My goodness I’m a neglectful blogger, aren’t I!

How was 2021 for you all? It’s been good and calm for me – cozy and hidden. By the end of the year though, my soul has been aching for something fresh.

And now it’s almost 2022 and I’m looking back – feeling a bit like I missed the boat on a lot of my goals this past year. I’m also looking way back to the darkly cheerful, 90s-dreamer I used to be. She would be looking around my life today feeling so incredibly grateful.

Look at this house!

It’s a little messy, overfull, and casual. A nest for us to settle in. I love the sunlight that streams in through our windows and the warm candlelight that keeps us settled in the rituals of the seasons. 90s-Masha spent hours in her dark bedroom, burning candles and incense – but there was always the light-switch on the wall to break the mood.

In this house, there’s no light-switch. It’s eternally wrapped up in ritual and mystery and mood. We can rest here.

It’s also silent (figuratively) in the same way my 90s bedroom was silent. There is music, talking, laughter, barking, noise – but there is no outside noise. No social media, no constant selfies, no news of the world trickling in. We have to make an effort – walk down to someplace online – in order to find internet distractions. 90s-Masha never thought that this sort of silence would be so rare and precious.

[Friends, seriously, kill your smartphones. Talk to the person next to you. Don’t visit someone and spend time scrolling to show “that funny video” or “this crazy ad”. It doesn’t bring closeness. It doesn’t bring real conversation.]

90s-Masha would be thrilled to see the natural world growing up around her. To actually know the trees by name and count the faces of the moon. Simple, consistent chores that keep her head on her shoulders and send it flying into the stars at the same time.

But she’d be shaking me for my lack of intensity – I’m still trying to reclaim what 90s me already knew.

I’m hoping to spend a lot of time with 90s me this coming year. I’ve picked the word “Reclaim” as a gathered-up intention for 2022. A pile of hopes and dreams tucked into one, little word.

I’m not trying to ‘reclaim’ anything I’m owed. I’m not pretending that I have a right to reclaim lost opportunities. I don’t want to go back and be a teenager in the 90s again. I’m thrilled that those dreaming-days have come to their fulfillment in this beautiful life. But part of me looks at how I’m living this dream and says; “You have forsaken the love you had at first. ⁵ Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. “

So, I’m looking hard at the ways in which I’ve failed and fallen. I’m remembering the love I’ve always longed to pour out into my home and family, into God Himself, and into my whole life, repenting of my neglect, and reclaiming devotion – doing again the things I did at first.

To be honest, there is really nothing more comforting to me than the eternal pursuit of perfection.

Do you have a word or a goal or a resolution this New Year? New beginnings are my favorite – I love when the year and the month and the day are all fresh!