Last year I chose the word wonder to lead me through 2022. When I settled on the word, I meant it in a lofty way, that I could find wonder in the world again after a strange couple of pandemic years. I emblazoned it on my planner and found quotes about it to put inside said planner, but life happens in stops and starts some years.
2022 was definitely one of those years.
When my mom got sick in February, everything changed, and no amount of quotes or minutes of meditation could lead me back to any sort of wonder. Cancer tints everything a different shade, darker shadows and sharper corners, no matter how else I tried to experience the world around me.
Moments of beauty stole into the darkness, as they always do: The colors of fall bursting through the fog, if only for a brief time, Abbey literally twinkling in an angel costume during The Nutcracker, Dylan humoring me by sitting next to me while I read old Christmas books, friends showing up in unexpected and much-appreciated ways. Yet most of fall and winter flew by in a blur of negative punctuation marks — and this, and this, and this. The beginning of 2022 feels like another lifetime, a delineation of before and after we can’t unsee or unfeel.
I almost didn’t pick a word at all for 2023.
First of all, “wonder” still stares up at me whenever I grab my planner. With my job and still-in-school kids, I feel most comfortable operating with an academic year planner, so I won’t order something new until later this spring or during the early summer months. I thought I might stick with the word, at least loosely so, since I failed so miserably at sitting with it last year. As the days ticked nearer to 2023, and then for a day or two after the calendar ushered in the new year, wonder seemed like it would be the word — except it didn’t fit any longer.
Wonder, a word I chose to revel in small moments like rain on blades of grass or the laughter that creeps up between Ryan and me even when things are heavy, felt like a chore instead of a gift. Maybe I should have worked harder to embrace it, to understand why I needed it more than ever, but in my heart I knew I needed something else.
In 2023, I am seeking light.
I hope to find light in the darkness, both brightness and effortlessness. Maybe, as I look around me, I can find it in myself, too. Maybe I can be lightness for someone who needs it even more than I do.
“I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.” (Emily Dickinson)
Leave a Reply