To be honest, nowadays I find myself writing less and less. Maybe it’s because the kids are getting older and it’s complicated. Or maybe it’s because I’m getting older, and it’s complicated. But there is something about the close of one year and the beginning of a new one that almost always compels me to say something, to have some sort of written reflection of my place in this world. Something that forces me to pause when every part of me, if only for self-preservation, just wants to keep plowing through the next few days. To keep getting on and getting through as all of us must and will do.
I want to write something to you about what this year has meant to me, to each of you - and the only word that I keep coming back to again and again is grief. 2019 for so very many people I know and love was a year of grief. I can’t tell you that’s all there was. Honestly of course there was more. Beautiful wonderful moments! But oh the sweet and utterly brutal grief of saying goodbye to who we were, or imagined we’d be.
The Rabbi tells me at Friday night services that we can’t move on to the next moment until we leave the one we’re in. And yet I’m not really sure how to leave you, 2019. Because as anyone who has ever loved and lost really knows, you don’t hold grief. It holds you. It chooses you. It chooses when it will find you and surprise you. It decides when to loosen the grip and not the other way around.
The Rabbi tells me at Friday night services that we can’t move on to the next moment until we leave the one we’re in. And yet I’m not really sure how to leave you, 2019. Because as anyone who has ever loved and lost really knows, you don’t hold grief. It holds you. It chooses you. It chooses when it will find you and surprise you. It decides when to loosen the grip and not the other way around.
And yet, the calendar is forcing us forward. I don’t know that time heals all wounds. I know it certainly changes them anyway. And so my wish for you, for myself, for everyone I love in this season of change, is not necessarily a healed heart, but perhaps a quieted one. A reflective one. May we find the courage and wisdom to seek out spaces that support keeping our tender hearts safe while they heal. May we cultivate a community that is patient with us because moving on and moving forward are, in and of themselves, pretty painful and grief riddled processes.
May we celebrate every win big and small because we’ve learned over the past year there is always plenty of reasons to be sad. Savor that great cup of coffee. Hold on to that hug just a little bit longer. Laugh at every dumb dad joke. Eat the damn piece of cake. If you are wondering if you should tell that special person in your life that you love them, the answer always, is yes.
Take everything you can when you can and hold on for dear life. 2019 offered us nothing but the simple reminder that nothing is promised but that also, in every moment, there is promise.
I love you all a lot.
And I wish you a new year filled with peace.
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