Nearly daily I write in the wee morning hours. I use a Plan Ahead bound jumbo journal with 340 pages and a ribbon book mark. It takes about six months for me to fill one of these journals. I usually pick them up at CVS in order to avoid a cover with skulls. None of mine are the same; I’ve been keeping them since 2012. 

I went back and looked at my thoughts a year ago, when my One Little Word 2021, peace, found me. I was ready to commit to the word settle or calm, but my best laid plans were usurped by peace. 

It was a life-altering decision. 

A year ago, I wrote an entry about all the things that were churning inside my mind, inside my heart. I described the way that I look at peace on the outside, but on the inside things constantly churned. It was the the churn that gave me pause. 

After being in training for a year with the word peace, I asses my mind, my heart, and I find nothing churning inside of me. This is not to say that nothing bothers me, but it is to say I’ve learned to claim peace in ways I didn’t know were possible. 

This has been a year of learning to live a new normal. There have been many times that I’ve wondered why I feel exhausted, because in many ways the responsibilities we have as parents have lessened. This happens when one child storms out of the house in a rage and doesn’t return for many months, while the other faced a series of arrests and was sentenced to the Department of Corrections. The boys are full-fledged teenagers, driving and playing varsity sports and working jobs. Part of learning to live peace was learning to understand what is mine to do and when it is time to let go. 

I let go a lot in 2021.

I learned that peace hinges on trust. I was originally inspired by my puppy when I began toying with my One Little Word 2021. We were working on the command: settle. I was thinking about the way I needed to learn to settle, too. It is possible for my puppy to settle when she trusts me. The same is true for me. It is possible for me to claim peace when I trust the Master. 

Finding a new normal was something that I did well in some ways, and not so well in other ways. I see now that learning to live peace was a refining process more than a teaching process. I became a better version of me. At the beginning of the year I wrote myself a letter and wrote “Enjoy your new wings,” as the closure to the letter.

I made a bold (and wrong) assumption that my wings were ready. They weren’t. It took another year to grow them and prepare them to fly. I needed a year of refinement that only peace could bring. I think it’s time to spread my wings, which is why I am absolutely giddy about my OLW 2022.