I almost feel like I peaked with this word last month. In case you need a recap, I shared my journey with open as it relates to vulnerability and how I am learning that being open to sharing my stories creates space to potentially help someone else.

So where do I go with this word until the end of the year?

I think what I do is I stay open to whatever comes up. Open to possibility and potential. Open to discovering new ideas and hidden parts of myself. Open to dropping habits and routines that don’t serve me any more. Open to . . . gulp . . . the unknown, the scariest thing of all for me.

And, finally, open to discovering what my word for 2021 will be. I’ve got one that I’m fighting which probably means it’s the one I need.

My journey with the word Open has continued to shift this last month in a sort of miraculous way. From the work I have been doing, both with my therapist and with my life coach, I have realized that my resistance towards this word was because I viewed being open as being vulnerable. And vulnerability and I have never exactly been . . . friends. I’ve defined vulnerability as weakness. As failure. As something to protect myself against.

All that is changing, though. These days I think about being open (or vulnerable, take your pick) as a gift. And the remarkable thing is that it’s a gift that isn’t just for me but is also for others. My family. My colleagues. My readers. When I allow myself to be open and share with all of you the things that have happened to me and the lessons I have learned from those things it allows us to connect. I mean, I sure as hell hope you never have a spouse get hit by a car while mowing the lawn. And yet, when I write about that and share with you all of the feelings that followed, the panic attacks, the helplessness, the fear, maybe then you take that and relate it to something in your life. And maybe you learn from it and use it in a way that makes things better for you. Maybe my traumatic experiences (and there have been more than a few) and my recovery from them can help you understand your life better.

That’s the dream, anyway.

Last month I wrote about watching and waiting for what comes next. I’m still very much in that space but I think some of what comes next is starting to formulate in my head. And I think it’s all about being open to sharing my stories . . . all of my stories . . . with you.

I was away last week and missed the opportunity to talk about my One Little Word on the last Tuesday of the month. I’m doing it today because 1) my blog, my rules and 2) I really didn’t want to skip a month of recapping my journey with Open.

Up until now this word has challenged me in some pretty major ways. Grief. Pandemic. Trauma. I was getting to the point where I felt like being Open meant pain.

Now, though, I think I have perhaps turned the corner with this word. I don’t want to jinx myself but I think that Open is finally starting to work for me in a way that feels exciting and full of opportunity. It’s kind of amazing, frankly. I don’t cringe when I consider the word now. I don’t roll my eyes and wonder what awfulness is coming my way by being Open.

This change in my attitude towards Open was brought about by a very simple thing: the latest field guide from Modern Daily Knitting. It’s called Open and I laughed right out loud when I read the announcement. It’s rather perfect, honestly, that a word that has been so challenging for me could be completely reversed by considering it in terms of knitting lace.

Yesterday, when I sat down to write this post, I looked back on my monthly posts about Open, just as I do every month. And I was struck by a sentence I wrote way back in January.

I . . . feel strongly that being open means watching and waiting for things to come to me in their own time.

So that’s my plan for the next few months with this word. I’m watching and waiting. And trusting that the things that are going to come to me are to teach me lessons. To help me grow. To show me new ways of living and loving.

And I’ll be knitting some lace, too.

Today I am joining with Honoré and sharing an update on my journey with my 2020 One Little Word, Open.

I’m sure you aren’t surprised to read that my word, Open, continues to be a challenge for me. This month that challenge has revolved around opening my eyes to some hard truths about myself.

Here’s a hard truth: I’m basically lazy. I know, you think I do a lot and that’s because I do. But most of what I do is not physical stuff, it’s knitting and reading, and crafting and keeping a pretty house. It’s not hard work for me, it’s fun. Lately, though, I am doing lots of work like lugging suitcases, refilling water jugs, tending the garden, doing all of the cooking, and just doing much more around the house than I ever have before. The hard truth is that I resent it. And I feel bad about myself for resenting it. Conclusion: I need to open my eyes to my ability to do some extra work right now and remember that’s it’s only temporary.

Here’s another hard truth: I have been rather oblivious in recognizing that my current situation is triggering a lot of stuff from my past. I don’t have much patience for weakness in another person (hint, I viewed my mother as a very weak person). I pride myself in not being weak. I’m a straighten your crown and move forward kind of thinker, a push through and get it done kind of worker, a grit your teeth and do the tasks before you relax kind of person. So when I see Dale struggling to move around, when I see him sit for long stretches because it’s easier, when he doesn’t clean up the kitchen like he used to, I get frustrated. And then I get mad. And then I lash out at the closest target, which, these days, is quite often Dale himself. It’s not fair, it’s not healthy, and it’s most certainly because of the things that angered me most about my mother. And also, it’s very similar to the dynamic that existed between my mother and my stepfather. Conclusion: I need to open my eyes to these triggers, acknowledge the past, and not let it influence my present.

It’s eye opening work and even though I’m struggling, I’m committed to the hard work because the results will be all the greater.

Today I am joining with Honoré and sharing an update on my journey with my 2020 One Little Word, Open.

I find myself thinking about the word open a lot. In my darker moments I strongly dislike (I won’t use the word hate but you know I’m thinking it) this word. It has challenged me in ways I never could have predicted and it has been difficult. Difficult to be open when life is scary and I want to close down. Difficult to remain open when all I want to do is hide myself away from the wor(l)d. And now, particularly, difficult to re-open the parts of myself that I shut down to protect myself from trauma.

As Dale has gotten stronger and more independent, I find myself wanting to protect him more. Even though I longed for this back in the days when he was very very helpless, now I find myself scared of it. Scared to let him drive a car by himself. Scared to have him go up and down the stairs alone. Scared, frankly, to let him out of the bubble I closed him up in to protect him and enable him to heal.

That bubble of protection? The one I stuck him in when he came home from the hospital? It’s very similar to the the one I put myself in a lot when I was a kid and I had to deal with the trauma of my childhood. The bubble is pretty and safe. It’s calm and quiet and the walls are thick and nothing can get in unless I allow it. Not fighting parents and brothers who leave, not alcoholism and chaos and domestic violence, and definitely not accidents and death. The flipside, of course, is that nothing can get out either. And nothing can grow or change because the bubble won’t allow for that. The bubble keeps us safe. The bubble also keeps us stagnant.

As we approach another month, I know that I have to put the trauma bubble away. I have to open up and allow for change and growth as we move into the next phase of recovery, both physically and emotionally.

The reality is that I might not be ready to put the bubble away completely. I might still need some protection from the chaos of the outside world. But I’m definitely ready to put some windows in the bubble and open them up to let the light back in.