I remember being in an English class the first time I read these words: “There are some years that ask questions, and some that answer.” It was one of those statements that sinks in, even to a young teen, though I couldn’t possibly have grasped its depth, its meaning, its accuracy.
I’m also remembering the end of 2017. My year-end greetings were sent with reflection and hope. I felt somehow like I had hit a life stride where things started making sense. Life wasn’t perfect, but it was settled. Predictable, even. (In life, predictability is highly underrated – even for spontaneity junkies like me.)
Yes, there are years that ask questions, and years that answer.
2018 did both.
Over the course of twelve months I seemed to feel everything – gratitude, loss, motivation, exhaustion, deep happiness, and desperate sadness. Questions and answers seemed disjointed, detached. On one hand, I felt locked in an interrogation room, life screaming at me for answers I knew I didn’t have. And on the other, a desperate traveler looking for both directions and a ride. Time and time again, I came up short on answers, and questions, too — and I would be forced to face the disarming fact: I don’t know.
I don’t know.
A statement I once dismissed as weak and ambiguous has now become my 2019 warrior refrain.
Because despite the self-conscious embarrassment of admitting it, it occurred to me: If I don’t know, then so many beautiful things are yet to be determined. If I don’t know, then I am open to anything. If I don’t know most things, then I can appreciate the preciousness of the things I do know. (If you are my husband, my friend, my beloved family member, or my work, then I absolutely adore being sure of you.)
But for all the billions of things I do not know, I have learned – this year – to appreciate you. You have forced me to look at things differently, cut myself and others slack I didn’t know either of us deserved, to look inward instead of outward for the wisdom I so long for, to notice what I have – instead of furiously pining after what I think I need.
I wonder: Could you considerI don’t know? Could you be open to a different frame of mind, an acceptance of something you’re fighting against, a renewed perspective on the change you’ve been meaning to make?
New years are for resolving to do better. I don’t know what that looks like yet… but I think “not knowing” means anything’s possible and nothing isn’t.
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