Committing to a "Wild Mediocre Life" in 2024
Three-hundred sixty-four days ago (which tbh seems like it was last week), I was organizing my basement desk, clearing away four months' worth of clutter that had accumulated during my maternity leave. I was taping new pictures of my kids up on the wall behind it. I was making a detailed list for the week ahead, my first back at work. Instead of dreading my return to the grind, I was stoked.
2023 felt full of possibility after my pregnancy-derailed 2022. I knew the first two months of the year might be a bit rocky until Maggie started daycare in March, but I had big plans for myself once she did. I wanted to write more. I wanted to network more. I wanted to start establishing myself in thought leadership and grow my business. I wanted to see friends. I wanted to make friends. I wanted to travel. I wanted to turn 40 on a strong note.
Three-hundred and sixty-four days later, just about none of that has happened.
I've barely written anything outside of work assignments. I went to a total of two networking events. I got fired for the first time in my life. I spent countless hours in discovery conversations with prospective clients and preparing detailed quotes, only to be ghosted. When I checked my spreadsheet before signing off for the holidays, I calculated that I'd generated less income in 2023 than in 2022—a year in which I'd taken three months off after Maggie was born.
Outside of work, I struggled to adjust to the fact that parenting two kids is an order of magnitude harder than parenting one. I felt endlessly spent, and I couldn't muster the energy required to invest in friendships, old or new. My travels were limited to two visits to my parents' house in South Carolina and one to my best friends' in Florida. The one highlight of my 40th—Bruce Springsteen's concert at Camden Yards scheduled for the night after my birthday—was canceled with three days' notice and rescheduled for...September 2024.
Misfortune, I suppose, makes the year move faster. Who knew?
As 2024 approaches—now just a few hours away—I feel entirely removed from that woman so full of hope on January 1, 2023. My resilience reserve is in the red. It takes a long time for me to recover from any setback or disappointment, no matter how small. I've entered into a kind of self-imposed paralysis. Instead of "nothing ventured, nothing gained," I subscribe to the motto "nothing ventured, nothing hurts."
For 2024, I've decided not to make any resolutions. I've declined to set any intentions. I've refused to make big plans. I'm hoping for just two things: To make it to the end of 2024, and to do so healthy in body and mind. I'm preemptively warding off the disappointment of not living up to my own expectations and leaning into the fact that, right now, this is probably the best I can do.
As I've rolled this idea around my mind over the past week, I've felt a distinct sense of shame. Today, I feel foolish expressing it out loud. It's the antithesis of every celebratory, gratitude-soaked retrospective posted on social media today and every "new year, clean slate" manifesto that'll be posted tomorrow. It seems less a commitment to self-preservation and more an admission of laziness.
Then, during a scroll through Threads this afternoon, I happened upon author and divinity scholar Kate Bowler's "A Blessing for Your Best Life Now." The prayer reads like a poem and in the middle says this:
So pry my eyes from the
Christmas card versions
of other people's lives.
God, give me satisfaction in the trying.
Give me joy in the never-quite-there.
Grant me peace in my unsettled heart
for my wild mediocrity.
I know Kate Bowler only as the author of a book I admire (No Cure for Being Human) and an Internet personality I follow. But as I read those words, it was like she was reaching out and hugging me through my iPhone (weird, I know). She was giving third-party validation to everything I've been feeling. If she felt called to write that prayer, it must mean I'm not the only one going through this. I don't need to be ashamed of it. It doesn't mean I'm Iazy. I'm just struggling, and a lot of other people are, too.
So here's to making 2024 a year of "wild mediocrity." I think that's a resolution I can actually keep.