My Letter to the New Year

To 2024, if You're Listening

2023 was a great year. I traveled outside of the country for not only the first time, but also for a second. I moved in with my best friend. I celebrated my 21st birthday. I spent the year creating. I spent the year laughing. I spent the year making memories that will last me a lifetime.
But despite all that, I believe this has been the year that I have most lost myself. There have been many days this year where the highlight of my day has been going to bed to start the next. I am very grateful, don't confuse me for someone who is not overwhelming appreciative for their circumstances. Yet something inside me has not felt fulfilled.
Everyday I have had this thirst and for each day that it has not been quenched I have only learn to suppress it. What I have realized looking back, however, is that you can only suppress your thirst for so long before you start to die.
I have begun to think that maybe the reason why I feel this emptiness is because I have done so many wonderful things this year. Each individual blessing I have experienced has opened my eyes little by little to a whole new world of possibilities I did not see before. Traveling: opening my mind to various beauties outside of what I have already known. Growing older: opening my mind to new knowledge and new eyes that see and feel more deeply than the years before. Friendship: opening my mind to asking not only what, but who, truly matters in this lifetime.
Maybe it is greedy to look at what I have been given this past year and ask for more. If that is so, call me rapacious, but I long to fill the void that has been growing. I long to keep learning and growing so that I may wake up one day and feel satisfied.
So 2024 if you're listening, let this be my year, the year I no longer thirst.