My 2023 theme
I'm wondering if contentment feels like this?
2023. Twenty twenty three. Two thousand twenty three. [repeated in an ambiguous pan-British accent.] Two oh two three.
All of this feels clunky on my ears. It doesn’t fit quite right yet. Like all ill-fitting changes, I’ll simply have to grow into it.
(Though, apparently I still haven’t fully embraced the past two year changes…)
What has made the new year transition a bit less jarring is the fact that I haven’t completely overhauled all of my systems and tastes and habits and priorities like I usually do in the last days of December.
If the pilot light of your soul is ignited into flames by this tweet, you may know what I mean…
I love a clean slate. Which means I love the new year. Which means I LOVE a new notebook.
But in 2023, I’m rethinking my assemblage of January rituals.
For example, while I usually pick a word to guide me through the year (here’s last year’s), this time I’m picking companion phrases:
I have everything I need. I want for nothing.
And in this spirit, I caught myself wondering, “Do I really need a new notebook?”
The answer, of course, is YOU NEVER NEED A NEW NOTEBOOK!, because I have ten thousand half-used notebooks already (okay, quarter-used).
But the whole fun of a notebook is the starting! (Or finishing, if you’re a completely different human species than I am.)
There’s nothing wrong with making resolutions, there’s nothing wrong with not making them, and there’s nothing wrong about wanting to purchase the promise of a completely new existence for $19.99 in the form of a blank diary for January 1st.
But in a shocking personal plot twist, on New Year’s Eve I decided to (I hope you’re sitting down), continue with a journal I had already bought on my birthday a few months ago.
I even wrote and illustrated all my last year’s reflections and new year’s intentions in there, rather than on pages still sticky and crinkly from having just been cracked open.
When I pick a word for a year, I enjoy imagining all varieties of future situations when it may provide a dollop of meaning or a cushion of support. The richness of English vocabulary often means that there are many ways to play with and interpret a single word, so I like to give it life in my head before the year gets going.
I must say, when I imagined the potential uses for my guiding phrases ‘I have everything I need/ I want for nothing,’ I didn’t think they would have anything to do with my journal.
I thought they would have to do with Marcus Aurelius.
It occurred to me last year that humans have all the wisdom ever recorded and preserved available to us. Not just available, but free! Easy! Just begging for us to find it at the library! We have unlimited access to the all works of all the deepest thinkers and best writers and most brilliant meaning-makers who have ever written anything down.
And yet, somehow we find ourselves still wondering if the key to fulfillment is lurking in a secret skincare product or a tip from a pre-teen TikTok astrologer.
In 2023 (I typed that wrong four times), we easily consume hundreds of thoughts from others every day.
Two thousand years ago, folks used to contemplate one phrase from a single philosopher for years. It’s all they had! No Emily In Paris in Ancient Rome!
I suspect that if I just meditated on one or two thoughts from Marcus Aurelius for the rest of my life, I’d be all set with wisdom. Most self-help books are just repackaging those thoughts with different names, and I’m saying this as someone who owns and evangelizes them all.
That’s why, this year, I’m going to read or re-read the thoughts from people who already lived beautifully and wrote down how they did it, all so that people in 2023 wouldn’t still be searching for the morning routine that will finally make us happy.
I also want to turn to the wisdom we already have about going through collective chaos, rather than search for a nonexistent savior for our difficult times in the form of a politician or imaginary new Rihanna album.
The collective is really going through it right now. We’re grappling to plan for the future during our anticipatory grief, and we’re struggling with an emotional tornado as we ping-pong between loss and hope during a still-present pandemic.
And, there are so many tender-hearted people who also grappled and struggled and ping-ponged during their own horrible times and wrote about it, like Julian of Norwich, Usama ibn Munqidh, Frederick Douglass, and Viktor Frankl.
There are also novelists who taught us how to fit a dozen emotions in one passage or in one life moment, a lesson for our current era.
Perhaps I’ll hold off on buying self-help books for a while, until I inevitably cave in the face of a guided journal.
I also want to remember “I have everything I need” when it comes to external validation, especially as I put together a book proposal about something I feel more passionate about than anything ever (which is a lot, if you’ve ever heard me talk about bird migration safety).
External validation has never made me or anyone else feel good for longer than five seconds, and I’m determined to remember that it does not matter.
The things that matter to me these days are: making sure I can be a reliable and open-minded listening ear to the kids at my church, prioritizing the friendships that strengthened in the past year, being an available and thoughtful daughter, walking my elderly neighbor’s dog, inventing indulgent recipes, and being an appreciative recipient for the beauty around me.
I want to stop reaching out for things that I’m somehow convinced I don’t have already.
Such as a red beret, which I forgot that I owned until I crawled into the narrow ravine of my closet to unearth the dusty fossil, then place it on my head for the occasion of the Edward Hopper Exhibit at the Whitney Museum. I had art, New York, companionship, and a red hat on the same day.
Everything I need. I want for nothing.
I hope to recall how much internal harrowing and harvesting I’ve been doing of my internal landscape this year. I have all the tools I need; I just have to put them to use. I’ll inevitably neglect overgrowth and irrigation, but the soil is so much richer this year, and that’s a big deal. Everything I need, right in this heart and mind.
My brain is no longer broken, and rain will always trade off with warm sunshine. Harvest may be abundant this year, with enough to share around.
Finally, obviously, I have I have everything I need/ I want for nothing will be my insistence when I feel jealous, insecure, scarce, or lacking.
I have been enormously fortunate in my life, and deserved none of my blessings. I hope this will be a year of merely counting them, without grasping for more.
Except when I’m at Sephora. Because somehow you can breathe in that store and accidentally spend $50.
Below is a postcard from me on New Year’s Eve with my old-new journal and a box of colored pencils, ready to watch the ball drop while drawing my 2023 intention chart and drinking champagne, which was a holiday gift from my friend’s toddler sons (I think they had some guidance on the vintage).
If that’s not a vignette of why I should be outrageously content with life in 2023, I don’t know what is. And it only took me one try to write ‘2023’ that time.
Do you have a word or phrase for the year? Are you a new notebook person? Do you practice self-restraint at Sephora? Let me know!
My year was eventful, in the deaths of four family members. My younger sister, my mother, my uncle and my aunt. All of this made me realize that I may be the oldest family member at 67. I do look forward to 2023, where I can safely remember these family members and begin to be released from the grief. Thank you for the reminders I can use this year.
I do understand your point about external validation, however I do feel moved this morning to tell you how much enjoyment and worthy reflection I gain from reading your posts. Today was no exception…thank you!
Written while gazing out at beautiful grey trees over my cup of morning coffee
😊