Hello and happy New Year, friends. It’s hard even knowing how to begin this; there’s just… so much to say about these past few weeks. Quick check in first: how’s your body feeling? Disoriented? Rested? Excited? Disappointed? Tired? Honestly, any of those (and then some) make perfect sense to me. Historically, I’ve struggled with holiday season — unable to fully unplug and surrender to the invitation of rest and connection. I would usually end up doing this weird, stressful half-working thing for the entire second half of December, struggling against my body and her desire to slow down.
But 2023 was a year where I became fiercely intentional about my boundaries with work and social media, bringing greater awareness to what I’m doing and how I’m doing it. I’m actually teaching a workshop about this in a few weeks, by the way. If a healthier, kinder, more sustainable relationship to your body, your attention, and your creativity is something you want for yourself this year.
Anyway, how that intentionality manifested this holiday season was that I did not touch my laptop for 8 whole days. I traveled and didn’t even take it with me. I genuinely don’t know if that has ever happened since I started working for myself in 2018. It feels like one of the most important parts of last year, that I managed to end it that way — tuned in and completely present instead of anchored to one of my devices, for some reason or another. I barely even used my phone, honestly. I started 2023 feeling clear and ready to do things differently, and the way I ended it is how I know: I did what was needed and it worked.
Being able to drop all of the way into my life facilitated such a beautiful time with my family, my partner, and the kids. It was a BIG few weeks for me, y’all. It was my first time bringing home not just my partner, but any partner. Ever. And I’m 35 so, the thing is, my family has never seen me this way. My family has never seen me in love. Not to mention the fact that I’ve never had a person I’m in love with see me with my family. Basically, my Christmas was seeing so many people that I love and that know me meeting and loving each other in front of me over and over and over and it was so beautiful.
It was, by far, the best Christmas of my life. And I am so grateful to have the kind of relationship with my body and my attention where I could be totally present for all of it.
And…
I barely wrote.
As in: morning pages only once during those entire eight days. And definitely nothing else. There was just so much happening in all of that life that I was incredibly present for, and what I’ve been noticing over the past week as I’ve slowlllyyyy eased back into my rhythms of daily pages and consistent writing is that the feeling in my body of not working for 8 days is very different than the feeling in my body of not writing for 8 days. The former feels amazing, the latter not so much. Honestly, writing this post was really difficult and I struggled through it for almost two weeks.
In 2023, I wrote and published an essay every 2-3 weeks for an entire year. What I now understand and can tangibly feel is that that practice transformed me more than I’d realized. I’ve developed a relationship with the discipline of writing, the devotion of this craft, for the first time. I’ve become intimate with the life cycle of creativity and they way it breathes life into me. Actually, the book I’m sharing with you this month is about that very subject — creativity as an embodied way of being.
My relationship to writing used to be a battle, a struggle to get myself to do it at all. But over time, my commitment to the discipline alchemized into devotion. Instead of forcing, I fell in love. After two years of morning pages and 20+ essays published in a calendar year, the blank page no longer scares me the way it used to. Sometimes it still intimidates or confuses me. But I’m not afraid of it anymore, and so I have learned to crave all of the sensations of creation. Even the uncomfortable ones. Especially the uncomfortable ones, actually.
Because I crave what those sensations offer me everywhere else in my life when I learn to breathe through them; the way this practice cultivates my presence in all things. I have learned to love living this way, and when I’m not writing I can feel it. I can feel the imbalance arising and the longing increase, until I simply cannot stay away another second. Just like the last time this happened, over Thanksgiving, my partner supportively schemed with me and took the kids to the park so I could sit down and finally break through the top layer of resistance that had built up from a week without writing. It was hard, but it was good. Because it was necessary.
I’m choosing to believe that my momentary lapse in the practice was a gift, reminding me that no matter the setting or time or season, I am going to have to make sure I intentionally create the space to tend to this practice, to this love. Honestly, reminding me that the actual most important relationship of my life is with this state of being. Because it is through this state of being in creative flow that all of the rest of my life and vitality comes.
So writing this tiny essay and curating these delights for you was/is me, getting my sea legs again. And I’m so so excited to be finally sharing it with you. December was such a delight-full month and the books, articles, poems, and music that found me all felt so enriching, enchanting, and inspiring. Along with one of the best movies I’ve ever seen and one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten. I can’t wait to tell you all about everything!
I’ll also be sharing some of the things I experienced and lessons I learned during my year of consistent writing + publishing in my first January Love Letter, coming next week. Along with a resource that can help you push past resistance and kickstart your creative journey in this new year. Until then, I am wishing all of you unhindered compassion in how you reflect on the past year and untethered imagination for what comes next.
And without further ado… here are some of my absolute favorite things I heard and read and watched and ate and did with my body during the month of December. It was a perfect way to close out 2023 — one of the best and most beautiful years of my life. 🖤