Resting in the in-between

Out with 2022, in with 2023

Goodbye, 2022. Hello, 2023. The days leading up to and beginning the new year are usually a time of reflection and planning. We turn our sights and thoughts back to the past 12 months (or more) to examine how the turning of this human construct of time played out in our lives. We hopefully find much to be grateful for, sitting alongside our disappointments, regrets, would-haves, should-haves, could-haves.

We make promises to ourselves to do different, be different, in the year ahead. We make New Year’s Resolutions, sometimes with good intentions and other times simply as a long-practiced tradition or ritual.

Lose weight

Save money

Finish that project started months ago

Exercise more

Eat healthier

Consume less alcohol

These are some of the most common resolutions, and they are great goals to have. But what if we tossed out the resolutions to celebrate the end of one more trip around the sun and the start of another differently?

Allowing time to rest

Imperfection and lack are the heart of the New Year’s Resolution for many of us. When we make these promises to ourselves to do different and be different, we’re telling ourselves we aren’t enough. Something is missing in our beingness that needs fixing.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know I’m all about pursuing your dreams and learning about and loving yourself. I believe we deserve to discover and embrace who we truly are. But I also think we miss the opportunity when we’re always focused on either the past or the future.

What if we took this time to just be present? What if we thought of the space between the end of one year and the beginning of another as a time to rest in the moment, to celebrate who we are right now? To be grateful for the gift of now. To regret nothing. To plan nothing.

What if we decided it was ok to ride the wave wherever we happen to be in our lives?

Letting it be

I’m sitting on an Amtrak train right now, heading back to the Olympic Peninsula after spending a wonderful Christmas holiday with my family in Illinois. It’s New Year’s Eve. I began my journey home yesterday, and this train—the Empire Builder—left Chicago on time, at least in part because it was the first train running in this direction in 10 days.

Mother Nature has made travel difficult at one of the busiest travel times of the year, and I’m so grateful I booked a train instead of a plane for my journey. Even so, the trip home presents challenges, primarily those that come from a packed train with weary passengers and staff who have had their travel plans laid to waste and didn’t expect the experience they got.

I admit I was frustrated, too. I am riding in coach. While there is so much more leg room, larger seats, a leg rest, and the ability to recline much further than when flying, it still isn’t the most comfortable, especially when there is someone sitting right next to you. But I realize there is little to be gained by spending my entire trip frustrated with something I have no control over.

Instead, I can choose to just let it be. Acknowledge that it isn’t ideal and just go with the flow.

Suspending expectations and time

My trip from Seattle to Chicago was an entirely different experience (more on that in my next post). I expected something similar this time around. When the reality didn’t meet with my expectations, I let it get the best of me, resenting other passengers and staff for the interference with my rest, comfort, and good mood.

No one was intentionally doing anything to me. Ok, so maybe the car attendant was a little bit, but I still chose to let it get to me (And as the attendant came around again just now and I felt myself bristle at his comment, I realize I still am letting it get to me!). I expected this trip to go smoothly, for people to be in a good mood—passengers because they were finally able to resume their journeys and Amtrak personnel because they had at least 10 days off! But that isn’t what I’m getting. Especially not when it comes to the personnel.

I had also expected…planned…to be creatively productive on the trip back. No work writing for other people hanging over my head. Nothing else I have to do. Just 48 hours of riding the rails.

And yet…

Sitting on a train with the scenery passing by is inherently surreal. You’re moving in space but standing still in time. The entire trip feels like the pulse of a single moment, even though the clock and rising and setting of the sun tell you something different. I feel like I am suspended in time, but I didn’t allow my expectations to follow suit.

I now realize that this trip is the perfect opportunity to let myself just be. To release expectations, to let go of the concept of time, and to be fully present. Now. I don’t need to do anything, think anything, be anything. I can ride the train, the landscape, and the present right on into 2023.

Listening to your real voice

There is plenty of time for reflection, planning, and goal-setting for the new year. Maybe, if I take this time to rest in the in-between, I’ll hear that voice that is the real me speak up and tell me which way to point my feet as I walk through the new year. Perhaps the real me will tell me that whatever I do is just fine because I am already enough, and I lack for nothing.

I haven’t seen the midnight hour on New Year’s Eve for several years now. I go to bed at my normal time and wake up to the new year. But who knows what tonight will hold? So far, I think I’ve only heard anyone mention New Year’s Eve once, and the first person I shared a seat with wished me a happy new year as he left to get off the train. Quiet time starts at 10 p.m., so it seems to me that no one will really mark the ringing in of 2023 on this train. I’m ok with that.

And I’m ok if it turns out differently than I expect.

How are you ringing in the new year? Do you make resolutions? Do you think it’s possible to let yourself rest in the in-between and listen to your real voice?

However, you choose to celebrate, I wish you love, beauty, peace, and the knowledge that you are enough, just as you are.

Happy New Year!

Des