Dear 2018

Dear 2018,

Wow. You were a very full year and not necessarily in ways I would have chosen.

We met at a wedding on the dance floor at the reception. I was wearing a swanky dress, Ronny naturally had a beanie on with his suit, and we were surrounded by his family and other wedding guests. Not a bad start. If you’re going to pick a holiday to get married on, New Year’s Eve is a good choice.

What started well quickly changed when I got one of the worst phone calls of my life from my mom. Through tears, she told me that my Aunt Karla had passed away unexpectedly.

We were at the home of some of our friends, and I didn’t know what to say. You never really know how you’ll process information like that. I learned that my emotions flatline, or maybe just flee.

Aunt Karla was the first close family member I’ve ever lost.

The next couple of months consisted of two different memorial services to honor her life in North Carolina and roots in Michigan. It was amazing to discover the community she had built in NC. Though the circumstances were incredibly sad, we had some of the most special and connected family time we’ve ever had. With no internet and no TV available, we spent time talking, and it felt sacred. Through the process of the family selling her house, Ronny and I acquired some of her furniture. Though we had about 48 hours of notice to drive back to North Carolina with a rental car and then drive back the next day with a U-Haul, we were overwhelmed by how quickly our friends unloaded the furniture in our apartment. Our couch to square-foot ratio is absolutely higher than the norm, but it’s worked out pretty well.

In the midst of these trips and changes, we interacted with more parts of society than I bargained for. 2018, you were the year I legally went from Casey Elizabeth Baxter to Casey Baxter Wilson. That was no small feat.

From social security to getting a Georgia license at the DMV office to learning more about car insurance to changing health insurance to learning what in-network means to getting a primary care physician to finding a dentist to figuring out monthly budgets to opening a joint bank account to closing our original bank accounts to figuring out student loans to addressing honeymoon parking tickets (what even??) to you know, learning how to be married, the adulting got cranked up a notch.

Becoming Casey Baxter Wilson required a lot. Perhaps, 2018, that’s why I felt so strange as I lived through and with you. Some of my identity changed, a change I had joyfully anticipated, but also grieved a little bit. Truth be told, I really loved being Casey Baxter which is why I took Baxter as my middle name.

OK, 2018, you introduced me to society and thrust my big girl pants on with what seemed like relish.

You also made me come face to face with a weakness I had been trying to ignore. After one heck of a tough and painful, though at times, fruitful, squad leading experience, re-entry, engagement, moving, starting a new job, planning a wedding, and ultimately getting married, 2017 had pushed me past my limit. I’d been recommended to seek and offered counseling, but it took me until March of 2018 to finally concede and sign up. The biggest hurdle was making the original call to schedule an appointment. I needed to overcome my pride and recognize that the level of pain and emotions I was experiencing was beyond the normal daily stressors that life brings. I needed help. And help I got.

I wish I could say my counseling experience really hit it out of the park and brought with it deep revelation, but what I discovered was that while I got some insights, the bigger victory was admitting needing help. Getting past the stigma of needing counseling as well as my own pride has helped tremendously, and I would highly recommend counseling to everyone. Honestly, just do it.

March also brought with it a trip to Houston and the chance to lead together as a couple for the first time. Doing disaster relief and meeting an incredible church youth group was a great stepping stone for that process. Ronny and I learned how our strengths compliment each other.

Ronny’s family came to join us for Easter immediately following the Houston trip and it was great to see how much his dad’s mobility had improved.

2018, as if you had not already carried enough by the end of March, you included a trip to Michigan for a squadmate’s wedding, a month straight of work (no weekends) complete with training leaders, training camps, and leading a group of high schoolers to Puerto Rico. We even threw in an unexpected trip to Chicago that filled us up with good food and good people.

By August, I was spent. I felt like if other people woke up each day with 100 coins of energy, I was only starting out with 50. My emotions were all across the board (just ask Ronny), and I could never seem to get back to my normal self. An annual check up at the doctor soon cleared up the issue.

When the NP starts off your appointment with, “Girl, have you ever had problems with your thyroid?” you know things are going to be interesting. One of my test values was almost 3 times what it should have been. She immediately prescribed some medication, assuring me I would feel like a completely different person in just a few short weeks.

My energy coins started kicking up to 55, 60, 75, 90 over the course of those weeks. One day I had the realization that I actually had energy for multiple social events in a week and even wanted that. After about 3 months, we got the dose correct and it’s true, I felt like myself again.

2018, I thought the different challenges you threw at me were what had me so exhausted. Part of that is probably true, but really, my body was telling me I needed help. I had to re-learn what I could and couldn’t do. It was a horrible feeling to choose an activity only to be knocked out for the next 3 days with exhaustion. It was all I could do to get through the work day and make it home to the couch, let alone keep up with a social life.

I grieved the opportunities I lost to hang out with friends because I simply didn’t have it in me to leave the apartment.

Fortunately, though you included those challenges, 2018, you also included a solution. The idea of needing to take medication on a daily basis continues to be pretty distasteful to me as a rule, but it allowed me to connect to myself again. It gave me, and continues to give me, the chance to extend myself grace about my energy rather than continually be frustrated that I just can’t do more and feel like I should be able to.

The end of July and August consisted of a whole lot of family time. Our annual Jacobus family reunion in Traverse City was made that much more important and sacred with it being the first time Aunt Karla wasn’t there. Ronny got to see Sleeping Bear Dunes and Lake Michigan at its finest. We spent time floating on the lake, making plant terrariums, and hanging out with the Wilsons. Gatlinburg was graced with the Baxter contingent complete with experiencing some of Dolly Parton’s influence and beating an Escape Room with roughly 20 minutes to spare.

We welcomed September with a cookout and fort sleepover with some friends. That month not only held 4 weekends straight of being in Gainesville with no visitors (a very rare occurrence for you, 2018) as well as a job transition for Ronny, but it also marked a capstone experience to our Perspectives Course. We went to class every Sunday for 3 hours and did homework throughout the week for 15 weeks in the spring. I still don’t understand how we managed that (and truthfully, we didn’t do it well), but I am eternally grateful we learned the things we did. At the conclusion of our course in May, we were given an invitation to go meet a long-term missionary couple who had moved to Iraq as a result of taking the Perspectives Course. So, the last week of September and beginning of October brought us to the Middle East. We even flew over Baghdad on our way to Erbil. We saw a great deal and learned even more about the Kurdish people.

October involved another trip to Michigan for the wedding of my cousin DJ and his wife, Kyla. It was a lovely wedding. Very fall.

November provided a visit from my mom, a trip to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving, but most importantly, our first anniversary. I really didn’t know what to expect to feel on that day, but the primary emotion was relief. Wow, we did it! We got to tick a notch off in our belts as officially seasoned marriage veterans...OK just kidding, but it felt like a big accomplishment. We went to a delightful B&B where the proprietor told me I had left-handed tendencies, served us a yummy breakfast each morning, and provided a convenient location to attend the wedding of some of our friends as well as hikes. We went to a fancy restaurant and had one of the best meals I’ve ever had. I enjoyed experiencing a wedding on the last day of our first year of marriage. It began and ended with a wedding.

December brought a great visit from my Dad and Holly, time in Pennsylvania, time in Michigan, and the beginning of our trip to Australia.

2018, looking at you, 28 of your weekends were completely full. You included 2 funerals, and 3 weddings. You brought us several friends to visit, including Eryn, Shannon, and Amie Beth. We saw 3 new countries in Dubai, Iraq, and Australia.

One of your redeeming qualities was encouraging my love of plants. My favorite birthday gift arrived as a package containing 15 succulents. My love and slight obsession became known and the plants continued. I learned I actually do have a green thumb and felt immense pleasure when I was able to revive a seemingly dead plant. Succulents became my specialty, and Gerald, the aloe plant, lives on. His journey through root rot and waiting patiently for healing very much mirrored my own.

2018, thank you for giving me plants to put language to some of the things I was experiencing, but couldn’t figure out how to voice.

In conclusion, you made me feel fragile in more ways than I thought possible. I didn’t realize that was my word for you until after the fact. Somehow that makes sense. Usually, the Lord gives me a word at the beginning of the year and this time, after I’d lived through you, 2018, He told me you were fragile.

Fragile because you started with the loss of my first close relative. Life is fragile. Fragile because we were newly married and figuring out how to do that well. New marriages are like babies, they’re fragile. Fragile because my emotions and body needed help. Going to counseling and learning your body needs a prescription to help it function well are fragile things.

2018, truthfully, I felt like you continued to kick me while I was down, but you also brought change and growth. You brought me answers to what I was struggling with and plants to help along the way. You lived up to the bookend that good stories often hold: we met on the dance floor of a wedding and said good-bye in Melbourne, Australia watching fireworks from a bedroom window. Celebration on either end.

I don’t want to re-live you, but in keeping with the plant analogies, if I was a tree, you would be a ring representing a year of life. You’re part of my story and taught me a lot. I’m ready to release you and all that you held, looking forward with hope that each year does not have to hold as much as you did. For being fragile, you held some of the largest life circumstances I’ve dealt with so far. What an interesting and complex thing you were: fragile and strong. Perhaps that’s what I’ll take from you.

I’m both fragile and strong, and it truly is possible to be both.

Good-bye, 2018. Thanks for the lessons and thanks for releasing me into 2019 even if I wasn’t ready to move on and let go at the same time you were. I’ll definitely remember you for the rest of my life.

Casey