At the beginning of every year, I pick a word that will frame what I want to do and embody for the year. It’s an idea I borrowed from my friend Sameer Vasta and it helps me go into the year with a sort of philosophical hook on which to hang my hat.
2021 was an exception. I knew the word, but I didn’t write about it.
In 2021, I had picked the word “Expand” because it meant so many things all at once. You see, this was the year that my husband and I had our first child - a boy.
I spent a good part of the year nurturing life - a feat I didn’t think I would ever want to undertake for many reasons. And yet here we were, buying baby clothes and an entire house in which we could home this new person.
“Expand” became a more poignant motto for my year than anything. As I physically changed, the meaning of who I was also expanded. My son - and it still feels very odd to use the phrase - will eventually call me mum (or mummy, or mama). And I have to ask myself what that means to me and to him. I’ve brought him into this world, but I don’t own him. Even as a parent, I still see myself as a steward or a guide. I’m entrusted with something invaluable and it is up to me - and up to us - to guide him in this world to become a good person and a decent human being. That qualitatively changes what I have to think of myself - I must be a better person for him. That gives me anxiety on most days.
2021 has been a year that the work world is calling “The Great Resignation.” People are literally taking stock of their lives and quitting things - jobs especially - that no longer serve them. Employers are having to pivot to accommodate workers who no longer put work at the front and centre of their lives and identity. After all, things that don’t grow, decay over time (which is also a natural part of life). I think The Great Resignation is much more than that. It’s also parting with the people we no longer want to be. Meaning-making has never been more apparent than right now. And people no longer want to bargain the value of their lives down to a pittance. In a way, we’ve expanded what we want to be, regardless of what that looks like. It’s a risk - but it’s a good risk, I think (and I speak from a place of privilege - the pandemic has been brutal to women and people of colour, especially. We have a lot to do to close this gap of inequity).
2022 might be much of the same journey. We’re still contending with a global pandemic. Our healthcare system continues to be strained. Many of us are working from home. It’s hard to expand in an environment like that. But perhaps constraint fosters creativity. We can’t move outward, so we must move more deeply. Perhaps that depth, and the kindness, quiet and thoughtfulness that should come with it is what we need to expand into. We must care - or continue to care. Or start caring.
I’m minutes away from my son waking up. He’s stirring on the baby monitor. His small body is growing out of the cute clothing we bought him and he keeps lodging himself sideways in his bassinet. He won’t be little for long - he’ll expand too. He’s changing every day. As he changes, so will I. I don’t know what it’ll look like even a month from now, or a year from now. All I know is it will all be different more quickly than I’d ever imagined.
Some things to read if you’d like:
The only metric of success that really matters is one we ignore - Quartz
How to Raise a Feminist Son: Motherhood, Masculinity and the Making of My Family - by Sonora Jha
Does anyone want to hear about burned out moms anymore? - The Cut