Broken Pieces Make You Stronger: Remembering 2019

With 2020 approaching, I have my new planner in hand and have been excitedly leafing through the first pages. Casting my vision. Setting my goals. Picking my word for the year. I feel the hope and promise of a new year, a new decade. A year where I will also turn 40, experience a “milestone” birthday, whatever that means.

I turn to another page entitled “Remembering 2019” and the swell of hope subsides. I cringe. Looking back? Reflecting on the year that passed? That sounds hard. 

2019 had some bright spots, to be sure. My boys continued to grow and change. My husband started a new job. I spoke to several moms groups about the benefits of living with less and continued my own journey to simplify. But the year was also one of the hardest ones for me physically and emotionally. Feeling out of place in my own body and dealing with anger and subsequent regret prompted me to seek help. And while I feel like I am on a good path to truly take care of myself so I can take care of the ones I love, I can’t say that I look back on this past year with a warm and fuzzy feeling.

I’m always amazed how artists create by hand, although I suppose I use my hands by putting pen to paper when I write. I am not crafty and my drawing skills never advanced past first grade. I recently read about how potters can use something called grog when making pottery. Grog is pre-fired pottery that has been ground down to a dust-like texture. It can then be used in new pottery to stabilize it and make it stronger. It makes it less likely that a piece will crack during drying and firing.

I’d rather not think about the broken pieces of the past year. The words I regret. Things I’ve done. Things I haven’t done. The position of my heart and hands, wanting to hold on and control it all. The broken shards are painful when I pick them up, when I attempt to hold them to the light. 

But if left alone, the broken pieces will continue to remind me of my broken places. If I keep picking them up, my hands cannot heal. So I have to do the work to process each experience, however difficult, and grind down each piece to dust. To understand what each obstacle, challenge, mistake and regret has taught me, and then use it to build a new and stronger life.

What will you do with the dust of 2019? Leave it behind and hope it will just blow away in the wind? Or will you choose to use it to make something stronger, more resilient, and more beautiful?