But I Smile Anyway…

So, we are here.

2022!

Goodness knows what it will bring, but, firstly, let me wish you the happiest of New Year!

And, as you are aware, I have chosen a word to accompany that year over the last few years.

• 2019 – it was SELF. And I am happy to say I have been pretty good at keeping that self care up, since them, too!
• 2020 – BELIEVE. Well, lets all agree that 2020 was a kinda unbelievable year, allin all, with the paandemic, and BLM… However, I did believe. And my beliefs meant that 2020 was the year I finally became a published author!
• 2021 – I chose the word HOPE. I think we all needed hope to pull us through what I found to be a tougher year than 2020, in many ways. I travelled through it, exhausted and worried abaout everyone and everything around me. But, I did keep that hope alive, within.

This time last year, I wrote this:

Inside, I have that hope that things will get better.

I hope that I have the time and energy to keep writing.

I hope to finish that first draft and have my novella ready for a reader magnet. (Well, I need that, not hope to do it, so I can send it to newsletter subscribers!)

Another hope is that I can cope with the responsibilities of this new job role and that I make it to the end of the academic year successfully, especially considering I am stepping back into it in a couple of days with another set of enforced home learning for a while… not sure how long for, either!

Oh, and I hope to work out a healthy, happy balance with exercise and food!

And, I hope we finally find our forever home, and by this time next year, I’ll be typing my post in a totally different place!

I think I was right to choose Hope because there was so much uncertainty around what we were experiencing.

I mean, I got through the year, thank goodness! Things kinda got better with the virus, but they went down again…

I am now in my second academic year in Middle Leadership in school. Was it what I envisaged my teaching career to be? No… however, I am coping, and sometimes, enjoying it!

But, I didn’t do great with my writing. (Though, as I may have hinted at, things are on the up with regards to that, too!)

I lost lots of weight… then put it back on again!

And my hope of a forever home? Well, that became a reality!

So, what is my word for this year?

Yup, it’s Create.

One thing I am, if nothing else, is creative, but things have been drowning my creativity recently. Now, I have a huge reason to bring that creativity to the forefront of my life.

• Create harmony in my household (with two teens, that will be a challenge!)
• Create new dishes in my kitchen ( I just want to get cooking again!)
• Create new traditions in our new house (New house, new traditions!)
• Create new adventures for others to read (That’s the biggie!)

And I will keep the words from previous years going, too, because they have helped shape me over the last few years.

Do you choose a WOTY?