Year in Review

Year in Review 

On resilience, midlife, change, and finding your way when life doesn't go according to plan

This year hasn't allowed for many true breaks. It has been eye-opening, a real Year of the Horse. And this horse has been galloping.

The garden usually gives me somewhere to think. This year, even the garden seemed to be struggling to keep up.

The weather has been hot enough that much of the garden struggled. The okra stopped bearing. Pomegranates dropped before they matured. The cherries stayed miniature. The harvest was smaller, yet there seemed to be even more leaves to rake. Rainbows have been scarce.

I, too, have felt depleted.

When the sky turns overcast, it feels like trouble is brewing. I've learned not to rush toward it. Instead, I find something that needs doing. This year, that something was often right in front of me.

Most recently, it was a family member's house, which was under renovation for nearly nine months. I went in knowing very little about construction and came out knowing a little more, or perhaps just the prerequisites. I learned to read a level. I learned that varnish brushes can't be cleaned with water the way paint brushes can. Wood stain and varnish became my department: doors, closet doors, furniture. Eventually I mastered them.

The smell of varnish isn't forgiving, and sometimes I had to step outside to breathe. But it was satisfying to look at a finished piece and know my hands had helped transform it. We weren't just repairing something old. We were creating something new for someone who would be happy to have it.

Then came the paint. I painted greens. For the outdoor work, I mixed yellow and red into autumn golds and oranges, inspired by colors I already had at home. I didn't measure, which was both liberating and terrifying. Every time I mixed a color, I worried about running out. How would I ever recreate it? I trusted my eye anyway.

Not everything can be measured before you begin.

Back home, the garden was teaching me something similar. In the middle of the heat, a watermelon vine kept spreading, circling as if determined to claim as much space as possible. It wasn't sending out new roots. It was surviving on its original one, and somehow it produced very large melons. I invited the neighbors to admire it. Everyone was surprised: plants were drying up all around, yet here was this vine, still going. The watermelons were delicious, and I shared them.

I didn't see it as a lesson in resilience at first. I simply admired it. But now I think about that original root. Perhaps staying grounded doesn't mean standing still. Perhaps I can stay rooted and still stretch outward, supporting others without having to become their roots.

That distinction mattered this year, because I also had to make time to care for loved ones. There were long days and difficult nights. Doctor's visits, aides, prescription changes, unanswered questions. I became desperate enough to ask complete strangers for help. I didn't care how it sounded.

Not everything I reached for worked out, either. There were moments when a door appeared open, only to turn out closed, and I had to pivot. Sometimes our prayers are answered, but not in the way we asked. That may be one of the harder forms of acceptance: recognizing that the answer has come, just not in the shape we expected.

Through all of it, I have been giving up some of my roles: the fixer, the planner, the one who thinks ahead for everyone and tries to make sure everything turns out all right. For now I'm keeping only one: being attentive.

Being attentive doesn't mean prying, and it doesn't mean ignoring. It means noticing. It means not intruding, but letting someone know in subtle ways that I'm here, present and available without being burdened by everything happening around me.

I don't need to carry everybody. I also tolerate things better when I don't dwell on them. That doesn't mean I don't care. It means I'm learning the difference between caring and carrying, and between being strong for someone and believing everything depends on your strength. There is freedom in that difference.

But this year has also shown me what I've been missing. I've had less time to watch the birds, bees and butterflies, to hug a tree, or to sit and gaze at the moon. I didn't realize how much those simple things replenished me until I had less of them.

Still, a few moments broke through. One day I found a hummingbird's nest. When I passed again, there were eggs inside. Life was quietly continuing in a tiny nest while I was busy keeping up with everything else. And one night I woke, opened the curtain, and found the moon so bright the night looked like dawn. I stopped. For a moment, I didn't need to fix or figure out anything. I could simply look.

Perhaps that is another form of being attentive: noticing what is still beautiful.

This has been a season of finding other sources to draw from. I'm beginning to understand that depletion isn't always a sign you've failed. Sometimes it means you've been drawing from the same well for too long. The simple joys have been calling me back, and I realize I was drifting away from them into weariness.

That has changed how I spend my energy. I no longer feel the need to appear happy or to make friends. I ask whether I have the energy to spare. I'm becoming more protective of my small reserves, not to close myself off, but because being available to life requires something to give.

This year has also shown me something about my own books. I finished books about the struggles of midlife and might once have imagined that finishing them meant I'd finished with the struggle, as though writing the story would carry me safely to the other side. But my story isn't complete. Perhaps none of ours are. Life doesn't stop trying us simply because we've learned something.

So the weather changes. The harvest changes. Doors we expected to walk through close, and new ones appear. The wind changes direction, and we change with it.

Somewhere in all this, my idea of strength has changed. I used to think strength meant holding on tightly. Now I think there are times when strength means loosening your grip: allowing some things to fall, allowing others to find their own strength. Staying rooted without becoming rigid. Being attentive without becoming consumed. Being present without needing to control the outcome.

When I'm willing to be myself, I give others permission to be themselves. When I'm willing to be strong without pretending I can carry everything, I give others room to find their own strength. Perhaps that is what resilience really is: not becoming so hard that nothing can move you, but becoming rooted enough to bend without breaking.

Life will find ways to engage with you as long as you have breath. Sometimes the wind will knock you over. Sometimes it will fill your sails. Either way, the wind is going to blow, so don't spend your life hiding from it.

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If you enjoyed this reflection, you may also enjoy my book Time and Tide: Reflections, a collection of thoughts on living simply, navigating midlife, and finding meaning in the ordinary. 

Click here to explore B. Marwo’s books on Amazon.