Goodbye 2022. I don’t know if I’m feeling a good riddance sort of emotion or a wow it’s a surprise I survived all of that sort of emotion. Given that it started off with one of the most awkward relationships of my life getting more unpleasant in new and exciting ways and ended with me recovering from a stroke. On my birthday, I was the most depressed I’ve ever been, which only got worse when I found my fish dead in her tank. Then I had the period that kept staying longer and longer until it hit 25 days of bleeding and pain. I had a hysterectomy seventeen days after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, but with no explanation for the strange behavior of my reproductive system. Two weeks after that my roommate rushed me back to the hospital because my stitches had opened up and I lost so much blood I almost had a heart attack. Then the stroke three months after that caused an inexplicable severing of my reality that I’m still trying to discover the length and breadth of.
I spent the last hours of 2022 with some of my closest loved ones. We ate too much cheese and too many cupcakes and watched silly movies. I mourned those I had lost, and took a moment to exhale the final breaths of the year. I went to bed exhausted, but woke this morning refreshed and ready to face the challenges of 2023. With everything, I have a feeling this year is going to be a lot. I just hope I’ll be able to weather the storms and figure out the right direction to set my sail.
I choose to start this new year with bread and tea, flame and bell. I haven’t been able to read tarot most of the past year with the stress and everything but this year feels like the sort of year where fostering and growing that practice will become handy. The dreams and signs I’ve been encountering have all been pointing to growing a new place in a new land, finding fertile soil for the next stage of my life in the old, old, land where we are buying a house. The readings I did also reminded me that now is a really important time to plant myself well and firmly so I can grow all the things I’ve been building and dreaming of.
This year, I will plant sunflowers and sing to them in the sunlight.
The Library of Random Things 