Happy New Year!

One of my favorite activities is always setting up a new calendar or planner at the start of a new year. For years I saved old planners and the like but my sentimental heart has moved on from this practice because who has the room? But I do like to take the time at the start of the year to flip through, remembering what the outgoing year brought with it.

This morning I sat on the floor of my office with last year's calendar, filled with birthdays and trips and appointments, and began transferring anniversaries and birthdays to a new calendar, empty, but  full of fresh spaces waiting to be filled.

So much of our 2020 is mapped out already. We have some trips and events that we are already committed to. Visits with friends, weddings, big birthdays,  a family reunion.  There are only a handful of months whose squares aren't already filling up in some way or another. I'm really excited for these things already planned. They act like little anchors on a 12 month timeline. Things to look forward to when regular life drags on. I don't know that I've entered a year with so many things already on the table.  If I'm excited by these pre-planned engagements, then I am bursting with curiosity at what will take place in the squares in between. What spontaneous fun, what heartbreak. What discoveries and decisions and growth. I'm sure there will be one where our kids do something adorable and one where I yell too much. One with unexpected news and one with predictable regularity. One where I crush the to-do list and one where I feel crushed. Because that's what the squares are there for. The good and the bad, the exciting and the mundane.

While I'm grateful for these big weekends to come I know that our life will be made in the squares in between. In the drives to dance class and walks to the bus stop. In the after-work debriefing and the brainstorming session. And just when I think I can't do one more load of laundry there will be a wedding to attend or a birthday to celebrate and with it a chance to reset my compass, live big for a minute, realizing that the small living squares are how we build a life.