everything is possible

a hopeful retrospective from a recovering pessimist

sir samuel the brave suits up in his new armor and weaponry on christmas day

christmas tears

I wrote a book.

Ok, that’s not 100% accurate.

I wrote the equivalent of a book. I know that doesn’t sound as sexy, but stay with me.

On Christmas day, I was handed a present in the shape of a brick. I opened it and out spilled three books, all identical to one another. David had found a company that printed people’s Substacks into book form. This was not something I had asked for (heck, I didn’t even know it existed) but he had helped edit and format my Substack with the help of these printers and on Christmas Day I had three clean copies of almost all of my writings from over a year ago when I had started.

Reader, I wept like a baby.

Yes, it’s a thoughtful gift, but for the pragmatists out there might be thinking, “What use do you have for your own Substack in printed form? You can already read it online and besides, they’re your words. It’s not like this is a real book that is going to be published and sold.”

All of these things are true. There are three copies of this book, one which I plan to keep and the other two, well, I’m trying to figure out what my plan is there. But David did for me what seven year old Emily only dreamed was possible.

Seven year old Emily wrote constantly. On the backs of napkins, scraps of church bulletins, and tons and tons of steno pads stolen from my parents office supplies. She wanted to be a writer so badly that she could taste it, but as time went on, this dreamy little girl got squashed by what she kept hearing around her. I don’t have to tell you what she heard, you know the words.

So that moony seven year old’s voice became small, but was impossible to completely squash. She was the voice I heard that said, “Major in English and theatre. You love telling stories, so go study them, get close to them—who knows what could happen?” Hers was also the voice that I heard when I was teaching that said “This is a stop gap. You can love aspects of this and know in your heart that this isn’t what you really want to do.”

A couple of years ago seven year old Emily became louder and louder. She was in the books I read, the people I talked to about writing, the moments in my motherhood journey that seemed like they might swallow her whole, but she still, like cream, rose to the top and said, “You can’t ignore me anymore. Critics be damned. Today is the day and the time is now.”

Of course, I know now that it wasn’t only seven year old Emily telling me it was time to write. You know who it was. I don’t have to tell you.

So out of obedience, I started to write. Here. And when the copies of my Substack slid into my lap on Christmas Day, I heard both my childlike dream and the holy spirit whisper (loudly) to me again: We’ve only just begun.

So the books were a thoughtful gift, but what David really gave me was hope. So much was possible again.

“i could never write a book”

235 pages of hope

David and I are futurists. I’m the pessimist and he’s the optimist. We both look at the future and are dreamers, but where he sees the possibilities, I see hanging threads and I pull on them until they’re fully unraveled.

To be fair, there have been moments in my life where I dared to dream and those dreams were yanked out of my clenched fists. My life does not look like I thought it would in most respects, but a lot of that is for my own good. But because of the many pivots life has taken and some of the heartbreak and disappointment I’ve endured, I tend to be more fearful than hopeful.

For me, when the worst has happened, all the fear I had leading up to the worst is not a shock. I prepped for this with my pessimism. So it was easier for me to believe the naysayers and do practical things with my life. I stopped dreaming because I was told the dreams I had were too big or that I should ask for less.

But I think that was a bit like living on bread alone.

To be created means that there is the creative spirit living inside all of us. I knew that clearly as a child, but was afraid to lean on it. Because, as I was taught, creativity is frivolous, prideful, extraneous, and even illogical.

So sometimes it takes something tangible to give hope footing again.

I flipped through 235 pages of hope on Christmas day. It’s not a novel in the traditional sense but it is the contiguous story of my life in just over a year. A memoir. An in-depth snapshot. Pictures included. And it gave me the bandwidth to believe in myself.

Again, seven year old Emily became a little louder and stronger and the tired, pessimistic Emily lost a little more faith in herself.

Good. As it should be.

how now shall we live?

This is likely my last ‘stack of 2024, but it’s much different than the ones that started the year. 2024 began with mountains of trepidation and fear. David was out of a job, my hormones were all over the map, Sam was having struggles all his own, and we were feeling lonely in a city where we had lived less than a year. We had no close friendships and felt like burdens to our church and the few relationships we had started to forge.

But the tide slowly began to turn. If you have ever watched the tide come in or out, you can see it happen, but it’s usually only truly noticeable from how it is affecting the shoreline around you. David started working for himself, Sam settled into a routine, I found guidance for my hormones, and we slowly but surely stabilized. But hear me when I say this: life did not become rosy. The same waters that had knocked down the sandcastle of our lives were still there, they was just going out to sea, and meanwhile, we had become stronger swimmers.

the gratitude journal that wasn’t

Recently I have been feeling a sense of deep gratitude as we have weathered new storms. Just in the last month, we have had to buy a “new” car and our health insurance dropped us for no reason. During a windstorm our neighbor’s makeshift carport blew into our chimney cracking it in half and leaving a hole in our roof. Pessimistic Emily was present—she was stressed—but she was also much quieter than she had been in days past. I was able to laugh it off for the most part as David and I navigated insurance and shopped on marketplace for a new-to-us car (which we found—hallelujah!). The tide comes in, it goes out, thus is life. God is good, life is hard, and the beat goes on.

You know, the punches just keep coming. Sometimes they knock the wind clean outta ya, other times you can get back up quickly. But the more you get punched, the more you learn how to get up. I watch my son as he grapples with kids bigger than him in jiu jitsu and am amazed at his tenacity. He will grab on to the back of a bigger kid’s shoulders and hold on for dear life. They try to shake him and he is a monkey on a tree—nothing can throw him off. My kid has been knocked down a number of times, he gets back up. We have been knocked down, and by the grace of God, we continue to get back up.

the fearless girl statue in nyc, facing off with the wall street bull. she is perfect metaphor for the hope i am clinging to going into the new year.

The tide ebbs and it flows. I feel a bit like I can breathe again. Perhaps the sandcastle got knocked down again, but I am learning to shrug and say, “that’s ok, I’ll rebuild.” And now that that little girl that I allowed to be so quiet for so long is speaking a little louder again, I feel the wind of possibility.

I am not the world’s best writer. I know this. That’s fine. But I feel like I can write. And not only that, that I should. So that’s what I plan to keep doing.

I didn’t keep a gratitude journal this year. I’m not planning one for 2025 either, but I now have a paperback copy of this past year and as I continue to flip through it, I can say undoubtedly that I am grateful. Grateful that the holy spirit reminded me that God gives us dreams to give us life in order to reflect His goodness.

Mine is a Christianity with dirt up the fingernails. I’m the writer who will use choice words while simultaneously pointing out the beauty of a morning fog. I hope that if you are reading this, you feel encouraged, empowered, and emboldened. Pray for me as I attempt to step into the writerly life even more this year. I know it’s the right direction to take, and where it leads, God only knows.

But I’d love to take you along for the ride, if you’re willing.

Always,
Emily

P.S. If you’ve made it this far, thank you! Please do me a solid and share this ‘stack on your socials, with your friends, and leave me a comment below and let me know what from my writing has resonated with you this year. It would be a tremendous blessing to me. May your new year be blessed. I’ll see you next year ;-)