As my favorite (and only) east coast nephew and I strolled into Target he pulled my hand and pointed up, “Look Auntie,” and laughed. As I looked up there were cardboard pencils suspended in the air that looked like rockets as a part of the Back to School Marketing extravaganza that has swept the US, even amid this pandemic, even amid some parents waiting to hear whether or not school will being person at a school building, or in person with their little person at home. The Gram and Twitterverse are buzzing with their ideas for getting back into the swing of the school year and prepping for transition such as first year of middle school and starting high school. And then there are those of us who are going back to school ourselves or have stated receiving the dates and protocols for going back into the offices we abandoned in March. The B word is stamped all over August and September. And I’m not fighting it. Mostly because there is something to going back in order to move forward.
Even as I write this. I am a few days shy of my birthday, and you better believe I’ve already spent a few moments going back over the year of life that has been lived. I’ve been thinking about the highlights and the low lights, the middles, the really hard, confusing, I’m over “it” parts. I’ve been thinking of the short list of things I didn’t think I could do but did, the things I did and kinda wish I had waited or didn’t do altogether. I’ve been looking back and smiling at the travel I was able to get in, from the DC trips to the cruise to the Bahamas, to Chicago to NYC. My look back game the past few days has been so real.
Sipping tea, and a glance back at when I published my book The ABCs of Getting It Done With Grit + Grace. Taking out the trash, and a look back to the evolving home décor and combination of textures and colors I’ve been expanding upon in my living room. Morning walks and remembering when I first decided to push myself and walk from mt sweet second floor flat in University City to the organic market three blocks east of Broad street downtown. Listening to him make fun of how I saw his name when he’s done something with more gusto than I and thinking back to when he showed gusto and first took me on our first date to this sweet Black owned restaurant. Staring at my medicine cabinet and thinking about the tears that seemingly came out of nowhere and just betrayed me at my doctor’s office before she wrote the script for the antidepressant.
I could go on and on and on about what I am remembering as I look back over my last year of life. Despite my strong recall game, I’m not a fan of living life in reverse. I am a fan however, of learning from the past in order to better live in the present and plan for the future.
Let’s face it, there’s a reason car have rear-view mirrors. How often do we use them to back up, then pull forward, to park, get out, and do whatever we need to do for the day or evening. What’s behind us serves a purpose as to what lies ahead of us. If we don’t pay attention to what’s happened to us (and I mean pay attention, not ruminate, dwell on, or recreate) we run the risk of trying to build our lives, relationships, dreams on unstable foundations; foundations that are made of denial, avoidance, and cover ups. We grit it out to replicate what was instead of trusting there is grace for what is and what will be. The past can be a powerful teacher so that in the future we can gracefully mature from novices to masters.
If we let it, looking back at our past can remind us of all of the ways grace has shown up in our lives. If it can show up back then, it can certainly show up now, AND in the future. The past can remind is if we had the faith and the grit to try that or that then, we can certainly muster faith and grit for the here, now, and the next then.
Maybe the idea of looking back feels daunting. Maybe the past reminds you of a lack of closure or too much pain and not enough positives. I hear that, feel that, intimately know that. I’d also like to put forth the notion that perhaps occasionally looking back can allow you to journey back to yourself, to recover those pieces of you that are so integral to you fully living the life that God in all of His love, wisdom, and grace has prepared for you. Maybe careful excavation of your past will yield gems of strengths you thought you didn’t have, tenderness you thought you lost, creativity that you didn’t know was deep inside of you.
I have a birthday tradition. Each birthday I start a new journal. And I lead with gratitude for the year that was, noting a few poignant moments and then I pray about the year that is and will be, asking God to guide my focus for the year, to move with purpose, on purpose, towards continued fulfillment of my purpose. The combination of the two practices leave me with additional gratitude, clarity, and hope. The past, present, and future all serve purpose in our lives. And if the pain of your past or present are so incredibly tender, may you rest in knowing there was and is a grace there that you can expect for your future. You can bet your bottom dollar on that. Because that’s the nature of God and grace, ever present, all the time, forever and ever, back then, even then, sometime when. Grace has you covered in the back back, forth forth of this thing we call life.
With Love,
Grit + Grace