Making a List

As a new year approaches, cheesy or not, many of us reflect on the past and consider changes for the future. Although it’s easy to drown in a flood of resolutions, I’ve recently been prompted to think on the past. And not simply the past year, but the past two and a half years, also known as Life after Cono. Recently, a college friend of mine encouraged me to be talking through all of the changes that I’ve undergone rather than simply beating myself up for not making these transitions more smoothly. As we talked and I began naming transitional experiences, I was a bit undone by the list, which I offer below in lieu of a Christmas letter (This is a joke; I've never written a Christmas letter in my life. I always intend to send cards, but. . . ). Some of these transitions have been exciting or stabilizing, while others have been wretched and stress-inducing, but I am learning to trust that they work together for my good. For those of you who have known me a while and have observed me withdraw or turn into a mess in any previous months, or for those of you who are new friends who might be trying to figure out who I am, perhaps this will put some of it in perspective. In the past two and and a half years, and usually for the first time, I (in an order that is kind of like this one):

•Left a five year position at a boarding school, church, and life community in Iowa.
•Moved to Maryland and in with my parents and brother I last lived with when he was six.
•Regularly attended and changed my membership back to the church of my childhood, New Hope, where my father was the pastor.
•Looked for a job.
•Started an entirely new job experience: teaching 6th-8th grade reading intervention in a public middle school.
•Passed the Praxis I and II for teacher certification.
•Adopted a vegan diet.
•Began attending a growth group and singles group at New Hope.
•Picked up running as an activity; even doing a couple of 5Ks.
•Lost 40 pounds.
•Started a master’s degree program in liberal arts at St. John’s College in Annapolis.
•Studied a semester of Literature at St. John’s College.
•Overheard conversations where elders yelled at my parents.
•Observed an inability for genuine reconciliation to occur in the church.
•Walked with my parents through their difficulties with, resignation and departure from the church they planted 25 years ago.
•Left New Hope as well, church-hopping around Frederick.
•Deliberated how to depart from a church well, without any actual conclusions.
•Completed six different undergraduate course requirements in education.
•Studied a semester of Politics and Society at St. John’s College.
•Became a certified teacher of English for grades 7-12.
•Attended my first college roommate reunion in Maine, with the five women I lived with during senior year of college.
•Helped my parents move out of my hometown in Maryland.
•Moved to a house in Annapolis with two strangers and a cat.
•Church-hopped around Annapolis.
•Started attending Annapolis EP church.
•Started attending a women’s Sunday School class at Annapolis EP church.
•Taught a women’s Sunday School class at Annapolis EP church.
•Moved to another house in Annapolis with three new roommates and a dog.
•Visited Colorado for the first time, via an invitation to an uber-conservative seminar on the Constitution in Colorado Springs.
•Spend two weeks in Korea with dear friends.
•Started another new job experience: teaching 9th grade English and AP English 12 at a huge Christian School in Maryland.
•Led faculty workshops on reading comprehension strategies.
•Had a car experience damage from a tree limb, a rear-end collision, a parking lot collision, (neither one my fault) and a failing transmission within the space of a month and a half.
•Studied classical Greek.
•Studied a semester of Mathematics and Natural Science at St. John’s College.
•Bought a new car on my own.
•Learned how to drive a stick shift.

Oh. Maybe being a bit of a wreck is mildly permissible.