What were the gifts of a smaller life?
And other reflection questions for a year like no other
I often end the year sitting around a table with people I love, eating delicious take-out or a carefully composed meal, asking a bunch of earnest questions about the year we’ve just lived through. December 31st also happens to be my birthday, so it’s an especially auspicious time for me to look back and look forward. This year, when I looked back at some of the questions that I asked of myself, my friends, and my readers in years past, I was struck by how quaint they seemed.
This year truly is a year like no other.
So it deserves a set of questions like no other. If you’re hungry for a little reflection, grab a journal, grab a partner, send around a zoom link, and give yourself some time to ponder these. You can print them out, cut them out, and grab them out of a hat. You can randomly assign them in small groups on zoom. You can sit alone and just pick the ones that speak to you and collage your answers. No right way to do it:
In what ways did you most surprise yourself this year? Did you develop new skills, new passions, new awareness? Did you recognize new emotions in yourself and process them in new ways?
What relationships were born this year, despite or maybe even because of the social constraints? What relationships were deepened? What relationships faded away, and does it feel like those are long term losses or just seasonal?
What did this year teach you about showing up for people? What did this year teach you about asking for what you need?
What and who did you miss most in this time of contraction? What did you not miss at all that you would have predicted you might have?
What were the gifts of a smaller life that you want to keep with you as things begin to expand again in 2021?
What have you learned about risk in this strange year—your relationship to it, your loved ones relationship to it?
What has been hardest on you emotionally, physically, spiritually?
What have you learned about this country that you will never forget?
What and who are you grieving?
What and who are you grateful for?
I know there are some very skilled question-askers in this community of readers, so please add your additions in comments! And if you’d like something expansive to begin or end your reflection, may I suggest the poem that got me through this year like no other: “Dead Stars” by Ada Limon.
I have no additional questions. I just want to express gratitude to you, Courtney, for a year of gorgeous writing. Happy birthday, too.
I love this piece, and have already forwarded it onto 8 other friends, and likely to more. Thank you, and warm wishes to you and your family. I had forgotten we have the same birthday....a few years apart😊. I’ll be singing happy birthday to you that day as I wash my hands.