Happy New Year, you lovely humans!
Before anything else, thank you. For reading, for waiting, for coming back. For staying with these stories even when updates are slow, life gets loud, or words take longer to arrive. Thank you for the votes, the comments, the messages that feel like little lanterns in the dark saying “you’re not writing into nothing.” I see them. I carry them with me.
I also want this year to be about us taking care of ourselves better. Checking in with our minds as much as we do with our bodies. Letting ourselves rest without guilt. Letting ourselves be tired. Letting ourselves not be okay sometimes, and not turning that into a failure.
You don’t have to be productive to be worthy. You don’t have to be strong all the time to be enough. You don’t have to have everything figured out to deserve peace.
So in this new year, I hope you choose softness when you can. I hope you speak kindly to yourself, especially on the days when it feels undeserved. I hope you ask for help when you need it, and I hope you allow joy to be simple and small and quiet.
Here’s to new chapters, new beginnings, and a little more gentleness with ourselves along the way.
Thank you for being here. Truly.