OLW 2018 Steps

Voice was my choice for 2017, and I think it will continue to be a part of my journey for a while. I want to continue to cultivate my voice and to speak out for what I believe is right. However, I wanted to choose a new word for this new year.

 I usually meditate and try to let a word find me. If one doesn't arrive organically, I read through the list Alli Edwards puts on her web site. (She is the one who started OLW for me afterall.)

This year will have many life changes.
*Our youngest is graduating from High School in June.
*He is trying to decide between 3 colleges, but will be going to school in the fall.
*Our oldest has decided he doesn't want to be an engineer. So, he is taking a break from school this semester as he decides what he wants to be and where he wants to go to school. Unfortunately, the school he was at was for engineering, so he has to switch schools as well.
*June will mark 7 years that my husband and their father has lived 2 hours away. He comes home on weekends and has never missed a birthday or concert or special ceremony, but he has lived away from us. Once the youngest is done with school there will no longer be a need for that to be necessary. We will be selling this house and moving to where he is.
*Since we are moving, I will no longer be working at the school I have been at since our youngest started kindergarten. Leaving this job and finding a new one will be challenging, especially since don't think I can continue in education. I just can't condone how education works any more.
*28 years of marriage this year
*I turn 50 in the fall

What word would take all of this into account?

Embrace.... I am not in the frame of mind to embrace each of these major life changes
Accept...I do but I don't want to focus on the change with a word like accept

So those words and their ilk wouldn't work.

I thought of Brave and Bold and they may make a side appearance, but I'm not brave enough or bold enough to face all of this so confidently. So proactive hero type words are out.

Faith based words felt too passive.

I am a planner. I know where I am and I know where I want to be. I can see the other side of all this change. I can.
And I am good at knowing the steps it takes to achieve a plan.
But knowing and being patient enough to step on each step of the path are two different things.

Steps. Steps help to focus on the now and the next. I get bored with "next" and often end up miserable because "then" isn't next.

Plus the obvious -- I need to lose weight, so steps will get me there both literally and figuratively.

Lastly, the camp that helped form and change the trajectory of my life as well as that of my husband and is now working on doing the same for both our boys, has a song called One Step at a Time. The chorus goes:             I'm climbing my mountain
         Step by step
         I'm climbing my mountain
         Day by day
         I'm climbing my mountain
         All the way
         I'm climbing my mountain
         I'm gonna make it....
         One step at a time
         One step at a time
         One step at a time
         With Jesus by my side
         ....
         I'm climbing my mountain
         One step at a time.

So in 2018 my focus will be Steps.

One Little Word 2017

I have been trying to come up with my one little word since Thanksgiving. I've looked at lists of words and tried to listen and let it come to me as I lay in at night but nothing felt right. I would see or hear a word and think it might be the one, but an hour later I couldn't remember what it was.

My word has always whispered so I tried hard to hear it. 

I realized my word today.

 Well, the reading of an e-mail caused my word to agitate my brain until just a few moments ago it basically screamed at me.

Voice

My word is voice. 

The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal folds for talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, etc.

Active

Passive

Speaking out

Speaking up

Considering audience

Not caring who the audience may be

Scream, shout, rage,

 sing, laugh, whisper

And WRIghTE

VOICE

My word is voice

New name. Same Me

The word I chose for my One Little Word was an amalgamation of three words.

Write
Right
Rite

Our oldest was graduating High School, was getting a job for the summer, learning to drive, and going to college. So many Rites of passage.

So much was happening at school, in our district, and in the world --and the older I get, the stronger my opinion and the bolder I am in stating my opinion -- what I feel is Right.

And I want to Write it all down. All of it. From my thoughts and opinions on what is happening in the world today to what is happening in my world and even working on my family's past through genealogy.

I really took to heart the part about speaking up about what I feel is right. Not in a demanding way but in a way that hoped for discourse and only when my opinion was invited. I learned that honest opinions are not welcome. In my performance review on day 170 I was told that my attitude had changed and needed to improve in order to keep my job.

My last blog had over 300 posts, but I don't want to go back and analyze every post for something that could be held against me should they try to find out if there is anything that could be held against me. So -- I'm starting over. I won't be cowed. I can guarantee that with all that is going on, I will have opinions and many won't be popular with everyone, but writing isn't about being safe.

My new blog title says it all : Must WRIghT.  For better or worse I'm here to live my OLW out loud.