As I move into 2025, I feel so inescapably aware of the construct of time. Not only isn’t tomorrow a reset on anything, even if I really, really, want it to be, I am taking my entire self and everyone I have ever been into this New Year.

And this is a good thing. A beautiful thing.

That isn’t to infer some banal misanthropic trope about how no one ever really changes. Oh honey, I have chaaaanged… No, I believe that all I have ever been and have experienced informs my continuous becoming.

I don’t want to leave the icky parts behind, even if some days they still rip the bones from my back. They built my tools. Some are weapons. They got me here and they will get me where I’m going next. I will never close the door on myself again. At least, that is the intention.

I can’t think of anything more beautiful than believing, religiously, that our lives are worth living, like really living, and to doggedly seek the truth of this despite, and sometimes in spite of, what we are supposed to internalize from dominant culture about our individual worth.

Every day, I think about that old saying or proverb or whatever that goes, “wherever you go, there you are.” There are a number of ways to read this. To me, it means that I am the same me in every room I walk into, no matter what I’m putting on. Even if whatever “me” I’m performing is only for myself. I’m bringing all of my imperfect parts with me wherever I go and they will influence everything I experience. Avoiding this truth only stunts my ability to grow.

I believe this is Ground Zero for where the magic of living starts. There is no arriving at our Final Form, there is only now.

A few months ago, just days before I knew that my older sister was going to die, I wrote, “To really live a life means to constantly edge discomfort. Things always change, so why not make it beautiful? I see so many people avoiding change and discomfort, throwing tidy bows on messes that have everything to teach. I’d rather live with a broken heart than float on a waveless ocean. At least, I know I’ve really been somewhere. At least, I know what I’m made of and what I have to give. I know passion and joy because I know hopelessness and sorrow. I’m happier than I dreamed possible because my rage is divine. I’m beyond alive. I’m unafraid and I know that is scary as hell to so many.”

My sister’s death re-shattered so much of what I had healed and built back up during what has truly been The Worst Years of My Life™, and still, I read this now and know that it is undoubtedly the truth. I’m onto something. I trust my perceptions. Even when I’m wrong, I’m finding beauty in that, too, because all of it is shaping me.

I stay mostly lost in this counterintuitive world, but I know myself more deeply every day. In a culture that is dependent on us not knowing ourselves so that we may never fully stand in our true power, this makes me dangerous.

Who wants to be dangerous with me?

Happy New Year!

With love, Jenny B.

💌 None of us are ever truly alone in what we are going through, but we need all the reminders we can get. If this spoke to you in any way, I’d love to know about it. Please leave a comment?

P.S. Yes, the blog is back. Prayer’s up if you haven’t completely lost your attention span in the last five+ years 🙏 @unlikelyhikers will be back January 2nd January 14th (bear with me, y’all… I’m navigating so much).

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and being alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You have to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes too near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.”― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum

One last note, RIP to my extremely cute Christmas-Not-Christmas nails. I had to cut the left ones to be able to type this out. (The right ones are already shorter bc GAY and also neurodivergent.) They also affected my ability to make a fist for boxing (yeah, that also sounds kinda gay…), but they were so fun while they lasted.