2023 in Poetic Review (In The Middle of the Night In a Cottage)

So, I’m in a cottage somewhere in north-eastern Ontario and it’s 4:30am  AND after pizza and cake for dinner…LATE dinner…such a late dinner BUT cake, am I right?…yes, it seems the late-in-the-day food combo and this bed being somehow firmer than a cement floor and Jo’s VERY VOCAL forever wish to be on the bed…it seems that sleep will be eluding me for a while.

I used to get very anxious when this would happen, counting the hours as they rolled by, sleep (and happiness) moving farther and farther away from me, and feeling the negativity demon fully take over.
Fairly soon AFTER the negativity demon took over, my mind would contain a very real future in which I was VERY alone, forever tired, hated my body more than cabbage and be living in a box under the express way with a trash panda.
A mean one.

Yes, my state could escalate that fast…and the demon future was always the same.
Changing this kind of negative/aimless wondering has been a BIG goal of my last few years.

So, finding myself this awake and THEN feeling the doom-brain start was a bit of a surprise…it has not happened in a while…AND I grabbed it, becoming damned determined to not LET it happen…so instead I decided to count my blessings.

The second last night of 2023, even.

Y’all. It’s almost 2024.

That went fast.
Like…reallllllly fast.
I’ve not even gotten used to writing 2023, yet.

So, here is my December 30th (well, 31st, really) 4:38am middle-of-the-night review of the year that has flown by.

Honestly, I usually do it tomorrow but opportunity, right?

2023.

2023 was a year of going-to-ground with the GREAT intention of creating something new.
Much to my surprise, I ended up exercising this intentional process of going-to-ground to create FOUR times this past year.
It’s fucking powerful.

Also, intentionally, I traveled to some dream places I’ve never been.
I went with Jolene the dog…who’d never gone very far away from her home base with me before…to Manitoulin and Tobermory.
It was fucking awesome.
She was fucking awesome.
We hiked, and napped and stretched and wandered and peed in the woods and stood on a deserted beach that felt like Van Island and walked across an entire beachfront of smooth rocks in the warm sun and stayed in cabin in the forest with NO LOCK ON THE DOOR.
NO.
LOCK.
ON.
THE.
DOOR.

I spent a LIFETIME afraid of the dark…so THIS was a VERY big deal

In September, the day after my birthday, went to the airport VERY early in the morning to fly to California.
AND, much to my chagrin, I saw my ex-husband walking towards me in the SAME terminal.
I shit you not.
After NOT seeing him for years…it was…weird…and I walked on by like it was just another day. Take that, Burt Bacharach.

: )

I got on my plane, flew away to Redwood City and stayed with my dear friend John.
The next day I picked up my dear Patty at the San Fran airport and we drove to Yosemite and it was EVERYTHING I dreamt it would be.
Just everything.

After Yosemite, Patty and I drove to as many beaches as we could near Redwood City, ending our trip on a night out on the Castro in San Francisco.
You know what? I fucking love meeting friends somewhere in the world.
It’s one of life’s great delights.
Makes you feel really grown up and like a kid at the same time.

This past year I hustled more than I have in many years and, quite honestly, am better for it.

I worked away on THREE projects that have already changed my life in ways I cannot even fathom yet…two that no one else might ever see.

I battled.
I breathed.
I dreamed.
I was grateful…AM grateful.

I changed and I stayed exactly the same and did my very fucking best to meet both of these parts of me with an open heart and WIDE open eyes.

I was alone.
I was surrounded.
I was 100% happy some days and at a total loss others.

I faced shit.
I did things I wish I could change but try not to regret too much.

I sang for reals for the first time in years and was pleasantly surprised to know that I still could…and I enjoyed how it felt.

I worked almost every day on being present.
Every. Damned. Day.

I had more than a few days that were almost the very best of my life…both in work and in friendship.

I won shit. I lost shit. I tried hard to be more gracious in each occasion.

I loved and loved and loved and said it out loud.

What a year it’s been.

There are one or two things that I WISHED I gotten pictures of…like the morning of my 55th birthday when Mike and I went for a walk with our dogs to the little park beside the Dufferin Arch and there was a band playing 80’s tunes in the park’s gazebo for absolutely no one but us…and about four days later when Patty, John and I were sitting outside his condo door eating breakfast in the California sun…and other moments that I cannot even remember right now.

I’m so grateful for another year of life.
I remain hopeful for what is to come.

Love to you all and I hope your look back is filled with grace and love.

S xoxox