2016 recap

I like the rhythm of asking myself the same questions over and over again, so here's the survey I usually do at EOY. 1. What did you do in 2016 that you’d never done before? The two biggest newnesses were: a.) Starting a new job in marketing at a private school. b.) Spending Thanksgiving at Tybee.

Also memorable this past year were: Surprising my old man upon his reception of the Bellarmine Award. Watching Loverpants get sworn in as an American citizen Watching my brother-in-law get remarried in a beautiful garden wedding. Taking a couple of weeks to see my parents this summer, just the kids and I. Reconnecting with my cousin Carrie and sharing in the joy of her pregnancy.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I tried so hard to focus on nutrition and staying injury free. I fully embraced cold-pressed juice as part of my lifestyle and I did pretty well to stay injury free. I ran 2 5ks (one in TN, one in GA). I am still overweight but I can't let myself get too sad about it.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Congrazzles to Carrie on welcoming Murphy Sloane! #birfmurph Totally enamored of little Nika Joy, too, the daughter of my friend Kessia Reyne.

4. Did anyone close to you die? I'm extra grateful to answer no this year.

5. What would you like to have in 2017 that you lacked in 2016? Time to write, write, write for pleasure.

6. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Opening my Etsy shop. It has connected me meaningfully to a craft that I enjoy and to a community that uplifts me + other makers.

7. What was your biggest failure? My book deal fell apart after a year of working and waiting. I see it as a failure of a small publisher that bit off more than it could chew. I suppose I failed to pursue other avenues but I can't change what I didn't know.

8. Did you suffer illness or injury? Earlier in the year, I spent a lot of time at the acupuncturist for a foot injury. Good times.

9. What was the best thing you bought? I purchased a student membership to the Modern Calligraphy Summit. Game changer.

10. What did you get really excited about? I thought the DNC was a remarkable showcase of the Democratic party's strength. Loved speeches by my future BFF Michelle Obama, former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm. Also was surprised by "Stranger Things" on Netflix.

11. What was the best book you read this year? Fiction: Peace Like a River, Eligible: A modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice Non-Fiction: Loitering: New and Collected Essays, Falling Free: Rescued from the Life I Always Wanted

12. Compared to this time last year, are you: – happier or sadder? I have a lot to be happy about – thinner or fatter? Fatter – richer or poorer? Paid down some debt, so...woop!

13. What was your favorite TV program? This is Us Stranger Things

14. What was your favorite music from this year? https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/home/productlinks/customize?asin=B00U0YD5L2&request_source=quicklinks&subflow=sp_ The Hamilton Mixtape (Edited) CAN'T STOP THE FEELING! (Original Song From DreamWorks Animation's ''Trolls'')

15. What were your favorite films of the year? Really wasn't able to catch as many films as we would have liked. I know we saw "Race" in the theater. I think "13th" on Netflix should be required viewing for every American. Zootopia was important.

16. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? On my 36th birthday, I had a great weekend. My hubby got me some wonderful books and took the kids and me to a new favorite for brunch.

17. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2016. The depths to which people are capable of furthering evil are staggering, but not as great as they are able to achieve reconciliation. And that's beautiful to me.

Imagine. Getting married. Without a hashtag. #thehorror

I don't even remember the exact date other than that it was the beginning of the Red Sox clinching the division in 2004, coming back heroically from many a loss. This was probably why my dad had spilled the beans--that man is just manic about baseball. My old man spilled the beans so I knew it was coming, and that bummed me right out.

I was bummed for my love who had moved heaven and earth to make it back from San Francisco to Boston to arrange for The Shaky Clinking Drink Talk with the old man. And the phonecall to the mom. And he'd done it all being so coy, but loose lips sank the surprise ship.

So there we were, probably talking about the Red Sox or about to watch "Pimp My Ride" in real time as one does on a Satuday night in 2004. He in pajama pants, cooking pierogies in his kitchen, which smelled always of onions and laundry.

He didn't even ask me. He just told me that he wanted to marry me. A declarative statement. Much like "I do." He didn't have a ring so he pulled some string from his pocket and tied it around my ring finger.

We were engaged. Engaged in a relationship that we were committing to for all the evers and evers. There were outward symbols of this inner commitment. But we had no rings (yet), no engagement photos in a landscape that evoked pastoral romance at the golden hour. There would be no bachelorette/bachelor parties with limos and a Snapchat reel. No Pinterest-inspired wish lists or official hashtags copyrighted for the occasion.

There was just a monthly plane ticket to visit our pastor and do the hard work of premarital counseling. Me with my paragraph answers because I was evidently trying to get an A in premarital counseling and Loverpants with his one word answers because he's just more evolved, I suppose.

Had Pinterest and hashtags been a thing some twelve years ago, I promise you I would have been all over it. Puns and planning tools, oh my. I'm just glad for my sake they weren't on the radar.

The trappings of wedding planning have long been about excess and show and tell in the First World. They masquerade as expressions of etiquette but the reality of having the resources for chair bows and gold-foiled favors smacks of elitism.

And none will guarantee a happy, healthy marriage.

I rejoice with the many couples who are getting married in the next many seasons. I hyperventilate at the gorgeous photos and I fully participate in the hashtag propagation. But the careful curation of images and scripts are almost an ironic prelude to the mess that is uniting one's life with another's for all times. I can only speak to my own marriage, obviously, but my seflishness has a way of betraying the consuming gazing at my groom that you'll see in my wedding album.

Marriage is a surrender, marriage is leaning in to the disagreements rather than pretending everything is phenomenally breathtaking beset with an Instagram filter. The day to day of marriage is not bathroom baskets; it is searching for the errant cap on the toothpaste your partner does not hold as a priority. Hashtag cliche.

To the newly engaged and soon-to-be weddeds, I simply offer this: let the time you spend coining a clever hashtag for your big day be a lovely exercise in creativity and compromise. Because, whoodoggies. You're gonna need a lot of it for the long haul.

Hashtag Honeymoon won't last forever. Hashtag And that's a good thing. Hashtag So grateful. Hashtag I'd marry this guy all over again. Hashtag seriously seriously seriously blessed.

All the pictures we did not take

We rented paddleboards on the Tennessee River this past weekend and there are no pictures to prove it. We took the kids and we met up with dear friends, but you won't see any selfies of our imperfect formation in the wake of a passing motorboat. We traded kids and played in eddies and explored McClellan Island. We balanced and wobbled, we fell in and then we dove in. But there is no hashtag #riverlife to accompany the nonexistent Instagram post. We didn't have our cameras. We didn't bring anything save for our sunglasses and our holiday spirits. Here in this digital space, The Blog or whatever is most en vogue to call it, I purport to preserve life's moments and lessons. But this all is a pantomime, a chasing after the wind with a plastic bag from Tarjay. I am merely a scribe pressing key to pad, uploading and downloading, but never truly etching anything of real permanence. Nothing is solidified in amber here. There is no fire to singe or moth to destroy this album. There is also no firewall strong enough nor anti-viral software to guarantee its immortality.

This past weekend, we smelled all the seasons of putrid sweat that our life preservers absorbed. And we tried to absorb the life that we could not preserve.

There was no perfect filter to best capture the glistening waves, the silhouette of the Market Street Bridge.

No likes, no faves, no hearts, no mentions; only the feeling of total insignificance against nature's majesty. And the wonder of having captured nothing but being filled up full of every good thing.