New Year, Old Me

The tree(s) plural still hang around, the clock that plays Christmas carols just may stay for a few more months, the three hoodlums are back in college and I actually threw away a whole container of kolache just because it was "time."

Hi friends.

It's been a moment.

It's been SO long that I had to have professional help just to get back on the blog if you can even imagine?!

Panera's cookies still hit the same and no one seemed to be fighting me for my old seat so there's that.

After the wedding of the year and finding out we're counting down the days to settle on official GRANDPARENTS names I took some time off to enjoy a writing class.

Yep.

And why not learn to knit an ENTIRE CARDIGAN in the middle of said writing class because I waited too long to use a gift card for a yarn shop from LAST APRIL that would expire in December?!

And so I wrote when I wasn’t knitting and vice versa.

And in the middle of the busiest months of the year I did this to MYSELF.

We really are our own worst enemies aren’t we?

But something crazy happened the last few months.

The cookies were baked, the presents wrapped, the church decorated and somehow I learned to do a few crazy new things.

I know I’m not the only one who considers herself an “old dog” incapable to learning new tricks.

Somewhere I had believed the lie hook, line and sinker, that if I hadn’t learned it up to this point, well, all’s well that end’s well.

In the middle of middle age where I can’t remember what I made for dinner the night before, surely there’s no brain space left for new ways to write, edit and prepare devotions for (GULP) publication, and for sursises there’s no new pathways mentally to forge for things like cable stitches, attaching arms with double points and stretchy bind off’s.

Spoiler alert:

THERE’S PLENTY OF SPACE folks.

The Lord seemed to whisper to me on the long drives home from the yarn shop that “we’re just getting started.”

Maybe you need to hear that today friend.

You don’t have to know what on earth you want a little red headed grandson to call you FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.

You don’t have to remember where you put your keys, your glasses, your patience or your resolve to do a new thing this year.

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

You just need to show up.

Show up sweaty, flushed and hangry if need be because parking new places makes you feel 16 again.

I mean, if that’s something you might possibly feel like.

Hypothetically speaking of course.

If I’ve learned something the last few years it’s that showing up isn’t just half the battle, it’s 110% the battle actually.

Many many moons ago I needed to choose a verse to sit under my graduation pic in the yearbook.

I was like, “no Romans 8:28 nonsense for this girl! Proverbs 3:5-6? I laugh at you! I’m really going to make my mark and leave a really cool verse.”

And yes, if I hadn’t had this mindset I may have had many more dates in high school.

I landed on a verse from Lamentations.

Ahem.

LAMENTATIONS.

The Lord has a sense of humor for teens who think they’re half MacBeth in high school.

The verses I chose were those from chapter 3:22-23- “It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.”

I hadn’t the faintest idea how I’d hang my hat on these verses in the decades to come and today I feel them tugging at my heart again concerning new things and old bodies.

If we truly believe that God is who He says He is, then we must believe that we have new mercies for each new day, new idea, new recipe and new way to begin a sock.

I don’t want to be a mean, cranky old grannie.

Or an old “Me maw”, “Loli”, “Oma”, “Mi mi” or whatever else is out there and can be monogrammed on a bracelet.

I want to be a cool Grandma learning new things no matter how old my body tells me I am.

And I do find such COMFORT in knowing that my husband is SO MUCH older than I am.

I mean if HE can get out of bed in the morning so can yours truly.

(Snicker snicker)

So what are you putting off because you’re afraid that you’ve past the prime time to try it on for size?

Hmmmm?

So you’re the same old you.

That’s actually lovely.

Shout out to the sweet girl at church who saw some old pics of me and told her mom that I just keep getting better.

You are my new favorite.

Do it scared, do it sweaty, do it wrong and have to pull out thirty rows of a hat.

Do something new because you have life and breath and grace to do it wrong.

Just do it.

Hey, that’s catchy.