Christmas already?
It’s Christmas. Where has this year gone? I have gone to write a blog post a few times over the last month or so, but never quite sat still long enough to do it!
This year has taught me a lot, but also reaffirmed my values, my goals and boy has it allowed relationships to flourish and grow.
It’s not been an easy year, and thinking back 12 months I was honestly a different person. I didn’t see the point in life, and just aimed to make it through to my counselling session each Monday. I now see so much potential and opportunity in life, I just need to know my own boundaries (and how much nap/sleep time I need!).
2020 has helped me see I’m not just part of a family – a daughter, sister, niece. I have a family too – a partner, step children, in laws. I always thought that you had to literally have your own children to shift your mindset to suddenly being all about your kids, but you really don’t. They’re not mine, but I would give up everything for them. I had a weird dream (I have plenty of weird dreams…) that my partner died and I no longer got to see the children. It made me realise how both my partner and his kids are my world, and I don’t know what I’d do without them. The one thing I still battle with regularly is feeling like I’ve let my parents down by not giving them any grandchildren, and worrying about myself in old age, but for now my love for the kids is bigger than these concerns.
Equally, not having children of my own has helped me realise that I really can focus on my career and develop. I have the opportunity to continue pressing on and growing, and as my tshirt says, if not now, then when? So I’m putting everything I’ve got in to that, when the children aren’t with us or when they’re in bed. Dare I say it, all the restrictions have actually helped with being able to prioritise work for a while.
This isn’t to say that I’m not grateful for friendships. Not at all. I am so grateful, and have loved choosing gifts specifically for each of my friends this Christmas. I have loved being able to support small businesses in doing so and can’t wait to hear what friends think of the gifts. Gifts is definitely a love language of mine.
So this year I was able to really clarify my values of nurturing, leadership, faith, belonging and appreciation, and I think they sum up my year pretty well too.