* This blog post was originally shared no January 2nd of 2021 and is being re-published after some website re-formatting *
I tip my hat to you! I am not sad to see you go, but I am grateful for all that I learned from you. This year has been a heavy one. Although I was able to find a lot of silver linings along the way, it all felt clouded by a lingering darkness that never went away. That’s not to say that there weren’t beautiful moments, there were so many of them and I am very very grateful for all of the blessings in my life. I recognize that my world was much brighter than many others and I never take that for granted.
I grew so much this year. I spent a lot of time turning inward, tuning in, and from that I learned more than I think I ever have at any other time in my life. I learned that until we can really face ourselves, until we can come to terms with the part we play in this world, we can’t be the lead in our own story. The world will tell you who to be over and over again and it’s easy to listen and play along, but by doing that you are letting others write your life story for you. We all have the power and the ability to change course at any time along the journey and rewrite it and this year, I finally learned that for myself.
I learned that when you allow yourself to be exactly who you are, other people are inspired to do the same. I was terrified to put myself out there and in all honesty I didn’t do it all that much this year, but when I did I inevitably heard from people who expressed their gratitude for my vulnerability. They told me how much it helped them to hear my story and that just proved to me that the discomfort I was feeling was worth it. Because ultimately what are we here for if we’re not here for each other? We need each other, especially in times like these.
You all know that I always try to find the good in the world, but I feel like it would be wrong for me to pretend that where we are right now is good. Its not. The uncovering of ugly truths continued to be the star of the show all year. We have so much work to do as humans before we can even begin to see the light at the end of this tunnel we’ve put ourselves in. It’s overwhelming to imagine the magnitude of the work that we need to put in to undo the shitty “normal” we’ve created.
And maybe we needed to get here and face that as the truth before we can move forward? Maybe we needed to see each other at our worst before we could find the strength to have the big, hard conversations and make the changes that we so desperately need to make?
My hope is that in 2021 each and every person will invest a little more in their empathy and compassion for each other and this planet we all share and divest from the disconnection and consumption a little bit too. It’s time.
Happy New Year!
