Every year I choose a word of the year. Unlike a resolution, which is so easily broken or forgotten, my word is often something that carries me through the entire year. Some years, my word pops up in unexpected ways, and other years I intentionally reflect on its presence in my life. My word of 2021 was DARING.

Daring didn’t do exactly what I was hoping for this year. Or better said, I wasn’t as daring as I was hoping to be this year. I know I was hoping that 2021 would feel less like 2020 in terms of pandemic life, and keeping students and staff safe while still educating everyone. Unfortunately, that wasn’t so true. However, I do feel that I was the most daring in my professional life. In this 2021-22 school year, my team and I brought back professional development for all staff, including three sessions on Equity across our entire district. Leading Equity work at this time in our country is daring in and of itself, and I am immensely proud of the work our team, and our committee, have done to move our vision forward.

I was daring enough to take up tennis again this year with my brother, but that led to a knee injury that not only halted all tennis fun, but even my daily walks for many months. Then ending this year on a medical leave recovering from a surgery was also not what I predicted when I chose DARING as my word. In some ways, electing to have this surgery, and it do it now, was daring. Four weeks out and I’m already grateful I did it. But I’m also anxious to be back to my walking and back to work!

It felt daring to meeting the writing challenge I gave myself in January, but that petered out. I know I was to write fiction, but I haven’t been daring enough to truly commit to it… YET. I do want to dare myself to pick up the writing habit again as we transition out of 2021 and into 2022.

Over the next two weeks I will be reflecting more on my past words and what I want in 2022. Stay tuned for my word of 2022 on January 1!