Even though, as a farmer, rancher, homesteader, I tend to think of spring as the start of the new year, this time of year I do tend to get a bit pensive about what's ahead of me and what is to come. I think actually being able to slow down just a bit this week has helped bring about the retrospective, contemplative mood. That and just about everywhere one gazes there are all sorts of New Year, New You sentiments floating about.
I'm pretty dang happy with me, there doesn't need to be any newness. Spending an entire semester discovering the art of self-care and how to curate it to your own being has been immensely helpful. I am in pretty excellent shape mentally and physically these days, and most, and probably best of all, I am existing as me, unapologetically so.
As someone who has masked my entire life out of a desire to not get into trouble and a care to provide comfort to those in my sphere, I have finally begun shedding some of the unhelpful attributes of that learned behavior. One can be compassionate, empathetic, and still authentic. And strangely enough, the more I embrace being actual Kat, the healthier my poor besieged carcass actually becomes.
PHENOMENAL! (Sorry, had to put this in there for my Zoomer herd, they love it when I say that)
So, as I walk into this year, still not having snowshoed thanks to ol Ma Nature being in a tropical phase, I am so, so looking forward to all my adventures, planned and otherwise. Here in a couple months we are jetting to Arizona, Texas, and Arkansas for some fun with friends and fam, I might be jetting further East to Switzerland, I will be helping get the farm gussied up for next year's wedding, I am on the downhill slope of Phase One of therapist training, and the hubs and I will be navigating it all from this pretty dang spectacular ranch we get to call home these days.
Most of all though, as I contemplate this calendar turning over, is that I have finally embraced the mindset of the only control I have over anything is what I think about it all. It really is freeing when you let go and actually internalize an attitude that leaves scarcity and fear outside the corporeal door. I don't know what's on the horizon for me, but after surviving 15 years of major life events in one calendar year, I know I can get through it, whatever may come.
And I so very much hope all of you dear Hive friends of mine have a most glorious turn of the planet around the sun this year.
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's very much capable of turning over iPhone.
