A new year
Onward we go, into 2025! I’m 33 years old and can remember many New Year’s Eves at this point. They seem to stack up with surprising quickness. Has anyone out there figured out how to get time to slow down a bit? No? Well. Alright.
With each approach of NYE, I reflect on my year and let a word for the next one come to me. It’s not so much a resolution as just a grounding station and bit of guidance, and normally I don’t actively pick this word. I quiet my mind, send out a little prayer for what I might need, and a word normally comes to me. I don’t have to think very hard, or try to make something special up. It’s there on the edge of my thoughts and I let it come to the forefront. Last year I made a little reel about it on the instagram here.
The word that came to me for 2025 was (druummrollll)
Peace.
After 2023’s word of Brave and 2024’s CAPABLE (yes, all caps), Peace felt like a bit of a let down. I did ask myself, are you sure about that? I waited a few days hoping a different word would come to me. Peace is obviously something the world needs, but for just me and my life it felt boring, uninspired. It took me these few days of thinking on it that I have the wrong idea about peace. Personal peace.
I experience a lot of anxiety. When I was younger, I did not experience this the way I do now and did not recognize it as such. I lurched from “brave” action to nervousness with amazing speed, but still managed to have just enough fun not to get myself into too much trouble. The path was easy enough, laid out before me. Graduate, work during summer, have fun with friends, college, graduate again.
That’s when things stated to get hazy, and the path had fewer landmarks to follow. Any landmarks that did appear were heartily second-guessed until I could no longer avoid plunking myself down on a counselor’s couch and crying my eyes out over all these choices, choices, choices. How could I move forward with confidence if I could no longer see the future with any clarity? I was imprisoned in my mind, aching for something I could control, feel sure of. After lots and lots of talking I had to come to the conclusion, with my counselor’s kind and gracious help, that I could control very little. And that is ok. One step at a time, with as much love and care as can be mustered. That’s all one can do.
With these insights, I went back to feeling Brave sometimes, even CAPABLE. It was great! My husband Tyler and I were building things, making moves, growing together. At work I learned new skills, got new licenses, ran bigger and bigger machines. Had I vanquished the anxiety, finally?
No. Still it lurked, lacking that former potency but still strong enough to make me second-guess myself too often. I can be Brave, and I even learned to see myself as CAPABLE, and now—
2025 is going to teach me Peace. Trusting myself, setting aside the second-guess, the “you sure about that,” the yawning terror of putting my work out there disguised so well as perfectionist tendencies and procrastination. Here we go! Am I ready? No? Well, alright, time to saddle up anyway.
For Tyler and my New Year’s Eve we celebrated with a gifted bottle of champagne, blew off a few BIG roman candles, and stared in awe at the gorgeous light show graced to us in the early a.m. of the 1st.
