won’t go back to who I was, but I know this extremely insular and introverted version isn’t where I will stay either. 

So this year I enter the New Year’s Workshop as a slightly more confused version of myself than in the past, and that’s okay. I wear a lot more athleisure now (jeans? What are jeans?) and I spend 95% of my time in the nature around my house vs. commuting or in a city/office environment. While it is shocking to me that it’s now 2022, I’m ready to reflect and look ahead with intention and clarity. 

And that’s the beauty of the New Year’s workshop. We are always evolving, growing, changing. We are always becoming new versions of ourselves. 

The New Year provides a magical moment suspended in time to take stock of the year and think ahead to our hopes and dreams for the coming year. It is an opportunity to imagine a different version of ourselves, or to recognize the relationships and activities that brought us support and joy vs those that drained us.

The pandemic has taught us all a lot about the importance of boundaries. We’ve learned to advocate for ourselves and our families if/when we don’t feel comfortable. 

The pandemic has taught us about our relationships. Some relationships have grown in complexity and strength. Some have grown stale without the artificial constructs that held them in place. Some have been damaged by differing beliefs and we are all learning how to navigate how those relationships move forward (if at all) in this new world. 

The pandemic has forced us to take a long hard look at our work, our work-life balance, and how we can rest and rejuvenate when work takes an enormous toll. Whether you have been working from home for two years, have been working overtime to care for patients for two years, navigating the complexities of teaching during a pandemic, or decided to completely switch career paths (etc), most of us have a different relationship with work than we did in February 2020- good, bad, or otherwise. 

The pandemic has helped us learn who we are when no one is watching. What do we enjoy? What gives our day meaning? How do we stay hopeful, joyful, and resilient? 

Two years into the pandemic, the time to reflect on what has passed and what is to come is perhaps more meaningful than ever before.

We hope you’ll join us for this annual workshop. We’ll move our bodies in nourishing ways and do some journaling and sharing as we say farewell to 2021 and prepare for 2022.

Click here for the New Year’s Workshop on January 2nd from 9am-11am.