12 Days of Reverb

I announced at the end of last month that I’d be participating in this year’s Reverb11 even though the project wouldn’t be formally organized as it was last year.


Through Reverb11 participating bloggers have been posting responses to different writing prompts that are meant to encourage us to reflect on the past year and manifest great things for the year to come. I’ve been posting my responses on my other blog The Writeous Babe Project, but I thought I’d catch up my Georgia Mae readers. 


On Day 1 I thought about where 2011 started, which was where most of my years have begun lately — at brunch! 


On Day 2 I considered the three words that would best sum up my year: community, challenge, and overwhelmed. 


On Day 3 I told the world (or my three readers) why I’m grateful for my guy. 

Isn’t he cute?!

On Day 4 I was honest about how rough the past several months of this year have been for me. 


On Day 5 I came to terms with the fact that I tend to get obsessed with things and tried to figure out if that’s actually a good thing since it helps me get things done. 


On Day 6 I celebrated all the things from my 2011 aspirations list that I’ve managed to accomplish. 


On Day 7 I decided to torture myself by reflecting on all the goals I failed to accomplish in hopes that I would figure out what I did wrong so I could bring those dreams to fruition in 2012. Instead I just got depressed and didn’t post for the next few days. 


No, I’m just kidding (sort of). I didn’t post for a few days simply because I was busy writing a 31-page exam, grading 70 article summaries and 16 oral presentations, trying to complete an online college course, and trying to squeeze in regular runs and holiday parties. Whew! 


So today I’m going to pick things up again. 


Prompt 8: Looking back on this year, what would you do differently?


To be honest, I would listen to my husband more. As I’ve expressed in responses to other prompts, this year has been very overwhelming for me in part because of health issues but mostly because I got involved in far too many things. Edd warned me that this would happen. But I was stubborn, said yes to everything and ended up drowning in tasks. 


Fortunately, he’s sweet enough to never say I told you so.


Prompt 9: How did you have fun this year? 


Even though being involved in so many community activities has been the source of so much of my stress this year it’s also been the source of so much fun. From mixers with other local natural hair beauties to meetings with my running group to creating a networking group for local women writers, these organizations have helped me fall in love with my city. 

Here I am with the lovely ladies of Birmingham Natural Beauties

Here I am with a few of the amazing women of Black Girls Run Birmingham. We were volunteering at the Ruben Studdard Half-Marathon and everyone said we had the best water station. Go BGR!

Prompt 10: Where did you visit?


I spent several days in Louisville, the hometown of my heart, and we took our usual trips to Virginia to visit the in-laws. Here I am at Virginia Beach:

I also spent a lot of time in Atlanta this year attending conferences. 


Prompt 11: How did you celebrate and take care of your body this year? 


I made a decision to stop worrying about how much my body weighs and start focusing on what it can do. And right now I’m determined to prove that this body can run a half marathon!

Prompt 12: What or whom did you let go of this year? Why? 


I’m not sure why I chose this prompt because honestly I don’t think I’ve let go of anything this year, but I mean that in a good way. As challenging as this year has been, I’ve actually found so many of my deferred dreams revived. I don’t know if I’ve hit rock bottom and, therefore, figure things can’t go anywhere but up, but oddly enough, even though I feel really down most days I am still hopeful that things will get better, that a change will come, and that one day all my dreams will come true.