A Poem for the New Year

2023 was a pretty difficult year for me marked largely by injury and illness. When I started reflecting on the year I realized it was best summarized by a simple sentiment:

I survived it.

While injured, I had a lot of time on my hands and with it I found myself confronting aspects of my past, and my childhood, that I previously down played or overlooked. I worked through a lot of big feelings and uncomfortable truths.

When you're doing difficult and meaningful healing work - it's easy to get trapped in the work that you're doing. It's easy to feel like the pain and discomfort is all there is. But the truth is I was reflecting on things that I had endured. I'm in a different place now and at a certain point - there must be something on the other side of survival. There must be something on the far side of the bend. At a certain point, it has to be okay to look back and celebrate how far you've come. Not because you've landed somewhere perfect or climbed somewhere high - but simply because you've landed somewhere new.

You've landed somewhere else.

That has to be worth something - even if those victories are often the quiet ones that no one ever sees. Even if those victories simply create space to be somewhere that matters; to meet your depths with clarity, they are worth celebrating.

I spent the last few weeks of the year realizing that while 2023 felt like a long slog through a never ending mud, the worst of that season is also now behind me. It felt like it would never end, and yet somehow it has. And now that it has, I'm holding space for the uncertain and uncontrollable range of possibilities of whatever comes next. I'm holding space for the knowing that every Winter comes with an inevitable Spring.

I don't know when it happened but at some point Winter became my favorite season. Here in the Bay area it's a time of rainy days and distant fogs come home. It's a time of warm drinks and hopeful thoughts of what the Spring may bring. I wanted to kick off this year by sharing a new poem. I wrote this poem last night - while I generally hold my writing close to the chest until it feels polished and finished and part of something larger - I'm going to try something different this year.

I'm going to try something new.

Click here to read a text version of “She Survived, She Survived,”

Happy New Year!