Scrolling through social media in this last week or so, one theme has stood out. Whether it's family, friend, acquaintance or veritable stranger...everyone is beyond ready for 2022 to end.
2022, seemingly, was an equal-opportunity devastator.
A year of breakdowns: emotionally, mentally, politically...in society.
A year overflowing with more than its fair share of devastating loss as good men and women fell.
A year where the good was outweighed at every turn by the horror of a reality in which the most unintelligent and most hateful were afforded not only space and time, but amplification.
It was a series of bad days, with little in between to offer consolation.
~~~
What feels like a lifetime ago, 2021 was chiming out its last and I had chosen "my word" for moving into the New Year. Hopeful, naive, and buoyed by the excitement of a fresh step forward, I chose:
Thrive.
2022 was going to be the year in which I thrived.
I had plans, you see...a schedule and goals, and plans.
I had it all broken down into details and actionable tasks, this thriving. I knew what was needed, and it felt within reach.
This, 2022, could be the one...the year I finally got back on track...the year I thrived.
Oh, baseless hope...and foolish wishes...
~~~
Is not.
What happened.
~~~
You've only to scroll through some of my other recent posts to see all too clearly that I am not a woman thriving in the end days of 2022.
My roots have withered or been clipped. My habitat confines. My few sparse blossoms are poorly tended and pale.
I am...surviving...
...on caffeine, and sugar, and the sustenance of a few good moments sprinkled in.
~~~
But what you don't see, in between words on the page or in my day to day, is that 2022 brought its own word for me...and it took this rearview contemplation as its hours run out, for me to finally see it.
Settle.
~~~
Settle
1) to place so as to stay
2) to establish in residence
3) to cause to pack down
4) to make quiet or orderly
5) to fix or resolve conclusively
6) to establish or secure permanently
7) to conclude or close
Intransitive verb:
1) to come to rest
2) to sink gradually to the bottom
3) to become compact
4) to become fixed, resolved or established
5) to adjust differences or accounts
6) to come to a decision
7) to conclude
~~~
Prior to this past year, I would have shouted with the masses "Never Settle!".
I have, at times, made that my rallying cry.
Never Settle: for less
Never Settle: in one place for too long
Never Settle: into someone else's comfort zone
~~~
But this year, I learned that there is beauty in settling.
Peace in acknowledging the "less than" and settling for what's here and now, for now.
Growth in dismissing your need to fix everything and settle with the way things are, for now.
Health in closing doors and concluding toxic relationships, and settling accounts and relationships, for always.
There is beauty in settling.
Settling into routine, because the change you want will take time.
Settling down, by setting boundaries and shutting down access.
~~~
In 2022 I failed to thrive. Complete and total failure.
But...
in 2022...
I settled.
Regularly, routinely...sometimes on purpose, sometimes by force...
I settled for what I could tolerate.
I settled into the who and what and where and when of now, knowing that change might come but not counting on it.
I settled things...and relationships.
I settled in.
I settled down.
I settled.
~~~~
And in settling, I found successes. Maybe not thriving...ok, fine, totally not thriving, but succeeding in keeping my head/hopes/standards/expectations up...just enough to get through the minutes and hours and days of 2022.
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