onward

She loves the smell
of warm coffees,
bloomed roses
and new beginnings.

– Sonia Azalia

What is it about new beginnings that we love so much?

Perhaps it’s the hope and the promise of an unknown future, a rebirth of the awareness that we have a choice about who we are and how we live.  Perhaps it’s the relief of a closed door on a chapter of our lives we are glad to have survived, or a quiet gratitude for a good season that we hope will continue.  Perhaps it is all of this at once – or something else altogether.

But whatever it is, “all things new” are words of hope, and we need them.

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I’ve never been much for New Year’s resolutions (it’s far too easy to break them), but a few years ago, I discovered a movement called OneWord365.  The idea behind it is to choose just one word to focus on for the year – a word that captures something about your hope for the year to come – and then see how it shapes you over time.  There have been years when I’ve put a lot of thought into what word I would choose, but sometimes it feels more like the word is choosing me.  This year, it is definitely the latter.

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Last year, my OneWord365 was “identify.”  That was a hand-picked word.  I felt like I needed to take some time to re-identify the things that matter most to me.  I haven’t really written about it – it was a much more private and subconscious exercise than I’d expected – but I do feel like I’m walking into 2018 with a clearer view of who I am and what I want my priorities to be.  Some of the things on that list include spending more time with family, adjusting my lifestyle to include better self-care (which covers everything from more consistent sleeping patterns to cooking more to taking an actual vacation next summer), and investing more time in my writing.  I’ve had some ideas kicking around for awhile – so you’re likely to see a hodge-podge of things show up here at Simple Felicity this year – but I’ve been letting a combination of laziness, busy-ness, and insecurity serve up all kinds of excuses for not writing, and it’s time to be done with that.  My great American novel (ha!) is not going to write itself without some help – and neither is this blog.

My OneWord365 for this year comes somewhat courtesy of Elizabeth Gilbert.  She writes the most beautiful essays on Facebook (you can read my favorite one here), and she almost always signs off with the word, “onward.”  I have always found this inspiring, and when I went to choose my word for this year, I knew instantly that it would be exactly the right word.  The past few years haven’t always been easy, but it is time to leave them behind.  There are new things to do, new experiences to be had, new friends to be made, and new dreams to find.

Onward, then…

More to come,
Happy

photo credit: taylor hernandez on Unsplash