New year, new.... what?

(Though really, 2021 was a year full of gangbusters change, to be honest.)

I sometimes miss magazine publishing — I miss the photo shoots most of all, making images is incredibly satisfying work — and I sometimes don’t miss it at all. And January is the time I’m most glad I no longer have to come up with some cheery spin on “New Year, New You.”

I’m same old me this new year, but in a new life. I now live with my partner in a new home in a new town; I share that home with him and his three children; my oldest and only child (pre-bonus kids) is off to college; I am working at a full time job that isn’t at all the job I applied for and began working in.

In other words, the more things stay the same the more they change, or something like that.

But truth be told, my life is the most settled and the most calm and the most comforting it’s been in…. a decade? I’ve lived through so much loss and turmoil of different stripes, since I was in high school, actually, that I had kind of stopped hoping turmoil would retreat. I began to think of it as a constant in life, the price of living.

My son is doing well. My ex-husband, who also moved north when we did, is doing well. My step-children are doing well. My partner and I are doing amazingly well (turns out living with the person you love the most above all is wonderful). My in-laws on all sides are doing well.

Are there things I wish were different? Sure. And some of those things are on my “to do better in the new year” wish list. But this year the “new year” vibe isn’t giving me focused energy on driving ahead and making things different. (2021 included: selling my house, buying a new home, my son graduating high school, moving north, getting my son settled in college, my ex-husband moving north, starting life as a step-family… there was plenty of new in 2021, thankyouverymuch.) This year my new year energy is all about gratitude, and peace, and some deep sense of contentedness that I never thought I would ever know again. It feels wonderful to just be, and not be focused on some destination just ahead.

For those of you in the struggle (one of my favorite encouraging phrases ever: “Embrace the struggle”), know that I’m living proof that sometimes life turns slowly into something you’d hoped for — and sometimes it even turns into something you’d stopped hoping for. Keep going. Keep fighting. And stop fighting when you get tired and take a rest.

Sending all of you love and best wishes.