Year 32 Reflection

12 min read

Welcome friend! For the 6th year, I am writing a reflection on reading and writing on my birthday. Each year, before I write this piece, I look back at how I did the last one. I have no set format and most of the time, I do something different. This year, I am feeling called to write a longer narrative about the books I read in Year 32. What follows now is a tale of my reading and blogging. They are closely intertwined and it hasn’t been more apparent to me than this year.

I started my 32nd year by striving. Tom’s Crossing by Mark Z. Danielewski arrived at my doorstep through a publicist contact and I was overjoyed. I wanted to impress so I sat down with this 4 lb tomb and started reading.

In hindsight, Tom’s Crossing was where my blog series, When I Close the Book actually began to take shape. For long books, I always take periodic notes but Danielewski is a teacher – he instantly turns me into a student. I want to study his prose and figure out the truths underneath his storytelling. Though I am yet to finish House of Leaves, his psychological horror keeps me on the edge.

HEX comes to mind. There have been few books that have devastated me but it’s usually at the end. I was not prepared for Tom’s Crossing. There was a brutal scene where a child died and I could not shake out of it. I was horrified by what I just read. I haven’t picked up the book since and we are coming up on a year now. I want to read it and the pain might be dull enough now that I can return.

The year also started with a reread. Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper felt like meeting an old friend after a decade. I have changed so much since I picked it up years ago and it was lovely to visit. I have always wanted to write reviews of books I read before my blogging days and this is the first one I captured. I wonder if and when I will reach for this book again.

I love parenting. And that shows up in my reading life too.

I read stories about parents, like My Sister’s Keeper. I read about being a parent and strategies to support my kid as well as what life with kids for real people looks like. Finding Your Inner Mama, The Mother Dance, Buddhism for Mothers of Young Children, The 5 Love Languages of Children, A Simpler Motherhood, The Emotional Life of the Toddler, All It Takes is A Goal are books that met me this year, some not for the first time. I turned to them to understand this life I have chosen and I love returning to them when I need inspiration, solace, truths, ideas or just plain companionship. They hold mirrors to my experiences that I never thought I would seek so desperately from books.

Coming back to rereads, having received the review copy of We Fell Apart, the third book in the We Were Liars series, I returned to We Were Liars, another pre-blogging days book. It was still so good! Since I already knew the lie that the synopsis of the book asks the readers to never reveal, I was able to enjoy the rest of the story more, focusing on the characters and the setting. Following that with Family of Liars and then We Fell Apart was a glorious journey of watching different generations of one family live their unique lives. I think of the three, Family of Liars might be my favorite. Through my series, After Thoughts, I reflected on why I am drawn to this family when I am really not a Young Adult genre reader.

With my return to work full time looming over me in January, I decided to do two small things that would keep me connected to reading and writing.

Writing a bookish thought of the day – I started this on January 1 and it’s a practice I love. This is not an elaborate thought. Sometimes I mention that I got book mail, other times, that I could not read at all. I used a simple Google Sheet Calendar template to print a one pager for my cork board.
Reading a small thing every day – Another January start was The Pivot Year. 365 paragraphs, one for each day. They take a minute to read and can be quite thought provoking and insightful. For the most part, I have managed one a day and for the days I am not able to, it takes another minute to catch up the next day. I highlight and take some notes here and there, adding some to my journals when the month changes.

Maybe one of the best life books I came across is Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes. A comprehensive, easy to read guide about how to make it to the other side of big changes, in this book, William Bridges breaks down what times of transition feel like. He acknowledges the cognitive load of big life changes like having a baby, going back to work after a long time away, ending a relationship, starting retirement, etc. I loved his approach and hopeful message. There is no magic formula in this book. It is pure human experience and I recommend it! It is a book I will return to throughout my life.

Other relationships were also on my mind and I enjoyed reflecting on the changing landscape of being a daughter through Good Daughtering. I raved about it here.

Book discussions have been an important part of my reading life since I met Ariel in 2019. Looking back at Year 32, though we didn’t read as much as we did in previous years, we still read 5 books. We matched our pace of buddy reading with life – Our Infinite and Inevitable Ends is our longest buddy read. It took us four months to finish because we read a chapter a week. Ariel is on top of review copies while I am always behind on them. With Japanese Gothic, the roles were reversed and I enjoyed writing my notes before she got to the book. Kyliee Lee Baker is a favourite author of ours and we will always discuss her not-insanely-gorey books together. Travis Baldree (Brigands and Breadknives) and Julie Leong (The Keeper of Magical Things) are other authors we returned to.

For me, the unforgettable books from this year are Whistler, Blood Over Bright Haven, The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies, Your Behaviour Will be Monitored, The End of Eternity and Every Day I Read. When I was reading these books, that’s all I wanted to do.

Reading is intertwined with writing. I felt seen through my reviews of Final Orbit, The Ritual Effect, Whistler, and Valet as they brought me comments from readers as well as opportunities I had never imagined getting.

I, Spy, The Midnight Train and Ignore All Previous Instructions challenged me to articulate why I didn’t resonate with certain parts of the stories.

I originally thought that my series, When I Close the Book, was about capturing when I closed a book, stopping when I did. But by giving myself permission to share about books when they were not read to the last page, I started to show up more authentically to reading and writing.

In Year 31 reflection, I shared about 4 new series coming to the blog – The Blogging Shelf, Reader Life, Creating While Caring and Reading with a Slice of Life. But the blog grew so much more.

Apart from After Thoughts and When I Close the Book, I started writing Growing up with Books – my way of documenting the tiny, tender, surprising reading life unfolding beside me. It has been a lovely evolution of my reading and writing spaces as I get to interact with children’s books in so many roles – as a child, with my daughter, as a parent, as a reader and blogger. I have loved every piece that I have written for it so far. You haven’t seen them all yet.

Things come up all the time in many books and ultimately, there is one book that lands a concept. I read Made for More by Lindsey Sealey back in 2023. Here is a quote from my review:

If I want to do more of something, say more time writing, I need to do less of something else. My days are occupied by work and my evenings are for me. I just hadn’t thought of my evenings as a jigsaw of things I do. What will make me more happy to do less of? What can I stop doing to spend more time writing? With Made for More, I learned to set kind goals again, for myself, and to show up for myself.

Three years later, I am still learning. Being kind is a practice. Letting go is hard. I have said a lot of goodbyes this year – from social media to influencer programs.

As for evenings, they are no longer for me. They are family time.

Laura Vanderkam’s writings in What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast and Two Other Short Guides to Achieving More at Work and at Home acknowledged family life with a full time job like none of the other books I have mentioned so far. Under 5 hours of audiobook time, I enjoyed the short guides and I actually did take something away from each of them. Review coming at some point. Maybe before I read I Know How She Does It.

Sometimes, it is the reread of a book that finally lands the concept. I returned to Jon Acuff’s All it Takes is a Goal, first read in 2023. I love his way of organizing goals in five areas: Career, Finance, Fun, Health, and Relationships. He gives actionable strategies on how to pursue our goals with intention and with the time we have. Finally, in my second read, I was able to embrace his system in my unique way to capture my hopes and dreams. I have added two of my own categories – Craft and Home.

Reading and writing have both become richer. Having my daughter has helped me become more intentional about where I spend my time when she is not around.

Somedays, I feel grief for the time I used to have. The person I used to be. The first few years of the blog, I was knocking off books and interviews one after the other. Over a hundred books were read every year. Authors hosted almost every week.

I didn’t know how to keep that momentum once my daughter arrived and the year 32 had been all about picking up the things that I had to pause, like full time work, and situate myself in my hobbies again.

In the past, richness felt like abundance.

In this season, it feels like slowing down and savouring.

My favourite thing to do is to watch my kid grow, pick books for her, read together with her and write about her. What were hopes a year ago are now reality. Sometimes, reading a book for the 7th time before bed can be exhausting. Her love for reading at 21 months is so contagious that my attempt to get her to sleep is half-hearted at best.

My next favorite thing is to read and write for myself.

I am no longer hiding that.

I am leaning into this.

Reading is no longer To be read, Currently reading, Read or Did not Finish. There are unfinished books, books that are paused, books that I was called to and I am waiting to find another moment that will call me back. I know I will return.

Writing is no longer finished book reviews and follow up author interviews. I write whenever I want. Thoughts about a book, whether they come before I start, mid chapter, or at the end, are all welcome.

Like Year 32, Year 33 promises to be a mix of revisiting and firsts. There is no plan. No deadline to meet. Just time to read when I read.

My hopes for Year 33 are that I revisit a few books I read this year. I want to create a personal 31 actions/quotes of Gentle Parenting inspired by Janet Lansbury whose books No Bad Kids and Elevating Child Care are my go to for short parenting inspiration. She has a new book coming out in February that I can’t wait to start reading.

I imagine reading a chapter a day from Meditation for Mortals – maybe it will go into my Reading with A Slice of Life series… It’s been over a year since I read a book in that pause and reflect format and I really want to. Another book I want to sit through this series is The Light Pirate, an old favourite.