It is hard to even get a sense what something is, or was, while it is in the process of passing.
I’ve never really understood the end-of-year lists, summaries, the summing up. How can we say what was? We don’t know yet. That will require time.
So this is just a quiet exiting, a way of clearing out the conduit, because passage into the new is happening whether we think we are ready for it or not.
I want to say goodbye this year with thank-yous in my thank-you heart.
Goodbyes with thank you.
Not that this was a fantastic year or anything. God knows it was full of hard, challenging things. For me. And probably also for you.
These thank-yous are not a negation of the hard. The hard is legitimately hard, and all the emotions that get stirred up when it comes to the hard stuff, these are legitimate too.
These thank-yous are here because this is how I want to exit right now: acknowledging what was sweet, adjusting my eyes so that I can get better at being someone who finds the treasure.
One year ago today.
A year ago, on New Year’s Eve, I was on a plane to Detroit.
My mother had just gotten the first piece of a chain of terrible diagnoses. Incurable, etc etc.
I hadn’t been there in several years.
I remember the plane ride, and also I don’t. I remember writing.
What else?
A year ago today I was in a love story with The Spy, except even then I knew he didn’t trust me, and because of this, he’d sometimes wind up in the crazy. We fought, a lot. We loved, a lot. We wanted completely different things.
It was big and tumultuous and exhausting.
A year ago I was still completely heartbroken about the loss of [business dream] and being stuck with the chocolate shop that I never wanted.
A year ago I was feeling wildly passionate about dance in general and with west coast swing in particular, and feeling the intense frustration of wanting to figure it out.
A year ago I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but I knew a lot about what I didn’t want. I was waiting for clarity, and listening.
Goodbye and thank you, 2014.
What did this year have for me?
I know that much of the treasure from this year won’t be visible for some time, it will reveal itself slowly. I will look back and laugh. I will whisper retroactive thank-yous, just as I say thank you in advance.
So this is just an initial foray into treasure-finding, treasure-seeing.
Starting with thank you, ending with thank you, because that’s how I’d like to start doing things. I’d like to know what this is like.
I’d like to start a year without grimacing, without shooing the year out, without a muttered “don’t let the door hit you on the ass, buddy” as it exits.
Instead I am ready to look for some thank you moments here…
Some thank-yous from the experience of losing my mother.
Thank you: for two sweet visits.
Thank you: for getting to see this (albeit medicated) side of my mother who was just all sweetness.
Thank you: for the support of my brother and my friends and everyone who supported me in a variety of ways while I was going through this.
Thank you: that this is done and not dragging out any longer.
Thank you for peacefulness. Thank you for goodbyes. Thank you for all the ways my mother kept me company (yes, in spirit, what a phrase) while I was away on my forty three days of wandering in the desert after the funeral.
Some thank-yous from the experience of a painful breakup.
Thank you: for everything that was revealed, even if I didn’t want to see those aspects of him, or of myself.
Thank you: for the knowing that there cannot be someone in my life who doesn’t treasure me, not if I treasure myself, and that is my plan. There is no room in my life for people who don’t trust me, no room for people who say hurtful things.
Thank you: for this clearing out.
Thank you, new beginnings. Thank you, love-more trust-more. Thank you, reminder that I am always okay, that I can’t lose anything that is truly mine.
Thank you, for making it so beautifully obvious what I need and what I don’t.
Thank-you for so many marvelous things…
- A thank you for my beautiful two weeks of quiet contemplation at the Vicarage.
- A thank you for dancing my way through San Jose and Palm Springs on a wild, wonderful secret op.
- A thank you for all the Alphabet Rallies.
- A thank you for waltz brunch.
- A thank you for all the things I no longer feel sad about. Now I feel clear about what I want. Not sad. Just determined. That’s big.
- A thank you for time spent with my wonderful uncle Svevo, both here and in Eugene.
- A thank you for Operation White Out with my friend Luke (the noir gunslinger), and how we escaped the evil clutches of Blakely’s henchmen and had a Grand Adventure when that was exactly what I needed.
- A thank you for meeting the beautiful boy, and for the magical thing that realizing you like someone and then realizing they like you back.
- A thank you for a heart full of joy and sweetness.
- A thank you for new windows in my bedroom, now winter is much more bearable.
- A thank you — endless thank-yous — for the six weeks of Operation Tranquility Recovery Magic on the road.
- A thank you for all the people who read what I write here, who are reading right now, who hang out on the Friday Chicken, who glow love for what is here. This is a wonderful form of companionship, and I appreciate it.
- A thank you for the dance community.
- A thank you for friends who are understanding about how ridiculously busy I have been.
- A thank you for the people who lovingly remind me to stop doing.
- A thank you for the realization about Shmita.
- A thank you for all the things I let go of to get here.
Thank you.
Thank you, everything that brought me to this moment.
Some of those things were not very fun. The sprained ankle that took forever to heal. The deep sadness and regret about the chocolate shop. Neglecting to take care of myself in very basic ways.
I am going to trust in the superpowers of Nothing Is Wrong and This Moment Is Treasure.
I am going to invoke the quality of ILLUMINATION from December of the 2014 Fluent Self calendar, with its superpower of bringing light to the corners. And I am going to add to it the word ANCHOR. That’s the January 2015 word from the new calendar (you’ll be able to get yours soon!).
ANCHOR. With the superpower of Calm Steady Trust is mine when I need it.
Let’s illuminate things and be beautifully anchored. Let’s light things up and see how we already are beautifully anchored.
Let’s bring light to the thank-you and anchor the thank-you and live the thank-you. I’m ready for that.
When I look back in a year, if that is something I get to do, I want to remember what it was like to be someone practicing living through thank-you. I want to laugh delightedly and say, “Oh right, I forgot that this was something I had to learn!”
Thank you for last-year me and next-year me, and for the sweet simplicity of knowing that I can talk to either of them whenever I want, that we can glow love forward and back whenever we want to, all the time, we’re doing it right now.
Come play with me.
If you are in the mood for a thank-you moment, you can leave a thank-you here.
If you are not in the mood for a thank-you moment, that’s fine too. No forced thank-yous here. Everything in its right time.
If you would like to leave hearts or pebbles or flowers, I like all of those things.
If you would like to whisper goodbye to 2014, that works too.
Goodbye and thank you, goodbye and thank you.
I will see you on the other side, and it will be different because of how we entered it.
Follow
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I am whispering goodbye and thank you to 2014.
(With extra thanks for the beautiful things that your practices have helped to illuminate and anchor for me!)
<3 Goodbye and thank you, 2014! <3
Thank you, Havi. Goodbye and thank you, 2014.
Goodbye, thank you, 2014
Goodbye, thank you, things that are done. Thank you for being, thank you for being done.
Thank you, things that continue on. Thank you for being, thank you for continuing.
I am in heart pain as I write this, and I am choosing to say thank you to even this, anyway. The hard is part of life and if this is the deal, then I will take it. May there be bountiful treasure to find in here.
Amen.
Thank *you*, Havi. For being here. For blogging. It means a lot to me. <3
Thank you Havi! This writing is beautiful to me!
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This is the best summing-up of 2014 I’ve seen.
Also, I stayed up an hour past when I wanted to to see in the new year with my husband, it’s currently 11.55pm and he just went to bed. That kind of sums this year up for me. I should have just done what was right for me in the first place….. yes, that’s a lesson I’ve been struggling with for years.
Thank you for me finding Havi, 2014.
Thank You 2014! Thank You for the Fluent Blog where I can lurk in the most quiet, comforting and sweet ways. With the salve of noticing space and a love of words (s and others) that bring us together on this fabulous blog. Hugs & Thank yous to all the Havis who have shared their wisdom, the illumination of past and present without pedestals. I will see you on the flip side of the Floop, whatever form it takes. <3
thank you, 2014.
thank-you to myself and my daughter and my lovers and their lovers, for all i have learned and have yet to learn about family and patience and an open heart.
thank-you for choosing to stay alive. thank-you for the moon. thank-you for realizations about sovereignty and groundedness and self-care. thank-you for the gift of starting to learn who i am and what makes me happy.
hail and farewell.
Thank you Havi for diving deep and facing the hard with grace, candor, and zest. Thank you Havi for sharing joy.
Thank you 2014 for ending what needing to end (so many things), and beginning what needed to begin.
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Thank you, 2014, for the oh-my-gods-that-was-hard*s and the ah-easier-than-I-thought*s.
And for all the learnings that will ease in, with time.
Thank you, Havi and all your fellow fluents, as we support each other through this thing called life, like it today or not.
Thank you, 2014. There were hard things about you and good things about you. I’m hoping big hopes for 2015.
Thank you, 2014, for being the year of stuckness and starting.
Thank you for the stuckness, for showing me things I need to know.
Thank you for all the startings and re-startings and the learning from that.
Thank you for losing sight of the Why and then finding it again. Thank you for openings and closings.
Thank you for the losses and for what I did not lose.
Thank you, 2014. Silent retreat on all of the thank yous, but…thank you. Pebbles and petals and thank yous to Havi and to commenter mice and beloved lurkers and all who make this space so magical.
-o-
Thank you^^^ all, for such amazing comments, that only add-to and amplify the amazing insights of this space (have I told you lately that I love you, Havi?).
Bright Blessings and Happy NEW Year ~
2014, i had such hopes for us. But you were an abusive SOB much of that time.
But thank you!
THanks for the time I spent with my grama befre she passed away. Thanks for the chance to serve my family when my poor brother was in ICU for 56 days. Thank you because my brother is out and heathy.
Thank you for my sister’s harshness and mean, which moved me to be more engaged with what my dad needs, and to be compassionate. Thank you to my sister for, despite how angry she is with me, for leaving the door open to me just lil bit.
Thanks fr my husband’s surgeries, because i could support nd love him. Thanks for not killing him. Thanks for the fact that we all understand now, we’re really a family, and need to care for each other. Thanks for helping re-commit to my marriage, and also thanks for giving me the strength to tell him “If you are going to treat me this way, we need to be living at separate addresses because this is BULLSHIT.” Thanks for my husband deciding that losing me was something to be avoided, not sought.
Thanks, oh so many thanks, for the Occultist, because it was a drop of orange blossom honey in a dry-bread year. Thank you fr helping me keep my Crown on. Thank you for becoming Operation Red pencil, because wow joy.
Thanks for my raise and bonus, because I deserve to be treasured, and all that was loooooong overdue.
Thanks for Ochun and all her Lessons, thanks for Arianrhod and Pan and Hecate. Thanks for altar spces in the back yard
Thanks for Beck at Red Rocks, because OMG BECK AT RED ROCKS!!!!!!!!
Thanks for just deciding to get my own flowers, because why the fuck should I not get flowers???
THanks for finding new women friends, in the neighborhood and around the world. Thanks for helping me reconnect with people from my past in non-toxic ways.
Thanks for imprting the idea that, No I am to be treasured. Thanks for the strength t say “I’m not gonna be treated this-a-way.”
Thanks for my beloved Andelku and all the excellent work we did in tandem. Thanks for someone who loves Conscious Entry as much as I do.
And thanks and a million roses for this beautiful space, this beautiful work, and all the ways Fluent Self supports and illuminates me.
Thank you, Year of Integration. You were, and I am grateful for all your lessons, even the hard ones. I am a much better, stronger, more joyful person than i was a year ago.
Thank you, and goodbye, 2014 for all that was good and for all that I learned from the hard. I look at you with gratitude and love.
-o-