Finding Pockets of Peace

This year, I have had the pleasure of being a Responsibility.org ambassador. I was compensated to write this post, but all opinions of course, are my own

This year was full of disappointments.

Pookah missed out on his elementary school graduation, a celebratory trip to Disney, summer camp, trips to Grandmama house and the pool.

Cdub missed out on lots of personal and work related goals related to being able to travel.

I missed out on what I planned 2020 to be: a year of travel and growth in my work.

I thought that 2020 was going to be the year when I got everything that I wanted! It was going to be MY YEAR!

But then the pandemic came in and that was that.

Pookah bounced back quickly. For such a social child, he adjusted with facetime, group gaming, and bugging his parents to play every game known to man.

CDub became a grill master, learned how to garden, took on a whole lot of house projects and seemed to find peace in a new daily routine that involved all of us.

And me..I did not flourish. I found myself shrinking, unhappy and missing the quiet predictability of my daily routine.

Missing alone time.

Missing being able to leave the house and go on random Target runs, working at a coffee shop or just being ALONE.

I started feeling resentful of the intrusion on what I thought of as MY space and MY time.

It took it mental toll.

A few weeks ago, I sat in on a zoom call with school counselor + author Phyllis Fagell and Responsiblity.org to talk about unmet expectations this year and how we all coped.

She spoke about the resilience in children. How they know who they are. How they don’t have decision fatigue like we do. How they bounce back basically.

I wanted to shield Pookah from everything that happened this year, but there was no need. As Phyllis Fagell pointed out: it’s not our jobs to shield our kids from disappointment. Pookah unknowingly practiced radical acceptance this year and flourished.

I wanted to be like him.

So I started searching for little pockets of peace.

I’ll be honest and say it took a long time to manage my unmet expectations for the year.

I had to find new ways to find those moments of peace I was used to having.

I found them slowly in my hammock, on my front porch, sitting in my car to get a moment of silence, getting up early in the morning for a ride on my peloton or waking up just 30 minutes earlier than normal to read and journal.

I’m not saying that I’ve embraced radical acceptance yet and that everything is awesome.

I’m saying.. I’ve moved to a place where as long as I can find those pockets of peace, no matter what 2021 throws at me, I’ll be ok.

Responsibility.org and its commitment to cultivating a lifetime of conversations between parents and their kids, including with respect to alcohol responsibility. I’ve loved being an ambassador this year to share this resource with you all.

What did you do this year to find your pockets of peace?