2023: And You’re Gonna Be Happy

✨ Happy New Year
Bonne santé et meilleurs vœux
今年もよろしくお願いします ✨🐇

For the past four years, the turning of a new leaf calendar was a bit… morose, shall I say? I didn’t expect things to change, even if I really, really wanted them to. It felt like I’d need the miraclest of Miracles to get “back on the path” (not to say “get back on track” when the track ran out and I’ve lost the path six and a half turns ago) or find that ray of sunshine piercing through the (not always) metaphorical clouds.

This year’s different.

(At least, the first week felt different, before some pain took hold for over a week and I lost some of it while traveling. Here’s to the feeling returning soon, maybe as soon as I catch up on much needed sleep?)

This year’s different and I’m not really sure why. I haven’t found “my purpose” (yet), if we like to think we have one, I’m still very much confused and full of doubt. I haven’t had a revelation (yet? minipiphanies^TM, yes, but not recently). I’m not suddenly Writing or Living with Purpose with a sense that “everything will work out” permeating my every action (yet? Who knows). My mess is the same but my wanting to get through it perhaps stronger. My living and work situations are the same, but I want to believe they’re about to change, and maybe that’s starting to take hold a little, growing seedlings in the cracks to hold those thoughts, those hopes, together. Like succulents holding up against erosion.

One exciting change I’m trying my hand at this year? A bullet journal. I found Ryder Carroll’s original video which sparked inspiration and filled me with a long forgotten feeling of something akin to hope. Excitement at possibilities, perhaps, giving me a sense of agency again mixed with flexibility in adapting the system as I use it, and most of all, it makes sense to my brain and can be low maintenance. None of that frilly calligraphy (I need lessons first) or painstaking designs that would, over time, build up as a chore, dreaded, for the changing of months instead of excitement.

Plus, the added bonus of ending up with a physical copy of time gone past: memories, things I’ve done, accomplished, or things I’ve tried. If you were to ask me what happened or what I accomplished the last few years, my answer – aside from a few memorable things and feelings – will be a vague shrug and an unimpressed “probably nothing.” (Is part of that mental health, environment, and, oh I don’t know, a pandemic talking? You bet. But you get the point.)

Those of you who know me know I’m quite sentimental about Things and keepsakes (and people okay, beware my caring heart), and you’ve probably heard me bemoan the task of going through my things Marie Kondo style. Knowing that, you can see how having a useful tool that’s not just a simple planner, which captures mostly events, is very appealing to me. An all in one book!? Signed myself up, thank you.

(Watch me bring back my childhood Friend Book (Journal? I don’t remember what they’re called in French, less so in English – if they even have a name at all – but I do still have mine from middle school which is sadly more empty pages than filled) and shipping that to friends to fill in two pages before sending it off to my next friends, and so on and so forth.

…

You know, that’s not a terrible idea… Let me jot that down in my journal while I’m at it! 😉)

All that to say… this year might turn out okay. Hopefully better than okay, but okay is a good place to start, especially considering what the past few years have been (and felt) like, for all of us.

Let’s grab a cup of tea, sit in a comfy spot with a warm blanket on our lap, maybe stare out the snow, or rain, or shining sun from a quiet place, and imagine things working out, ambiguously so. 🌟💜

Tout de beau,
Mel

P.S: What’s that? You noticed some changes? You clever, curious bean you. Shh, I’ll mention those in my next post. 😉