(Try a done list)

My brain says to me: I still feel like you have a lot to do, though it’s a relief to have the wedding planning behind us.

You and Raja need to do the finances. Sell or give away the jars from the wedding centerpieces. Book an Airbnb for the Mexico trip! Deal with your endless storage problems on all of your devices (why is this a constant issue????).

Buy a new phone, write the wedding thank you notes, deal with the closet disasters in your house.

My heart says, Yes to all that, but more importantly, what about the things you want to do?

Still so much to be done!

Work on your book proposal, work on that solo music album you keep saying you want to record, run more miles and work up to a half marathon. Spend more time with friends, go swimming in the lake, buy a paddle board? (no, nowhere to store it), apply for some writing residencies, do more core workouts.

But I tell them both: I’ve already done a lot. And I try to get the to-do-want-to-do list to pause for just a moment by focusing on my done list.

DONE:

In the past year I moved into a new apartment with my husband and we furnished it from scratch. We bought a couch, a dining room table and chairs, rugs and bookcases and desks and dressers, our bed and lamps and frames for our art and the toaster and coffee machine and microwave.

We were really starting from scratch, moving from overseas. We fit all our belongings in six suitcases and two backpacks when we moved from Amman to Boston a year ago.

You know what else we did? Planned a beautiful, joy-filled wedding and had 80 people celebrate our love with us on a cold and cloudy April day in Haverhill, Massachusetts.

(I wrote about it recently: My Long & Short Walk To The Altar and ‘You’ve Had This Great Love All Along.’)

And you know what else we did? The brave work of building a community from almost-scratch.

At the time we moved here, our people in the area amounted to my sister, her husband and their baby, and another six or seven friends. Building a community from almost-scratch is the most daunting work we’ve done in the last year. I’ve moved many times in my life and each time it feels like, where to begin?

We tried out several churches. None of them seemed like the right place for us. The pews were scattered, half-empty. There seemed to be no energy in the churches we tried. The air seemed still, the music slow, and the vibe sleepy.

But we found one this spring that we love.

It seems like the right place for us. The pews are full – grandparents, parents, small children, teenagers, young couples, expecting couples – and the energy is full, welcoming, and warm.

First, back in the winter, we met with the Reverend there, after emailing him out of the blue asking if he would consider officiating our wedding. We drove over to the church in Winchester and sat with him in his sun-soaked office with the tall windows, comfy couches, and the big, dark wooden table.

He agreed to officiate our wedding, but made it clear that even if he did there would be no obligation for us to join his parish – we should make that decision in our own time.

We never exactly called a Family Meeting, sat at the kitchen table, and decided once and for all this would be our church. We just fell into the routine of going there on Sundays and being filled up with the warm and welcoming energy.

One week you’re going to coffee hour, the next week you’re saying, oh, let’s say hi to Jessica and Andrew, I see them over there, and the next thing you know, you’re bringing a side dish to the potluck on Sunday.

Community building takes so long when moving somewhere new. But we’re somewhere on this road, and further along it than we were one year ago, when we’d been living in Boston for exactly one week.

You know what else I did this past year? I joined a band. (Sadly, that only lasted for a few months and then they unceremoniously dumped me over email because they felt my voice did not mesh well with the other guy’s voice, and honestly, they were right, the voices didn’t mesh, but it still sort of stung at the time, but I’m over it now and looking for a different band to join, and I’m proud that I put myself out there in the first place.)

Oh, and another thing: publishing my writing consistently each week for almost a year now.

Forcing myself to hit the “Publish” button every week, here and on Medium, and not letting perfect be the enemy of the good, are two things I’m really proud of.

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What I’ve written this year:

• At work (4)
• Expat life (4)
• Family (5)
• Humanitarian work (10)
• I don't even know (6)
• Immigration (2)
• Mental health (5)
• Relationships (7)
• Remember COVID? (3)
• Travel (4)
• Trying to be a human (6)
• Writing (8)
• Zaatari refugee camp: day in the life (4)

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Looking at what I’ve created here, I feel such a sense of accomplishment. Not because it’s perfect. But because it was scary, and I did (am doing) it anyway.

We seem to have running lists our whole lives of what we need and want to do. Big or small changes aimed at making life better in some way. This is all fine; needed, even.

But focusing only on the to do list and never reflecting on the done list makes me feel like this could go on and on and I could never feel quite satisfied. (I wrote about something similar in My Life Resume, which has nothing to do with my work resume.)

That’s why I’m resolving to look not back but all around me:

Look, here’s the house plants on my desk that I’ve been tending to for the past year, and they’re not necessarily thriving, but they are still alive and basking in the morning sun.

Look, here’s the cross-stitch of the Amman skyline that my friend made as a wedding gift to us, which I’ve just hung in the kitchen yesterday.

Look, here’s some of my watercolors that I finally found a frame for, and I love how the red wood of the frame matches the reddish brown of the paint I used for Pella.

Look, I know we always complain about how expensive rent is in Boston, and it really is ludicrous, but look how we have Mystic lake right near our house, which we can jump into at any moment on a hot day, and we have the bike path, and the mountains just a little north, and the ocean just a little east, and we were just at Menotomy the other night for live music, and there’s no shortage of porch fests or street festivals or beer gardens here during the long summer weekends.

Look, here on the kitchen table is a beautifully intricate pen and ink drawing that my husband made of my bridal bouquet – which is dried up from our wedding a few weeks ago, but we still haven’t thrown it away.

Look, here is the smell of fresh coffee brewing (rich, dark, and almost too strong: the way I love to drink it) and the idea floating around my head to make pear-cardamom-walnut scones out of that new cookbook I borrowed from the library.

Look, at 8:00pm it is still so light out!

All around, look, here are small blessings, and life feels new.

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Tell me, what’s one thing on your DONE list that you’re proud of? I’d love to hear!

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