Thank You, 2023!

For many, 2023 has been a tough year. For me too, to an extent. But the challenges in 2023 for me were really lessons I needed to learn. I am grateful for the lessons from 2023 and for the amazing experiences I had along the way.

In 2023 I learned many lessons, and if I were to categorize them together with similar lessons, I think I could pinpoint three major things I learned:

I can do things I never thought I could do.

This year gave me so many opportunities to learn. I learned a lot from renovating and then selling the house I purchased in 2022. Whether it was learning to do certain tasks myself, or (and probably more importantly) learning at what point I need to ask for help, renovating and selling the house gave me so many lessons.

I learned to plant a garden and how to tend it. I had always wanted to grow my own vegetables but I am not naturally a gifted gardener. Sometimes I forget to water. Sometimes I forget to pull the weeds. But building the raised garden beds in the yard and planting food that we then ate was an amazing experience. I also grew luffa and am still trying to figure out what to do with all the luffas I harvested.

I learned that I can tackle the kinds of repairs I would, in the past, have just decided to replace. For example, our dryer is a few years old. It was not new when we bought it. But a few weeks back, Nancee mentioned that it was making a terrible noise. So, I did what I often do…I turned to Google. I discovered that the problem was the rollers and belt in the dryer and the parts were only about $30. This is great! Except to get to the problem, I would have to take the entire dryer apart. Quite literally every side, the front, the door, the drum, the controller…everything. But I did it. I set up a system so I would know which screws went where when the time came to put it back together. I vacuumed out the inside which needed to be done anyway. I repaired the problem and now the dryer works better than it ever has.

I learned to love pottery. After taking a handful of classes and learning to throw, trim and glaze pottery on a pottery wheel, I have become hooked on it. I learned that mistakes are ok. I learned that if I don’t give up, I will eventually get it. I have learned to breathe, to ground myself, to let my body connect with the clay. I am learning to trust the moment and not to overthink. And I am so grateful to my wife who has supported me in exploring this passion. So much so that she got me a pottery wheel of my own!

Nothing matters more than relationships at home.

There was a time when I believed that the work I do as an educator was just as important as my relationships at home. And I no longer believe that. There is nothing more important than the love and the time built, nurtured, tended to at home. My family is everything to me. And in 2023, we had some big milestones. Our oldest entered his final year of high school. Our youngest started high school. Suddenly we have no kids in elementary school and the next stages of their lives are beginning. Repairing my marriage in 2023 was hard, and not because of anything my wife did. Repairing that relationship required me to look within and see the areas where I needed to heal and change.

At the end of the day, the time I spend with my family matters. I can not easily be replaced at home. I still love my work. I love the people I serve. I love the learners who leave having met their own goals. But the system in which I work is not one that cares at all about me. If something happened to me, I would be replaced in a day. There are people in positions above me who have taught me that Education is no longer about people and relationships but about bottom lines and egos. In 2023, I learned that I care too much about people to ever move into one of those positions, and that my values, which used to align very well with the work I did, may no longer align with the values of that system.

All good lessons to learn.

Find reasons to celebrate – whether it’s turning 50 or getting through a really hard day. 

This year I also turned 50. 50!! It is hard to believe. But I love being 50. 50 gives me permission to step out of the shackles of other people’s expectations for me. 50 comes with wisdom. While my body may not be able to do what it did at 25, wisdom gets me a lot further.

For my 50th birthday, Nancee and I travelled to New York City for a four-day trip. We saw four shows on Broadway, ate great food, walked through Central Park and the streets of the city and made some amazing memories. What I learned from that trip was that I need to spend more time with my wife, just enjoying time together. I also learned that we need to find reasons to celebrate. It could be a big birthday, or it could simply be doing something we didn’t think we could do. Celebrate it. The world is full of messaging that we are not doing enough or being enough. We are always getting down on ourselves for mistakes we made or failures. Why are we not countering that negativity with celebration? Yes, celebrate getting that A on that assignment…but also celebrate finishing the thing at all when it was so hard to complete. Celebrate the promotion, but also celebrate decision to leave a job and to find another that more aligns with who you are. Celebrate your friends’ weddings, and also celebrate the friends who have made the brave decision to leave a toxic relationship.

There is always something to celebrate. 

These lessons I will take with me into 2024. I am grateful for the year of 2023. While it was, in some ways, the hardest year, it brought my family back together. It taught me things I would have never have thought I even needed to learn. 2023 was a gift. And I look forward to seeing what 2024 will bring.

Tomorrow I will share with you my framework for setting intentions in 2024. There are exciting things in the works for the coming year, but today is about looking back and enjoying the final day of 2023. Celebrate the year that was, and look forward to what is to come. But mostly, just be present in the now.

Happy New Year.