It is strange to be in a new year, after so much anticipation.

It was a year, as comedian Dave Chappelle commented in a podcast John and I listened to last month, while driving across Nevada, when for better or worse, we have all lived in close proximity with the decisions we have made in our life up until now. Our choice on the color of our couches and kitchen walls, to our careers, businesses, and spouses, was now under careful scrutiny as we have come face to face with them each day, often under serious stress. I told my cousin about that quote today and she laughed that she had just gotten rid of a dining room table that always went back to being wobbly, no matter what repairs she did to it.  She had thought it was quirky up until recently. She finally realized that 2020 was the year she needed a solid table to lay her head down on for a good cry and then get on with it.

For many this has been a year of heartbreak and tragedy, confusion, grief.  For others, this has been a season of hustle, as redundancies and cancelled plans have led to opportunities that wouldn’t have been available in 2019. For others it’s been a combination of all of this. Some have commented that 2020 has accelerated trends that we were moving towards anyways, like working remotely or ongoing independent study for those of our kids who have ended up being happier and more productive outside the traditional classroom.  We have all felt lonely, scared and a little lost without actual face time with our communities and families at some point in the last ten months.

In our house, 2020 has been a mixed bag that I’m still sorting through. This time last year we had just settled into summer in New Zealand in a friend’s beautiful shed apartment. I threw myself into freelance projects and worked at a pub at night while hanging out with Jessie – then just six months old – during the day as John fished and explored the rivers around the South Island. The idea was that we were setting ourselves up to do this every northern hemisphere winter, for as many years as we could. We barely made it back to the U.S. before both countries – and the rest of the world – shut down indefinitely in March. We had unexpected weeks with family in Colorado in quarantine, as Jessie had long nights of teething and we slept in shifts, drank endless pots of coffee through the snowy late mornings, ordered take-out, and took solitary walks by the creek when we needed a breather and a big-picture perspective of what was happening. It was all going to go away by Easter. Then the middle of summer (which, unexpectedly, exploded with work for both John and I – turns out that everyone in the U.S. wanted to be in Montana). Then it was September. By then we knew we had to put the plan to return to New Zealand on the back-burner, maybe indefinitely.

Instead, as the months have gone on and work has calmed down, it was replaced by plans for another adventure this winter that has become more and more certain.

It’s a journey that might be closer to home, yet no less nerve-wracking than a move across the world. And if you’ve run into me in the last few weeks, you’ll see that I’m well on my way.

At 32 weeks pregnant, with an 18-month-old toddler running laps around the couch I’m beached on like an exhausted mammal looking up at photo collages of the rivers, lakes, mountains and oceans of New Zealand we were exploring this time last year, I’d put my hand up to agree that this has been a year when we have lived in tight quarters with our collective life decisions that have motored us along to where we are now, then screeched to a halt, dumping us here in 2020: Surprised, messily joyous, overwhelmed, hopeful, exhausted, grateful, tougher and thicker skinned than we were 12 months ago.

At a work meeting on December 31, going over wines and a tasting menu that evening, we talked about where we all were as 2020 came, maybe mercifully, to an end for each of us. The theme for the night, with fire-dancing, a bonfire and fireworks, was “the rising of the Phoenix,” which has never felt more appropriate. I said that I felt like my own theme word for the year was “pivot.” I’ve had to release more than I’ve ever had to release this last year. Ideas of myself. The vision board I had for our future. I had to learn to relinquish myself to the rest that my body and mind had actually been craving, after months of traveling and living in transition. Then turn around and throw myself into work. Then turn around again and re-accept the gift of rest when our workplace shut down for 10 days in August, as Covid cases rose in Montana. I had to learn to incorporate fatigue and morning sickness into my summer and make peace with collapsing on a couch at the end of the night to eat frozen grapes and watch Below Deck. I got to learn the joy of having a wonderful community of parents and childcare pros around me – literally, my neighbors – who adored Jessie and helped shuttle her around and give her a beautiful summer with a wee tribe of adventurers that she will be growing up with.

In all of the unexpected twists and turns, the releasing of plans and control of the future – whatever that looks like – I’m okay with where our household decisions have landed us, even close up – scratched wood floors, tiny kitchen, toys, abandoned sippy cups, peeling siding on the front that I’ve covered up with a wreath and wind chimes, and all.  Winter and darkness is very acute in Montana. Solstice on the 21st felt appropriately somber. And comforting – like a heavy duvet had been thrown over me. As the holiday cards still strung up around the house tonight remind me, 2020 has been “a year to remember.”

Ha. Yeah it has.

Now bring on 2021 from the ashes.