This Year, I Plan to Become a Broken-Open, Inside-Out Mess

I didn’t intend to get Covid-19 back in March, and I certainly didn’t intend to become a long-hauler. And yet here I am, living intentionally into a new year with long Covid . . . or trying to. For me, 2020 was a year of breaking open and living my life inside out. My mortality (hello, Covid!), my fallibility (hello, Divorce!), and my hopes, fears, and feelings (hello, Corona Cafe!) were all on full display. Now my body is healing in slow fits and starts. I can imagine a future—perhaps a relatively near future—in which it will be possible to stitch myself back up again. I can imagine a future in which I could choose to avoid the mess and pain of vulnerability.

I don’t want to stitch myself back together, though. I don’t want to close myself off. I want to continue this opening. I want to pour myself into the world and allow the world to pour itself through me. In 2020, I was broken open by force. In 2021, I intend to continue breaking open . . . by choice. I’ll write things that will later embarrass me. I’ll pitch my work to publications and throw myself into the novel I’m writing. I will get rejected, bruised, frustrated, and down. That’s okay. Long Covid is teaching me to sit with pain and discomfort. I’m getting kinda sorta good at it. (Tomorrow, when I’m in the depths of despair over some trifling thing, that self-congratulatory sentence will totally embarrass me.)  

Your intentions for this new year may be very different than mine. You may already be threading the needle and scrambling to patch the rips and tears of the past year. That’s okay. Our paths don’t need to look the same. And anyway, in a grander sense, I bet they are very similar. Like me, you’ve discovered bits of beauty amidst the carnage of Covid. Like me, you’ve witnessed and built your resilience. Like me, you’ve felt low, low, low, but you’ve also soared or felt lifted in moments when you least expected it. Somewhere amidst all of this contrast and complexity, there is a seed of possibility. There is a seed that, nourished by intention, will blossom into something beautiful and unique.

How have the challenges of long Covid shifted your intentions for the coming year? What seeds do you intend to nourish and grow?

P.S. Join me for a casual Zoom chat this Sunday, at 1:00 PM ET. We can share a laugh or two, talk about intentions, swap Covid stories, or just bask in the awkward delights of digital friendship! You can join here:  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88020964301?pwd=NnBKL1J1Y08rNVNuTGNCL1lBWDU4QT09.