I have a note on my phone that takes almost a minute to scroll to the bottom of. Its title is, “2023.”
My life as I’d known it was falling apart in January, but I sensed there were things happening that I would want to remember, so I wrote as a practice. Some days are fragmented sentences: “woke up. made coffee. went to my running group.” Other days are transcripts of conversations: “‘Is this a holding on kind of day?’ Adrianne asked me during our planning period.” Some days are descriptions of specific events that I wanted to remember the details of (getting a tattoo, moving into a new house, etc.). Some days are unrecorded and I could not for the life of me tell you what happened on them and that makes me ache.
One thing I am moved to tears by every time I skim through the 2023 note is that, tucked in between the tears and the unanswered questions and the rage, there were also beautiful things. There were beautiful things happening on the same days as the hardest things. Some of the hardest things were the beautiful things.
My hope in starting this is to keep myself motivated to write. I will share stories from the archives and some from real-time. I have never been tempted to only share the good parts of my life, so do not be surprised by some darkness. It won’t be all sad, I promise.
Thank you for being here. Below are some pictures from the past twelve months. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a new note to start. Can you guess what the title will be?
This is beautiful Hannah