Wow. 2020 is upon us.

I wrote the majority this post during the day on New Year’s Eve while I struggled to get myself together and set some intentions for the new year.

I turned 33 on January 1, 2020. It’s an age I’ve been eager to get to for most of my life, mostly because I arbitrarily chose 33 to be my basketball number in middle school, and it has since held the position of my favorite number (whatever that means). Anywho, I entered this year with a lot of fear and anxiety. I’m still not totally sure what triggered it. It’s likely some combination of still grieving all the things we let go last year coupled with the fear of the unknown.

I was talking with a coworker about all of this on Friday, and she speculated that maybe our bodies know when a big shift is about to occur, and anxiety is its way of alerting us. She may be right. A huge shift happened for me and Dan last week, and while I’m not quite ready to talk about it yet, I will say it’s been a rollercoaster of a week riding straight from the top of “What the hell, God?!?!” all the way down to “Umm…okay, I guess I should be thankful for that,” and everything in between.

It’s been a whirlwind to say the least, and as I read back over this post written nearly two weeks ago, I’m releasing to the reality of surrender: surrendering to myself, surrendering to God, surrendering the need to achieve, surrendering the need to control, surrendering my need for certainty, and releasing myself into mystery.

Play. Love. Joy. Faith. Sadness.
All of our world’s most beautiful truths can only truly be experienced when experienced through the lens of mystery.

I hesitated to even share this post. Does anyone actually care to read about what happened in my life over the last 10 years?
Maybe not. Perhaps this is one of those times when the writing is more for me than it is for you. Even still, if you choose to read, I hope my reflecting inspires you to look back and notice things, both heavy and hopeful, that have brought you just exactly to where you are.

So much has changed in the last decade for me, just as I’m sure it has for you. I graduated from college in the spring of 2009, meaning I entered the 2010s as a little baby adult who had a lot of growing up to do. And growing up is what I did.

2010

In 2010, I was halfway through my first year serving with Cru at Mizzou. I started counseling that January, a decision changed my life forever.

I attended a multi-weekend counseling retreat called Grace Encounter (GE). GE tapped a desire in me to create that I hadn’t paid paid much attention to before. It was terrifying, and I took my first steps towards learning what it means to Trust the Process— in life, in relationships, in counseling.

I traveled to China for seven weeks that summer and caught glimpses of God in the architecture and landscape in ways I can’t fully explain. Later that fall, I‘d travel to Greece, soaking up all the beauty baklava and a coastal castle can hold.

Photo from Greece. Sadly, I lost all my photos from China. This was before the age of iPhones and backups and all those good things

2011

In 2011, I traveled to London with The Jesus Film project. I saw things that made me question the way we do evangelism in Western Christianity and I had my first blatant experience of being treated as less than because I’m a woman. Talk about a frustrating “mission” trip. This trip was definitely not my favorite, but one redeeming quality is that my sister was on the trip and we got to be roommates! We took three days at the end of the trip to travel to Paris together.

Talk about magic. Traveling with my sister was one of my favorite, most special things I’ve ever gotten to do and I hope I get to do it again.

Katie and I in London! It was so hard to choose just one photo for the blog.

2012

2012 was a big year.

I started out the year working in my college admission’s office. I had a grand plan of working there for a couple years, saving some money, and then moving to Chicago. But then… the drama of higher ed. office politics got in the way.

I quit that job in April and moved to Chicago in May with ZERO plan. I worked at Starbucks on Navy Pier and got a job waitressing in Wrigleyville. I took classes at Second City and started attending a new church. Everything about this newness was eye opening, crazy, exciting, and hard. I shed parts of myself that I didn’t even realize were there, my eyes opening further to the imperfections that existed both within myself and within this world. But even though the transition to a brand new place was hard, 2012 has still, by far, been one of my favorites. Riding my bike down tree-lined neighborhood streets to do stand-up comedy at a local bar…what is this life I’m living?!?

Taken at Navy Pier after my first day of work

2013

What can I say about 2013? It’s the year I met Dan Clair. It’s the year I took some leaps. I ran my first marathon and also quit my job in the service industry because I knew it was time for something stable. That Christmas, I had to give my family made handmade gifts because I didn’t have any money. I made “fortune cookies” out of felt and stuffed each one with a Bible verse or a quote from their favorite books and movies. I like to think they appreciated the effort =)

This is NOT a good picture. But it’s very representative of the beginnings of my friendship with these two— sitting on the couch in my living room laughing.

2014

In 2014, I started dating Dan Clair! I also started working for a company called Bidclerk. I hated that job with a passion. It was so boring and mundane, but it was exactly what I needed at the time — job stability, a regular paycheck, and a chance to think about what I really wanted to do next.

I met some amazing artists at that job and ended up connecting with a theater producer who gave me and my friend Betsy the opportunity to write and perform our first two-woman show the following year.

I also started volunteering in Soul City Kids 2014 and wrote my first batch of kids camp sketches with Dan, Betsy and our other friend Tony. I couldn’t believe how fun that was!

2015

Good golly, 2015 brought some change! My sister got married. I got engaged and married. I wrote and performed that two-woman show and went to Mexico on a honeymoon.

2015 was full of fun, and I rounded out the year feeling like more good change was about to come.

Right before we danced down the aisle after saying “I do.”

2016

In some ways, 2016 feels like the year things started to go downhill.

I kicked the year off by agreeing to work part time as the Kids Camp Creative Coordinator. This was such a good and life-giving decision. I loved that job. I loved learning how to put together a creative team of writers and designers and musicians. I learned how to produce a play with a teeny tiny budget and zero tech support.

I also said yes to taking over the entire summer camp one month before it started when the Operations Coordinator had to step down from her role. This was such a tricky decision. It’s one of those that I go back to again and again, wondering if it was right or wrong. In some ways, I wish I would have said no. I put my church’s needs above my own out of some skewed sense of duty and set myself up for burnout before the summer was over.

But in other ways, I learned a lot! My capacity as a leader and creator expanded in ways I didn’t know were possible. I discovered that I can get a lot of stuff done! I can lead with poise and calm even when my soul is screaming because everything feels chaotic. I learned that I can create worlds that spark the imagination and discovered that real gifts exist inside of me.

Unpacking those gifts, however, also came at a cost…. a cost that I’m still recovering from.

I forgot to mention….we celebrated our 1-year anniversary in New York, and “Take me back!” is all I’ve got to say. I loved that big city in every sort of way.

2017

In 2017, co-led an entire children’s ministry with my friend Lauren while our church went through a massive transition. Dan’s dad passed away that summer, and I got my first taste of being knocked in the gut with grief.

2017 was truly a terrible year. There’s really no way around it. I was let down by a lot of people. My husband fell into depression and I remember feeling so alone. Even two years later it’s hard to see any good that came out of that year. I’m sure it’s there. I’m sure it’s the kind of good that will take years to grow. It’s the tilling the soil kind of growth, the kind that rips the roots right from the ground to make way for new life to be produced. 2017 was a hard year, and I’m glad it’s over.

I guess if I could pick one good thing from that year it would be our friends. They stuck with us through that hard season, and they’re still here to laugh and talk through the seasons that will come.

I took this photo on one of the many walks I took while Dan waited and waited by his dad’s side in the hospital.

2018

2018 was kind of a wash. That year started off with a pretty devastating conflict with some friends, and marked the first time in my adult life I had to walk away from a friendship I discovered was unhealthy.

Additionally, the one-year anniversaries of Daryl’s death that year felt worse than the actual event.

I spent my last summer serving as kids camp director, and then let go of a dream of becoming a full-time kids creative producer at my church. It sucks to let go of something you really wanted to happen… especially when someone finally offers you the job you’ve been working so hard for and you have to say no because it’s just too late for it to be good.

We ended the year by visiting California. It was a deep, soul-filling vacation that I relive in my memories over and over again. Driving the PCH. Toes in the sand. Fish tacos every night. If I were to go back and write about that trip, I bet I’d uncover healing that I’d yet to see was there.

Vacations are important. Rest is important. And so is having fun.

California Dreamin’….with all the sea lions

2019

And then, there was 2019 – the year I’m still struggling to reflect on.

Nothing major happened. I had fully left my job at our church by the time the year began and spent the next eight months freelancing and working at Neat Method. It was slow, though it wasn’t necessarily steady. In a lot of ways, I loved 2019. There was a lot of laughing, a lot of dreaming, a lot of growing.

2019 felt a bit like the closing of a chapter — goodbye to the idealism of my 20s and hello to the hard truth and good fruit of my 30s: self-assuredness, confidence, and also the sadness of letting a few things go.

2019 could be called, “the Year of Friends!” Because we got to spend so much time with our friends… this fun family is just a small segment of them!

Also… my cute little nephew was born in 2019! Here is with my sister, dressed as Dobby the house elf. #swoon

2020

I’m coming into 2020 with a little bit of limp. But if Jacob from the Bible taught me anything, it’s that limping might actually be a good thing.

I’m ambivalent towards this limp, mad at God for the things that have caused it, but surrendered in the knowledge that he is good.

Yesterday, I filled out my new prayer journal for 2020 and at the top of one of the pages I wrote: Our plans really don’t matter much, but our surrender certainly does.

So that’s the posture I’m taking into this year — a posture of surrender.

Cheers to the New Year

A Decade in Words and Pictures