Life

Get Gutsy: Everyday Living

December 30, 2014 by Abbigail Kriebs 10 Comments

Get Gutsy: Everyday | Inkwells & Images

It’s a lesson I learn over and over: life doesn’t have a right answer.

But I still think it should.

I grew up in the school of perfection. It’s taking a long time to undo that education – at 27, I’ve still not graduated remediation, and certainly not with any honors. It’s hard to turn off that be-all, do-all setting.

This year, life asked a lot of questions and none of the answers were simple. There wasn’t a script to turn to, to help decide what was right. So we made it up as we went. Some decisions Scott & I made this year:

To sell our house at a loss.
To live in an apartment rather than start building immediately.
To buy a tractor.
For me to change jobs – twice.
To take a step back from ministry for a while.
For me to quit my only recurring freelance gig.
To then pay for surgery for a cat.
To not really celebrate Christmas.

Decision making takes a lot of guts. Certainly it takes a lot of energy. Even if those decisions seem silly (buying a tractor?!?), they take a lot out of you.

Even deciding not to do something is gutsy – will I be missing out? Will I let someone down with my “no”? What if I do?

I’m learning that life is gutsy: the everyday living, the deciding to show up once more, and then again the next day. The choosing between or creating an instead.

Yes, the BIG decisions are also gutsy: moving to a new state, changing majors, walking away from a relationship that’s not working. But I think the decisions we make every day affect us more than we realize: What time do we roll out of bed? Will I spend my evening watching T.V. or writing that book? Will I give enough attention to exercise or drinking water? Will I make time to call my grandmother on her birthday?

This constant choosing is the gutsy part of life. Taking action. Moving forward into the unknown. Every day we make decisions that shape our lives. We are gutsy to continue to make them when the choices aren’t clear or easy.

There was no singular, defining gutsy moment for me this year. But I feel like I made a lot of smaller, still-gusty choices that added up to a whole year of change. I am more disciplined this year than I was last. Instead of meeting setbacks and retreating, I recognized what was hard, altered course, and kept going. And I learned a lot about myself along the way. I think that is the right answer to life’s questions: learn something and keep going.

Did you have a defining “Gutsy” moment this year?

Did you step outside your comfort zone in 2014 to do things you once never thought possible? Have big plans for 2015? Bright, shiny, big goals you want to crush in the New Year? If so, you need to enter Jessica Lawlor’s Second Annual Get Gutsy Essay Contest! Check out her blog for details and get your entry in by January 13, 2015.

My entry from last year: Gutsy with Intent: On Deciding & Doing

Image courtesy of sneugle. on flickr creative commons.

An Un-Celebrated Christmas

December 24, 2014 by Abbigail Kriebs 2 Comments

A Christmas Un-Celebrated | Inkwells & Images

I never got into the Christmas spirit this year.

It’s Christmas Eve, and I still have not. We didn’t put up a tree. We didn’t take out a single decoration. I didn’t write a Christmas card to anyone, at all.

There are a lot of reasonable reasons for these things: we moved, we’ve been busy, and all of our Christmas decorations are in storage. We could have gone and got them, but that seemed like too much work in the midst of packed schedules, a new job, and the fact that we always go “home” for the holidays anyway.

But really, my heart just wasn’t ready for Christmas this year.

To me, Christmas is about the wonder: The birth of the babe in the manger. The gift given to us that we do not deserve. The contemplation of The Story, not merely how I fit into it.

I could say that I didn’t have time to celebrate this season, but the fact is: I didn’t make space this year for wonder.

I didn’t carve out time in the day to read about the child come to earth. I didn’t give my heart the time it needed for dwelling. I didn’t cultivate joy or behold Emmanuel as I should have. And so I am left without wonder and excitement. Without expectation and anticipation. Christmas this year is just another day.

And you know what? I am okay with that. I think every life has its ups and downs, its seasons of passion and of pause.

It’s somewhat unrelated, but then again not: I admire how Austin Kleon outlines the “Shape of Days” – and consequently, the shape of the life of an artist. [Click that link to see his diagram – it is beautiful]

Life is, at its physiological foundation, created from heartbeats: why wouldn’t Life-Capital-“L” manifest as a series of heartbeats, of comings and goings and beginnings and endings and wastings and renewals? Why do we expect it to be a constant crescendo with the apex at the very end, always?

No, Life is quiet and loud and then quiet again. It is as cyclical as the seasons, and even so within them. It quakes and stills, always.

And I think the Christian Life is, too. Seasons of passion and of pause, where faith is tested and stretched taut and then folded neatly again for a while.

And I am learning to be okay with that.

To run to Grace. To seek Truth. And to love myself like He does, even in a waning season.

—

Need some words that inspire stillness? Try these:

A Counter Cultural Call for Quiet this Advent by Adam S. McHugh

“Mary Christmas” by John Blase at the beautiful due

My Week in Words by Callie Feyen (the first quote is how I feel sometimes, as a writer)

You Always Do What You Want To Do

September 9, 2014 by Abbigail Kriebs 5 Comments

When I started to say “no” at the end of this summer in order to rest and regroup, I had this idea in my head that my desired outcome would be instantaneous.

Silly, I know.

I know that there is no easy fix in life, at least when it comes to the big stuff. I know that if you go to the gym on a Tuesday you won’t instantly be thin on a Thursday (darn). I know that eating right doesn’t just happen: you have to plan for it. I know that writing every day, at best, is a vague possibility unless I actively set aside time to do just that.

But I thought that since I wanted it so bad and had been contemplating change so long that it would be easy this time.

Silly, I know.

My bad habits are easy. It is easy for me to reach for quick carbs in the form of crackers or cookies when I haven’t planned ahead. It is easy for me to heat up a can of so-so soup rather than remember to unthaw that chicken a day ahead of time. It’s easy for me to say that I don’t have time to go to the gym when I look at the long list of other “more important” things I need to accomplish that day.

But you know – these habits didn’t form in a day, either. I made choice after choice for month after month to get me to this point, too.

I repeatedly chose distraction over productivity. I chose quick instead of nutritious. And let’s be honest: many times I chose TV over sitting down with pen and paper.

You Always Do What You Want To Do

What’s got me in a reflective state of mind today is yet another weekend spent at the vet.

Last week, our cat Zipper got sick. I spent an (expensive) Saturday morning at the vet, brought home some antibiotics, and thought everything was going to be fine in two weeks. A little inconvenience, but nothing out of the ordinary.

After three more trips to the vet this week, another expensive Saturday morning, and an X-Ray, we discovered that our cat has massive bladder stones that need to be surgically removed ASAP, to the tune of a helluva lot of money. So, after getting the news while Scott was in Michigan for work, I came home on Saturday and kind of zoned out in a little pity party, mad at everything and everyone, including myself.

This was not how my weekend was supposed to go.

This was not how my season of rest what supposed to happen.

This was not helping me make or reinforce good habits.

This wasn’t what I wanted.

So I moped for a while. I made a latte and sat down to watch a movie, The Answer Man. It’s one that Amazon Prime keeps suggesting based on my viewing history, but I keep ignoring it. On Saturday, I was too lazy to search for anything else, so I hit play.

And the movie was just what I needed.

It’s a story about a man, Arlen, who 20 years ago wrote a book with the answers to all of life’s hard questions, and then sequestered himself away and never talked to anyone. In a series of somewhat humorous events, he ends up answering the questions of a young man, Kris, who just got out of rehab, and who is now dealing with an alcoholic father and a business that is going bankrupt. One of their exchanges really hit me right where I was:

Kris: Why can’t I do the things I want to do? There’s so much I know I’m capable of that I never actually do. Why is that?
Arlen: The trick is to realize that you’re always doing what you want to do… always. Nobody’s making you do anything. Once you get that, you see that you’re free and that life is really just a series of choices. Nothing happens to you. You choose.”

Ouch.

Now, I know that I want to eat cookies and not broccoli. I want to sit and read and not go to the gym. I want to feel sorry for myself that this is all happening.

We all have our moments when we are allowed to to do the “wrong” thing: to take a break, to eat pizza instead of chicken.

But when I add all those actions up – all those little wants – they don’t equal my actual goals, the BIG wants: to write a book, to eat healthy, to exercise more.

So I need to change the little wants. I need to make my everyday actions reflect what I actually want to do in life, not what I think I want to do in the moment.

Are you doing what you want to do right now? If not, what is holding you back?

[An update on Zipper: surgery went well and she is back at home, her meds making her overly affectionate and VERY vocal. But I’ll take it.]