Illustration by Graydon Tate
Happy New Year’s Eve! I’m not a big fan of this holiday because it’s anticipation overload (even for me), but who am I to snub a day off from work. If you’ve read my blog for the past year (and thank you if you have), then you know I don’t set New Year’s resolutions (see Finding the Light – January 28, 2019 for more on that). Instead, I choose a word and work toward that word throughout the year. My friend, Rosie Molinary, introduced this idea to me years ago, and it stuck.
I have high hopes for 2020, as I’m tackling new work projects (including this blog) and charting my first full year without my mom. Although the light is beginning to seep in, I chose the word “light” last year, so I can’t use it again. That’s my rule, but it seems like a good one.
That said, for the past few days I’ve been searching for a new word, and I have to say that the soundtrack from Frozen II was quite helpful. (If you haven’t seen this movie, you must go. I loved the first Frozen, but the second one is all that and a bag of chips. Though I love Elsa and Anna, I have to admit that I’m an Anna — like it’s not obvious. Anyway, go see it.)
Elsa, aka the incredible Idina Menzel, sings a song titled Into the Unknown, and I can’t get enough of it. I love the orchestration of the song, and I love the lyrics. The more I listened to it with my daughter, the more I decided that this would be my song for 2020. (That’s a new thing, but I’m making the rules here, and again, this seems like a good one. Everyone needs a theme song.) Check out this verse:
What do you want? ‘Cause you’ve been keeping me awake.
Are you here to distract me so I make a big mistake?
Or are you someone out there who’s a little bit like me?
Who knows deep down I’m not where I’m meant to be?
Every day’s a little harder as I feel my power grow.
Don’t you know there’s part of me that longs to go — into the unknown.
Bingo! This is where I’ve been living for way too long, and it’s finally time to go into the unknown and see what’s out there — succeed, stumble or fail, it’s time. So (drumroll please), my word for 2020 is “forward” because that’s the only way to go.
Choosing this word doesn’t mean that I’m going to forget what I learned in 2019 and all the years that came before it. And it doesn’t mean that I’m not going to reminisce about my mom and all of the good (and bad) times we had. It means that I’m packing up all of that knowledge and taking it with me in a fresh direction. It also means that I’m leaving behind the emotional junk that does nothing but poison space in my brain, space that could be used for goodness.
So forward I go into the unknown. None of us knows what lies ahead in the next 12 months, but instead of vowing to lose weight (what is this noom thing that’s everywhere?), save money or not binge-watch Netflix, I challenge you to find a word to shape your new year. It can be whatever word you want. That’s my rule, and I promise a word will stick around longer than any diet.
Happy New Year!