Doing it, anyway

Thinking about seasons and how any one state of mind or feeling does not last forever, even if it seems like it might. The quiet, slow start to the year is a welcome and necessary antidote to what came before. Only now, after several days of hibernation, can I feel a bit of myself returning. An orientation toward possibility, a sense of capacity, some space.

It was a maximalist year, as if everything that could happen, did. It makes me tired to think of recounting it all, but there were celebrations, public and private joys. There were losses, tumult, some fears. In that, like any other year, but with the volume and saturation set too intensely. I would have preferred, I think, a different pacing, but that is no longer a matter for my concern. 

A setting of intentions — More reading, more letter-writing, more play. Less binge-watching, less mindlessness, less fear. More sincerity, more attentiveness to the things that matter most. Less of the hypercritical internal voice that dampens pleasure. More hang-outs, more openness to opportunities. Less (a little less) catastrophizing. More acceptance. More doing it anyway. Here’s to us, here’s to our year.