My best newsletter of the year (part 2)

You're grateful you finally decided to... / Issue 1,149

Oh, hi friends!

I hope you are cozy and enjoying the day. I wanted to share more of your responses to this sentence: This year, I'm grateful I finally decided to...

Reading these you might be encouraged or thrilled or get a spark for your own life. I certainly did! 

(You can find yesterday’s responses here, in case you missed them.)

Here they are, from all of you. 

This year, I'm grateful I finally decided to...

• Apply for my boss's job (I got it!) and prepare to apply for a PhD place (roll on 2024!).

• Start dating again. It has increased my confidence to meet new people.

• Look directly at the hardest moments in my past. Turns out a lot is hiding in my buzz cut and I’ve decided to start growing it.

• Decided to get cancer taken off upper lip now, rather than wait and procrastinate and monitor progress of cancer, wait and see might result in death.

• Taught the kids to load the dishwasher and vowed to take a gulp of fresh air (and thus wonder) first thing in the morning and last thing at night…

• Sell my business and retire to spend more time with my wife, to travel, to work on music and writing and exercise.

• Get my chronic illness/disability diagnosed. I now know next steps I want to take in feeling better and at the same time am learning to accept my symptoms as chronic. This is hard, hard work, but necessary to aim to find peace and health.

• Sign up for French classes. High school me loved the language — it's time for present me to pick that language skill back up!

• Say yes to myself and to all my ideas, no matter how crazy they might be to others. All that matters is that these ideas are significant to me and come from my heart!

• Take a career change course. I am now working in a completely different role in a completely different industry. And I'm enjoying it!

• Build my life around the things/people I love, instead of trying to wedge the things/people I love into my daily routine.

• Went to Italy for my 40th birthday! I never thought I'd be able to afford an international vacation, so it was a wonderful and eye-opening way to kick off a new decade.

• Have our first child! I’ve always wanted kids but was terrified of the idea of being pregnant, giving birth, and caring for a newborn. Now my husband and I can’t imagine our lives without our baby girl Avery <3

• Write a feature-length screenplay!

• Buy a house! It's been hard work but I'm so glad to finally have a welcoming space where I can entertain friends during the holiday season.

• Hone in on my young graphic novel work-in-progress. I think it's almost ready!

• Start writing songs again.

• Finish my book and find a small publisher for it! In the past 11 months, I have done 11 author events, reached #5/100 on Amazon best new releases in grief & loss, received over 100 emails & letters, donated from proceeds to seven cancer support organizations, been listed in the Boston Globe weekly book events, reunited and given thanks to my sister’s treatment team and corresponded with wonderful people like Kara Cutruzzula! Next stop: an audiobook!

• Give myself and those around me grace. Spend more time outside. Do morning pages. Got a poetry coach!!

• Start studying for the CPA exam. I plan to start my own bookkeeping business in 2023 so this is my big first step!

• Quit my corporate job this past April and really lean into the type of self-care my upbringing would have never allowed. To know what I want so clearly, stay the course of self-discovery all while visiting places and exploring the world (at times by myself) is something that childhood me had always dreamed of. I let go of my ties to people pleasing and particularly let go of letting my mother’s reaction to things control so much of what I thought about myself. I’m grateful that I moved her to a place to cheer me on and no longer have her in a space that allows for friction between us based on her ideas rooted in fear. I’m grateful that I was honest with my husband about the state of our marriage not being my issue but instead the state of our physical location and that allowed me to travel without him wondering if I was leaving him. I’m grateful that even though my siblings and I are not close that I now have had time to spend with their children who know and trust me. I can’t force my family to look like what I believed for so long a family should look like, but I can be grateful for the love I can give and receive. I’m grateful for newsletters when I’m up at 4am that I can read instead of scrolling. I’m grateful for the people like Kara who have made it their journey to take us with them and to know that when I pick up my phone I can reach something with some light and depth.

First steps, final steps, steps long-in-the-making. Lightness and depth and everything in between. You’re all amazing!

I’m feeling very grateful for you.

Keep reaching.