On Keeping a More Accurate Diary, and other Changes I want to Make at Forty-One

This weekend, I turned forty-one. We celebrated by going to Friday Harbor. It was wonderful. But mostly, I asked for it to stay low-key. What’s forty-one? Ten years ago I wanted parties and presents and lots of people. Now, it feels more meaningful to be still, and for the day to be as ordinary as possible.

One thing I’m going to change about my life this year is how I keep a diary. I’ve been an avid journal writer for most of my life. I write in my diary most days, but I don’t write down specific things about my life. I mostly write reflections or prayers, thoughts and ideas I have, which is great. (Most of the material for my essays and articles comes from my journal.) However, after reading David Sedaris and Austin Kleon I’ve decided to change my approach to keeping a diary ever so slightly.

I’d like something that chronicles more specifically what I do with my days, and helps me process what I’m thinking and why.

This seems to be a season where God is asking me to be very present to my life. My one very ordinary life that feels beautiful and hopeful and also has these moments that are so sad and so desperately in my face that I can hardly take it.

I quit drinking alcohol for this very reason. I was curious about how it would change my days and how I would approach my life, particularly my evenings and my celebrations. Would life be good without a glass of wine to accompany it? Would I get overwhelmed with all my emotions if alcohol was not on the table?

I’m not completely sure I have an answer to these questions yet, but I do see that without alcohol as a part of my life, I’m forced to face my emotions and sit with them, let them be a part of my life and learn to cope with them. And also learn to navigate through their moody landscape like an adult woman and not a teenager. This seems important: to learn how to navigate through the moody landscape of life and act like a woman about it.

Life is hard and there is terrible pain and heartache and gut-wrenching disappointment, and also so much beauty it’ll take your breath away. Learning how to bear up under all of that reality is part of what it means to become an adult. Many of us are terrified of these emotions and so we put up filters to protect us. However, in the end, the best way to cope with life is to learn to cope with life.

Back to keeping a diary. This year, I want to write a diary with more about my actual days. I want to be more specific about what I do each day and chronicle my life better. I think this will help me become more present to what is actually going on, to the joy and beauty, and also to the sad parts of my real life.

This feels like a good change to make at forty-one.

The other change I’m going to make in honor of turning forty-one and becoming a more functional adult, is that I am going to be more intentional about reading the actual news. Don’t get me wrong. I stay in touch with the news and generally know what’s going on. But I feel it’s time to do a better job of this. I’ve subscribed to two more daily news email compilations and I’m going to intentional about reading them.

In today’s social media world, it’s easy to read about the news, and to read the op-ed articles everyone else is reading. I am going to do the adult thing and read the actual news, or at least do my best.

Forty-one seems like the time to be a genuine grown-up. To take responsibility for what I know, believe, and do more than ever. It’s the time to set aside easy blame tactics for not being where I want to be, and stop pretending like I’ve got all the time in the world to check off the things on my bucket list. I’m forty-one. I don’t have all the time in the world.

I’m in grad school, which is super cool. And that takes up a lot of time. John and I are working on some new ideas for a church, which I’ll be talking more about. My kids are growing up. Emma is going to be in high school this year and Lucas is going into the eighth grade. Life, my dear friends, is flying by.

How do you chronicle your life? I’d love to hear.

***

Note: Sign up for Tina’s Hope Notes. These are short, weekly notes meant encourage you. You’ll get my free booklet, called Rekindling: Five Faith Practices for the Burnt Out and Overdone.