#115 Happy New Year!

2022 lessons + wonderful poems to start 2023 with + morsels of magic

The Nook

Jan 01, 2023

Happy New Year, Dearest!!!

today.i.am.sad

A post shared by melancholic type (@today.i.am.sad)

I am sorry I disappeared for most of December. But there is good news. I finally moved into my new house. (Not calling it home yet!)

The whole experience was beautiful, heartbreaking, exciting, and EXHAUSTING.

But not talking about that today. Today let’s welcome 2023 by looking at the lessons learned in 2022. Here’s my list:

22 lessons of 2022 ✍️

1. Nothing lasts. That's always a good thing.

2. Your heart will break, and often. Your job isn't to keep it from breaking. Your job is to make sure it doesn't stay broken.

3. Time and again, you will get to decide what and who matters to you. Turn to your body for help.

4. Always remind yourself of how strong you are. Don't wait for someone else to do that for you.

5. Read. Read. And read some more. You'll still know very little, but you will know that you know very little.

6. Make room for laughter.

7. Spend time with your nieces and nephews. They are your rope ladder to innocence and delight.

8. Do it scared.

9. Emotional potty-train yourself. (Thanks, Rachel Kaplan!)

10. If you often get overwhelmed, it's probably because you don't seek help. Seek help. Also, help others whenever you get the opportunity. Service is the only thing that we can truly offer.

11. Sleep. That's one of the best ways to heal anything that cannot be put into words.

12. Concern is not necessarily love. If someone's concern for you is more inquisitiveness than love, politely refuse.

13. Be fiercely protective of your mornings.

14. "You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems." (James Clear)
Set systems that are so easy and accessible that you can't say no.

15. Your freedom is your responsibility. And it starts with the mind.

16. Just because something is easy, it doesn't mean it isn't worth it.

17. Just because something is difficult, it doesn't mean it is worth it.

18. Give everything the time it deserves.

19. Only you should get to decide how you live and who you love.

20. Love. Love. Love. It's never too much.

21. Don't become numb to the tragedies and the beauties of life.

22. Say thank you often. Mean it every single time.

I wish you a fantastic 2023, dearest, one filled with curiosity, delight, comfort, and magic. Love you!

Some verses that made me smile this week:

#1 Thank You by Ross Gay

If you find yourself half naked
and barefoot in the frosty grass, hearing,
again, the earth's great, sonorous moan that says
you are the air of the now and gone, that says
all you love will turn to dust,
and will meet you there, do not
raise your fist. Do not raise
your small voice against it. And do not
take cover. Instead, curl your toes
into the grass, watch the cloud
ascending from your lips. Walk
through the garden's dormant splendor.
Say only, thank you.
Thank you.

#2 I Did Think, Let's Go About This Slowly by Mary Oliver

adalimonwriter

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#3 Love Poem by Aram Saroyan

wake up in the morning
I go to sleep at night
With you beside me

Some soft wisdom:

Can verbs be invented? I want to say one to you: I sky you, so my wings stretch out enormously to love you without measure. I feel that we have been together from our place of origin, that we are of the same matter, of the same waves, that we carry the same sense inside. Your whole being, your prodigious genius and humility are incomparable and enrich life; in your extraordinary world, what I offer you is only one truth more that you receive and that will ever caress the deepest part of you.
Thank you for receiving it, thank you for living, because yesterday you let me touch your innermost light, and because you said with your voice and your eyes what I had been waiting for all my life.

Frida Kahlo, Letter to Carlos Pellicer
November 1947