Embracing Your Word of the Year
“I’m a tired pumpkin.”
My hubby has called me “Pumpkin” for as long as I can remember. I don’t know how I got the nickname, but it’s one of my favorites. But anyway, that’s what I texted my husband this morning around 5:30 a.m. in response to his, “Good morning, Pumpkin.” I’d been up several times throughout the night with my littlest boy. (If you’re in the trenches with unpredictable baby sleep, I SEE YOU.) And I woke up and remembered that my kid got kicked out of daycare yesterday. Oof. Yes, I’m a tired pumpkin, about to get even more tired.
The daycare situation is unfortunate, but—praise God—has a light at the end of the tunnel. But that’s a story for another day. Today I want to talk about pumpkins.
Have you seen an old pumpkin lately? If you’re anything like me, you still have some lingering decorations milling about your house from (ahem…cough cough) Halloween. And you know exactly what an old pumpkin looks like: surprisingly normal.
Turns out a rotting pumpkin can look normal for a pretty long time. (Hence, why I hadn’t been too bothered to remove them until recently). But a rotting pumpkin does not feel normal. When you touch a not-so-fresh pumpkin, it’s squishy and soft—somehow at risk of both exploding and imploding at the same time.
This year started out as I imagined it would, but not as I’d hoped. I knew it would be a hard month. I’d had the Sunday Scaries about January for at least two months already. With hubby away doing USMC coursework, me officially back to work full time, and the boys starting at a new daycare, I knew it would be really challenging to keep chugging along at the pace I’d been going.
And I thought I’d prepared myself, really: I made arrangements for childcare. I communicated with my colleagues. I started waking up extra early. I organized the boys’ clothes (a task I despise), and other little things to get us functioning and efficient and ready.
But then…the boys got croup. And then I got a stomach bug. And then yesterday, my kid got kicked out of daycare!!!! You just can’t plan for that.
Yesterday, I realized that I am not a normal, fall pumpkin having her moment in the plaid-shirt-speckled pumpkin patch limelight. Nope. Right now I’m more like a squishy-about-to-ooze-my-guts late January pumpkin.
And that’s a tough pill to swallow, especially when my “word of the year” is (sort of) SHINE. Ain’t nothing shiny over here, y’all.
Pumpkins + words of the year
I love words of the year. I don’t get fancy with it. I use Jen Fulwiler’s word generator, and I trust my gut when I get one that feels right. Well, I usually trust my gut.
This year, the first word I got was ADVANCE. And my gut agreed…but only reluctantly. Because the word I actually wanted to pick for my year is SHINE, as I mentioned above.
I like the word advance. It sounds confident and strong and persistent. But shine sounds more fun, doesn’t it?
Well, so far, at least, my gut is prevailing. This month, ADVANCE seems more fitting, especially when I think about it in context of battle—an advance, a slog, a grinding to keep going, because you have to. You must! It’s your duty! Your countrymen are relying on you!
Dramatic? Sure. But that’s how I often feel in this season of life. I feel this in motherhood, marriage, and as an entrepreneur, too!
Can you relate?
What are you even talking about, Tara?
Here's my point. There was apparently part of me that began this year not really wanting to put in the work that I need to do in so many areas of life. I wanted to skip ahead--to shine before I'd been polished.
But that’s not how it works. You don’t often pull a gemstone out of the ground and immediately see it glisten. It has to be refined and shaped and buffed and cut just so, so that it truly dazzles and delights. And if it does shine right away, you can be confident that it’s likely been through a lot of wind, rain, and pressure over the years.
I think we can trick ourselves into thinking that life somehow “owes” us something. “This is going to be my year!” I know I fall into this mindset. But maybe the only thing life really guarantees is the opportunity to put one foot in front of the other…to take whatever the next step is...to advance.
…and trust that, along the way, we’ll start to shine.
In life, we can’t shy away from the important work we must do. We can’t avoid our callings and vocation. Not for long, anyway. Not, that is, unless you want to turn into an oozy rotting pumpkin!
Allow yourself be a Fall pumpkin and not a squishy pumpkin (I’m not sure my metaphor is holding up anymore), by embracing your season of life—and your true word of the year—and by leaning into the lessons life is offering you today.
Do you pick a word of the year? How did you choose it? Is there some hard work you’ve been trying to skip past? What first or next steps will you commit to right now to get you closer to the outcome you hope for?