Welcome to Sunday Supper!
Set the Table
Say your grace
Prayer - Dear God, Help me reclaim the parts of me I love. Amen.
Affirmation - I am courageous.
Gratitude - I am grateful to have experienced life pre-social media.
I am grateful for every reader, subscriber, commenter, and those who share this newsletter with others.
Happy New Year! I hope you have an amazingly blessed 2026!
The Main Dish
Dig in
New Year, Old Me
2025 evaporated quickly. It was here and gone before I could grasp it. I feel like I'm in limbo, not quite in 2026, yet 2025 feels distant. I’m still finding my footing.
As I try to find the beat to this new year, I am sure about this: There are parts of me I abandoned that I want to reclaim in 2026.
Michelle Obama wrote a book about Becoming, but I am focused on Reclaiming.
I’m returning to pick up some things I dropped along life’s highway. These things are necessary for my personal journey.
In the name of modern living, I made some poor trades:
I abandoned calling people I love in exchange for sending them funny memes and occasional text messages.
I abandoned sending snail mail in favor of simply wondering about the people I used to mail handwritten letters to. A stamp is cheaper than losing connection with people I care about.
I abandoned voracious reading for mindless social media scrolling.
I abandoned planning trips to visit family and friends, and settled instead for longing for their company.
I abandoned my free-spirited, fearless approach to life in favor of a more rigid one.
Of all the trades I made, the one I think about the most is abandoning my free-spiritedness. I became a lot less risky and more rigid when I became a wife and mother. I now know that my free-spiritedness can coexist with every part of my identity.
When I was a teenager, I moved from Arkansas to Texas to attend college. Before moving, I didn’t know anyone at the school. However, I trusted God, excelled in my studies, and finished college. After graduating from college, I returned home to Arkansas for a week and then moved to Florida with only a few items packed in my car and my faith. I landed an interview when I arrived, got the job, and spent the next six years living it up in sunny Florida. I was faithful and fearless. I will reclaim this part of me.
There are parts of me that once existed that I hope will never return. We all have those. But there are other parts of me that I abandoned that I must reclaim. This reclamation is connected to the joy, peace, hope, love, and intimacy that mattered to me before the rise of social media.
I enjoyed the long conversations, the trips to visit people, the handwritten notes, and the laughs I shared with friends and family before many of us became tethered to a device. I enjoyed the fearless faith that took me to places I never imagined. It's time for reclamation.
I intend to gather what I abandoned and reconnect to what matters to me.
The cost of reclamation is often much lower than the cost of staying lost. That's why in 2026, I’m not looking for a “new” version of myself. I’m reclaiming the parts of me I love, those parts I left behind.
Pot Likker and Cornbread Crumbs
There’s flavor in the small things.
The reclamation is for my next destination.
Table Talk
Join the Conversation
What is one thing you dropped on ‘life’s highway’ that you would like to pick back up?
Potluck
From Our Community Kitchen: Book, Music, Art, Substack
Book
Music
The American government has no problem picking up what it should have abandoned: colonization, war, propaganda…
When I heard about the U.S. military strike against Venezuela yesterday and listened to the press conference in which the president proclaimed that the U.S. now “runs” Venezuela, I immediately thought of The Williams Brothers’ song, “Sweep Around.”
“Running” is very different from “leading,” and the federal government desperately needs leadership.
Art
Substack Recommendation
Recipe Exchange
There’s Always a Secret Ingredient
Like many people in the U.S. South, I cook greens, black-eyed peas, and some pork for the first dinner of the new year. I have not abandoned this tradition. I also made candied yams and cornbread.
None of the vegetables contained any meat, but I did add an ingredient to the black-eyed peas that I had never added before: beer.
Shhhh!
My family loved the black-eyed peas, and so did I. I used this recipe, minus the meat.
I look forward to cooking them again with this secret ingredient.
Dessert
A Sweet Send-Off
I love this! So much more encouraging and attainable than the typical "new me" resolutions!
I rarely set intentions or have a word for the year. Somehow, this year it settled in my mind that this will be a year of metaphorical feasting - feasting on learning, conversation, moving my body joyfully, going outside, new experiences (no matter how small). I want to experience it all with a mindset of joyfully abundance rather than one of time poverty. We'll see how I do when I'm in the middle of the semester and everything is coming due. 😆
I love everything about this! I am reclaiming the parts of myself that I miss as well. The thing is that I don't remember making a conscious decision to put them down one day. When I look back, I can see how life slowly chipped away at those parts of me until they were gone. I'm thankful for the opportunity to welcome them back and this time with a lot more wisdom under my belt.