In the first leftover, I explored my choice of the word rebuilding from a technical perspective – what does the word mean, how do my actions match up with that, and so on. I concluded that although I was basically doing the same things I’ve always done, I was doing them a little differently, and that these minor alterations were making a big impact on my outcomes.
But of course, good explanations don’t necessarily make me right. Rebuilding is probably a word better reserved for a time like spring 2014 when I was on crutches for a few weeks. Rebuilding is also a good word for 2016 when, to put it simply, I’d lost all sense of the rhythm and stability that I once leaned on for support. In those cases, rebuilding certainly feels like the word to describe things because I needed to figure out how I would return to a lot of activities I’d abandoned while I was adjusting to the new realities of my body or lifestyle.
What the overall picture of 2018 shares with these other times was how I felt throughout the year. As I did during those times in 2014 and 2016, in 2018 I responded to the various challenges to my ability to make and protect time for doing what I valued. In short, 2018 for me was a year of finding news ways to live consistent with my own principles, convictions, and values. I suspect I will always think of a time like that as rebuilding, whether such a period is preceded by an obvious form of destruction or not.
