Ask yourself what you want

and don't be afraid of the answer

Well, folks: Here we are, once again at the close of a year. Cue the Hallelujah Chorus? 2024, a year I thought was going to be fantastic, ended up being one of the harder years of life for my family: it all started with a very unexpected layoff, and was underlaid by a job search that stretched on for months. Add in some theft, the winter that wasn’t¹, serious illnesses, an accident, basement flooding, losing a pet… I won’t go into all the details.² But it’s been a year. To be fair, plenty of good came into being right there along the messes: I had a new book come out, another was a finalist for a book award, and I finished another that comes out in April. We spent countless hours in kayaks and on hiking local trails, the garden produced loads of vegetables and flowers, and we maintained good mental health during all of the upheaval. The garage residing project was completed, our remaining cat is alive and well, and I finally did start a new job six weeks ago.³

Taking inventory at the end of the year can be an illuminating exercise. You reflect on what you wanted vs what actually happened. You think about what went well and what didn’t. You celebrate the wins and lament the losses. You try not to spend too much time lamenting the losses and remind yourself that celebrating is okay even when some things from the year you’d prefer to leave behind are going to have to come with you into the new one. You ask yourself what you want as you move forward and try not to be afraid of what comes up when you do.

What follows is something I wrote several years ago that was eventually adapted to be the afterword of my second poetry collection. I’m going to share it as 2024 comes to a close since I need to hear it. Maybe you do too.

Take a moment to consider the current state of things. Your life, at this moment, may feel joyful, full of fantastic momentum, days drenched in delight. Or maybe it feels like a slog through a boggy swamp swarming with relentless mosquitoes. Maybe you are right in the middle of the hardest period of time you've ever experienced, one marked by loss, depression, illness, chaos, or strained relationships.

No matter what your life circumstances are, the things that have already come to pass will always be with you. What has already happened is part of your lived experience, and it always will be, whether the events that transpired were worthy of celebration or a doorway to heart-wrenching grief. You can continue striving, or look for the next area of growth, or set your sights on what's yet to come. You can lament what has happened. You can also simply acknowledge whatever you've navigated and set it down gently to be absorbed into the soil of your life.

Set it down, maybe even work it into the soil a bit. (This is different from burying it never to be seen again.) Allow it to feed whatever it is that needs to happen next — even if what needs to happen next is completely unknown. Even if what needs to happen next isn't something you would have chosen.

Zora Neale Hurston said that there are some years that pose questions and some years that provide answers. For most of us, the question years far outnumber those that answer. It can be tough to discern what sort of year it's been until decades later, because some questions take an awfully long time to answer. Answers are often quite different than we want them to be. Answers sometimes come in the form of another question.

However you are feeling here on the cusp of [a new year], know this: You are not defined by what has happened to you or what you have achieved. You are not your trauma, or even your successes. Those things have plenty of impact on your life, but they aren't the core of who you are. You are a human being full of nuance and light and shadow and pain and healing, something hard to define with spoken language. You are a part of the earth's body, part of the human collective, part of a mystical universe experiencing life on a planet of blood and bone and soil.

Look at what has come to pass, see it through the lens of curiosity, and set it down gently. Allow whatever parts of it you can to provide nourishment. Identify what's within your control, and acknowledge what's not. Use the strengths that you have, in the aspects of your life where you have agency, to cultivate the conditions you most need in order to thrive, and to help others to do the same. Let the blood, bone, and soil of your human life provide a foundation for your spirit as you keep on slouching toward a radiant sky.

Ask yourself what you want, and don’t be afraid of the answer 

What kind of energy 
will you bring with you 
as one year comes to a close 
and another begins? 
May it be the kind of energy 
that turns gray winter days
into works of art
dripping with beauty 
or allows something stuck
to flow more freely 
than it has in awhile 
or hovers like a fog
intent on coating everything 
in a fine layer of silver mist
reminding you that 
when you peer 
through the gloom
with curiosity as your guide
it’s possible to find the sparkle.

Move into this next calendar year not with lofty expectations, but with gentle tenacity— the kind that will help you hold fast even in storms that won’t let up. Do something every day that makes you feel more human. Put your energy where it will do the most good right now. Let your community help you when you stumble, and help them when they do. Step into the new year not with resolve to be your best self, but with acceptance: that imperfect practice is the way forward.

1. Not ideal when a business (in this case, my spouse’s) is reliant on winter weather.

2. Feel free to explore the archives of 2024 if you’d like, these issues, especially the layoff/job search, are featured multiple times in newsletters this past year.

3. All it took was 90 applications.