At age 44 I’m learning about being right here, right now. It sounds easy but isn’t. I am humbled, I am hopeful, I am vulnerable, I am fractured, I am whole. I am healthier than ever in most ways, and in many I feel brighter and more girlish than I did as a much younger woman. Happier, too, on most days—but still occasionally inclined to let fear and resistance lead the way. I am an imperfect work in progress, more able than ever to admit it—but less apt to complain about it to anyone who will listen.

The joy I have in my life blossoms most vibrantly when I feel safe and inspired, which is sometimes. The art of playing well with others is difficult to master in the remedial school of intermediate adulthood, but it is not impossible. I’ve learned that it takes re-wiring a tensely strung nervous system. And realizing this is the easy part, because the hard part is the twofold patience this task requires. One kind of patience is intellectual and concerns the way you need to give yourself weeks and years, not minutes and days, to heal into the version of yourself that embodies safety and wholeness. The other—elusive, instinctive, and fundamentally unintellectualizable—is the patience of those three breaths some recommend you take before reacting (to spilled milk, say, or the hot sting of shame, or the words and actions of others). Because this is a physical act, it takes physical training. Less journaling, more dancing. Less explaining, more exhaling. Less why, more how.

What I want in 2022 is more of this physical patience, so I can be soft when things get hard. For more ease, more pleasure, more inspiration, and more love.

Stillness amid chaos, I am ready for you.