Happy New Year, My Friend!
Kevin and I have wondered how long it’s acceptable to use that greeting, “Happy New Year.” Since this is my first letter to you of 2024, I’m sticking with it!
Do you like to choose a “Word of the Year” at the start of each new year? Did you choose one to be your credo for 2024? I did—oh, I won’t just come out and tell you immediately. You know me, I have to tell a story first. I want to tell you about the first time I did this pick-a-word-of-the-year thing. It was in 2020.
Yeah, that year.
Didn’t those of us word-choosers all just love the idea of “2020”? I mean, it just lent itself perfectly to “Focus,” “Vision,” and “Clarity.” But no, not me. Not this one over here! (Points both thumbs to self.) I was going to delve deeply into my soul and come up with the best word ever, one to set my courses on and steer my life into a brand-new world! After all, it was 2020!
To aid in the process of deep soul diving, my daughter and I decided we’d get this top-rated goal-planning book. In the first several pages, you bared your soul on paper, plunging into the dark recesses and scribbling out notes when epiphanies happened. I tell you what, I epiphanied all over the place in the start of that book. After all that was done, you were to go back and read what you’d written. Was there a word that appeared a bunch? Guess what – – that’s “your word” for the year! Way to go!
My word that year was “Work.”
I know, kind of boring. But, baby, I grabbed hold of it and was going to work, work, work my inspired rear-end off that year! This was it! This was the year it would all come together! Mark my words— I’ll be a bestselling author before you can say “Merry Christmas” 11 months later. This planner also came with an abundance of little stickers that were supposed to make you feel like you were accomplishing your goals. I plastered one on my brand-new laptop that year; it was going to get me to where I wanted to go. It read: “This is the year I make it happen.” I practically wanted to get up and do push-ups when I first read it! And then . . . .
Global pandemic.
Life, as we all knew it, came to a screeching halt. “Focus?” I focused on washing the life out of my hands. “Vision?” I “envisioned” a store where I could actually buy toilet paper. “Clarity?” Who knew what in the world was going on or how to fix it? Suddenly, “Work” didn’t mean the same thing, and I’m still sitting here three years later with no bestseller written yet.
One thing Kevin and I did start doing at the start of the pandemic was a stretching video someone shared with him that’s on YouTube. It was meant to be in preparation for a golf outing they were to go on a month later. That golf trip never materialized, but guess what! Here we are, almost three years later, and Kevin and I still do that stretching video every morning! Well, OK, nearly every morning. It’s only 15 minutes long, and we do it before our morning walk, during which we plan dinner and try to solve the world’s problems. (My apologies, by the way, that we haven’t done such a hot job of that.) We’ve done a few videos by this same guy, all stretchy in nature. If you go to YouTube and look up “Bodyweight Warrior,” you’ll find our “trainer.”
When 2023 was coming to a close, I thought I might like to choose a word again to give me some oomph for 2024. I didn’t have the fortitude to soul search quite as much as a few years ago, but a word came to me . . . in a “vision!” Kidding.
“Stretch.”
That’s it! That’s my word for the year! But I don’t just mean the physical stretch like the ones we do in the morning. (Which, I really have to say, have done my back a world of good. Stretch in the morning, stretch at night.) But as a person who likes to live in a comfortably-sized box, I feel the need to get out of that box more and go where it’s not quite so comfortable. (I’m actually physically squinting as I type this, as the thought of doing so makes my stomach hurt.)
I don’t like trying new things. I don’t like “being brave.” I don’t like “seeing what it would be like to ____________.” I’d rather stay where it’s comfy, and I can hide easily if I so desire. But here’s the thing: I’m 63. There’s definitely less life in front of me than behind me. I don’t want to be an old woman in a (really nice and clean) nursing home someday, wishing I’d done this and wishing I’d done that.
So, I’m starting a little stretching experiment. I have a little notebook that I’ve designated as my “Stretch Book,” and each night, I write something that I did that day that was a bit “stretchy.” That doesn’t mean I’m jumping out of airplanes or planning to climb Mount Everest. Good night! If you saw some of the things I wrote that I considered “stretchy,” you’d probably laugh. Some things that you brave souls probably do without a second thought come harder to those of us who are less brave. For example, here’s one from a few days ago: I answered a phone call rather than automatically letting it go to voicemail because it was a conversation I didn’t want to have. And it ended up being no big deal. But it was a fairly big deal that I went ahead and took the call and not postpone the response.
S – t – r – e – t – c – h.
How about you? Any words for the new year? Or intentions or resolutions? I’d love to hear what you’re hoping for this year.
And if you’re one that just keeps on keeping on from one year to the next, I’m there with you, too. Sometimes, just making it through the day is stretch enough; thank you very much.
May 2024 treat you kindly, my friend.
Written with love – – – Patti XOXO
I CANNOT get this dad gum sticker off of my computer. At this point, it just makes me laugh.
“Do one thing every day that scares you.”
Eleanor Roosevelt