One of my favorite traditions for over a decade has been to sit down and try to write a REAL Christmas letter. Not just the highlights, but a few honest moments as well. It started as a joke with one of my friends, thinking how refreshing it be for people to share more than just their perfect lives that we are used to seeing on Facebook and Instagram. It would be way more truthful and a whole lot more entertaining.Last year was full of big and new things. This year has been mostly settling into them. Boring, but only in the best ways. It has been hard to write and wrap up my year because in some ways I feel like I don’t have much to say. Over the last year I have read, literally, hundreds of books but struggled to find my own words.
Owen has started high school. High school. I feel like I have blinked and this tiny blond toddler has turned teen with a deep voice and shaggy greasy hair. Something magical happened between 8th grade and 9th grade because he turns in his homework, hasn’t lost an ID (we went through at least 20 over the last two years) and even occasionally showers without being reminded. I was worried about the transition, but so far so good. He is on the high school tennis team and holding his own. I am realizing quickly that he only has a few more summers and holiday breaks at home. I’m trying to find that balance where I give him independence, freedom and still make him hang out with us (and unload the groceries). He spent a week at fishing camp at A&M Galveston and knows more about marine life than I ever will (or care too). He has grown a ton over the last year in knowledge, maturity and even a few inches. Despite being relatively chill and often indecisive, he occasionally has strong opinions. Owen would like to set record straight that baby yoda is not actually yoda but they are of the same species. 
Tess also started a new school. Goodbye elementary, hello intermediate. Basically, this means no more pickup lines or school parties for me!! I have helped make the last Valentine's box ever and I am not sad about it. Other things, I miss….like control of my car radio. I have gotten to stop worrying about Owen’s grades just in time for Tess to learn to procrastinate and forget all the things. She is only eleven, but I swear can sleep in and sass like she is seventeen. She loves Chinese food, pizza, Bob Ross, chai tea lattes and is still riding horses. She spent a week at rodeo camp and switched from English to Western styles. Once a week and all my money go watch her lope in and out of poles or around barrels. This fall we started watching Gilmore Girls together. So far we are on season three and I have loved sharing Rori with her (although not all of her choices). Things I’d like to share less of….middle grade moodiness.
We took our usual trips to the mountains and the beach. My kids truly get the best of both worlds with that setup. Shaun’s family goes to Colorado every summer and my extended family usually spends a week at the beach. We hiked, fished, caught crabs in the bay, played kubb on the beach and cards around the lodge table. It was my first year to not have any kind of true summer but we traveled enough that it still felt like a great break. The four of us spend several days traveling all over Oregon. We hiked up breathtaking waterfalls (with Tess complaining most of the way), explored tidepools at Cannon beach, watched the kitesurfers on the Columbia River and took the ski lifts up Mt. Hood (and halfway up remembered my huge fear of heights!) and caught a soccer game in Portland. The whole area was beautiful and I would go back in a heartbeat. When I asked my kids their favorite part of the trip they said watching Spiderman in a Portland theatre. Ughh. Next time I will save some money and send them to the movies and Shaun and I can travel.
Shaun is still making beautiful things out of wood and sometimes selling them. He has taken up the mandolin. I can recognize most of the songs he plays. He woodworks, makes music and recently made a kidney stone. He has a new level of sympathy for all laboring women in the world. He drinks local beer, eats whatever I cook and is game for whatever adventure I ask him to come on or plan. We have spent more life together than without and I can’t imagine it any other way (except with maybe less snoring and soccer injuries).
I am used to bells and grading periods marking my days and seasons. There are clean beginnings and ends and middles. But now, bells don’t ring. Students aren’t lined up at my door and papers are not waiting to be graded. This is often a relief. People often ask me if I miss the classroom. The truth is that I do not, but I miss the connections. The clear purpose written on my board, but mostly on faces. The bells and semesters telling me when to start anew. This year has been about finding those things for myself. Looking wider for connections, finding beginnings even when to-do lists and projects never quite end and fulfillment outside of a cubicle. Like most things, I am still figuring it out, but at least now I can use the restroom whenever I want.
The older I get the smaller my world becomes. The more certain I am of what I love and what I want no part of. My own children are getting older, more independent and need me less (except when they need money or cereal or a ride).
It has been a slow year. A year spent in a cozy blanket reading on the couch or hiking on a trail. Part of me feels like I don’t have any accomplishments or things to say, but this letter has always been about more than proud moments. This year I gained weight (and kept it). Last January I made a list of 19 things I wanted to do in 2019 and I think I only accomplished 4 of them. My kids fought almost every single day. I wore a lot of yoga pants and did zero yoga.
I had friends move, and fight cancer and fight for their marriage. I ached for them and wondered how to help carry just a little bit of their load. I said a lot of f-words. I occasionally skipped church. I occasionally went to counseling. I am writing this letter late and so far have yet to mail a single Christmas card. I drank coffee across from my friends. I celebrated 18 years of marriage to a man I still like to be around. I have let things go. I crushed some presentations and I bombed a few. I watched hours of TV and movies next to my kids.
We made it through junior high (one down, another to go). I drank in writing and words from books and podcasts. I played board games and card games but still refuse to play video games.
I logged hundreds of miles on the trail….often with great conversation.
I spent time away with my favorite people -- ones I am related to and ones I am not.
My year has been calm. Maybe that means a storm is coming. Or maybe it just has been a gift of rest. I am excited for whatever 2020 may bring, but I plan on spending the last little bit of my 2019 in a fuzzy blanket on my couch.
2019 Playlist
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