My One Resolution for 2025
I'm really lowering my expectations...
I Can’t believe 2024 is coming to a close. The last few days of the year are often when we do most of our thinking and processing. And oftentimes as we do so, some pretty big feelings and memories rise to the surface. ‘A Good Corner’ was made to be a safe space for you. So as you wrap up your year, if you find yourself struggling to cross the bridge to January and would like some sisterly advice, please feel free to submit your anonymous (or not anonymous) stories and questions here. I will pick an entry and respond to it in my newsletter because none of us are ever alone.
I don’t usually say things like “this is the best…ever”, or “worst…ever”. By now I know better than to ascribe such absolute statements to things that can (and often do) prove me wrong in a short blink of an eye. I’ve been saying “this is the worst year of my life” every single year since 2020, and somehow the years have only been getting worse and worse. So now, if I absolutely must say it, I add a cushioning “so far” at the end.
And now is one of those times. I simply cannot flip the page on 2024 unless I look it straight in the eye and let it know that it has been the worst year of my life SO FAR. So far. (Let the records show that this is by no means a challenging statement. I do not wish to find out how much worse any other year can be. Okay? Leave me alone!).
Growing up, and until just a couple of years ago, I dedicated a cold December day every single year to sitting in complete solitude with my pen and journal to reflect–in detail–on the ending year. More than anything else, this practice gave me perspective on my life and painted an intricate tapestry of a big picture made up of singular days and memories. Naturally, the details were never all bright or all colorful. Still, the practice helped me stay grounded, and reminded me that there are always good moments and good days interwoven, even when the dreariness of the weaving process itself made my eyes too tired to see them. This year I had planned on sharing my 2024 reflections with you in the form of a photo journal, where I’d tell you about some of the highs and lows and lessons learned. But as I began flipping through the camera roll on my phone to remember, I was sobered back into reality: everything inside me hurts, and I am far from ready to relive and zoom in on this year’s events. So you’ll just have to take my word for it, I guess: 2024 brought some very high highs, and the lowest lows I’ve ever experienced.
All I have the capacity to say to 2024 is a big fat, and obnoxiously loud GOOD RIDDANCE. I want to shout it from every rooftop. But it doesn’t matter how loud or how often I scream those words; I know I’ll never be able to fully get rid of 2024. The scars this year has left in my heart aren’t ones that I’ll ever be able to “move on” from. The scars this year has left in my heart are permanent. They will stay, and they will hurt, and I have made my peace with this unfortunate fact. My only hope, then, is just that one day I may be able to carry the pain with me instead of continuing to let it keep its nail-deep grip on the steering wheel. I hope I can find a way to learn a new normal in which this light that's gone out in my heart can be held with sanctity, and that I can fill the room where it hangs with constantly burning candles and potently smelling lilies. I hope I can learn to steward my undying pain well.
Speaking of hope, I learned a very important lesson in 2024 that I’ll definitely be wearing as a banner in 2025: never confuse hope with expectation. They are two vastly different things.
Ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you I’ve always been a glass-half-full type of girl. I’m not sure what it is exactly, but I’ve been gifted with the ability to find something to be grateful for even during the thickest of times. But it's not toxic positivity. Far from it, actually. Because I am never so delirious as to think that the good things can overshadow the bad, or that the good outcomes make the bad experiences worth it. I know for a fact that life is hard. Life sucks, actually. I have no doubt in my mind that really harsh and unfair things happen to ‘good people’, and this knowledge really really aggravates me. There is SO much in this life that I never have and never will be able to make peace with. Such as the fact that one child is born poor and dies of starvation, while another is spoiled with an abundance that digs in his heart a deep well of bottomless greed. Or the fact that I married the wrong person because I deliriously believed that people can change, and now have to live with the wound of an ugly divorce. Or the fact that my mother–the actual purest angel–had to suffer so much pain and then leave this earth a much darker place than it was when she was in it. Life SUCKS.
But there is a both-and. Often, at least. I am both mortified by the depths of pain and sorrow that exist in our world, and I am dumbfounded by the sheer beauty of a sunset. I walk with a heavy hole in my heart where my biggest earthly love left an un-fillable canyon, and I hold onto the great loves that I am still so blessed to call my own. Two things can exist at the same time, and most of the time it is hope that enables me to recognize the latter. Hope in an unwavering faith in the good stuff. The possibility of redemption. The resilience of a radiant Iris in the dead of winter. Hope in the chance–however slim–that tomorrow just might be better, and that healing could happen even for me. Hope has kept me going.
Except for the times when I’ve very detrimentally confused it with expectation.
You see, by its very definition hope is hopeful—duh. It comes with no guarantees, but with probable-enough cause to believe that something good could come through. But I’ll say it again: there are no guarantees, and that is the kicker. There should be no expectations. On this side of heaven at least. Because almost as often as we expect, we are disappointed, and I just don’t think I have any strength left in me to fall as hard as I’ve systematically and foolishly been falling for promises I was never given. I am done expecting that the best case scenario will always unfold. I am done expecting that the miracle will happen, or that the math will ever add up.
My One 2025 Resolution.
So for 2025, I resolve to lower my expectations. I mean, WAY lower. I resolve to do the best I can, and learn to surf wave after wave of grief and delight and darkness and light like a pro. I will expect the bare minimum. Things like my favorite meal tasting as good as I remember it. Like a good night’s sleep after working out and taking a sleeping pill to seal the deal. These are the kinds of expectations I can still handle. But no more expecting the year 2025 or 2035 to be the best or most redemptive year ever. No more expecting that the people I love the most will always be around. No more expecting life to give me back as much as I give it. Math goes out the window.
Because there is still something very sweet and precious about lowering my expectations. It is a sobering practice that will hopefully teach me to take less good things for granted. To tell the people I love that I love them because I’m not expecting a tomorrow. To do the good deed out of selflessness and the goodness that is still somehow in my heart, without waiting for life to reward me. Every day can be its own complete story, and I can wake up each morning with nothing but the strongest desire and most resilient willingness to do my part well. Period. End of story.
I hope, and I will continue to hope. But I will not be so foolish as to expect that hope will ever deliver. And I will be content. In the hills and the valleys. I will be content.
Happy new year my friends. I hope to be meeting you here on the page very often this coming year. And we will hope on and on together.
I’d love for ‘A Good Corner’ to become a safe and interactive nook of the internet. An oasis, if you will, in the middle of an otherwise pretty dry and impersonal worldwide web. Please leave your comments below, and lets start having real and cozy conversations.
I’d love to know: what are some of your end-of-year rituals?
Journaling Prompt
I’m not sure how much reflecting you’ve done on your 2024, but I strongly encourage you to schedule a block of time to be alone and quiet your soul. I believe in doing the best we can, despite knowing full well that life is hard and and painful, and won’t always give us what we work hard for. Nonetheless, our attitudes are one thing we can control. How we choose to show up despite the countless setbacks and disappointments. Good or bad as your year has been, there is a lot to ponder and let marinate before we can bring hope into 2025.
So, whenever you read this—whenever you can, think back to one ‘good’ moment or memory from 2024. Thinking back to a good day may in itself be a big challenge if you’re ending the year on a difficult note as I am. Still, what is one good thing that happened in 2024? Spend time (ideally with a physical pen and paper) giving gratitude for that one thing.
Happy journaling, and all my love and the best of wishes to you.
Bee 🐝
Never give up dear! As you rightly said: we will hope on and on together.