Graceful Fuck-Ups, Fuck It’s & a lil TLC
My Mood Board for 2025
It’s the first day of 2025, and I am already proud of myself for giving less of a fuck when shit happens. Also, why not try a little tenderness to start the year out?
Yesterday, I listened to an episode of Everyday Better with author Katherine May, and she spoke about her book, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. It had me thinking about how we treat the New Year. How we set a bar so high, we rush, we overcommit, and we inevitably, or rather often, disappoint ourselves. After the high of that clean slate mentality, we can crash and be left feeling that we have somehow let ourselves down.
Why do we hold ourselves to such a high standard during a time of hibernation? Why does a clean slate have to include over-exerting ourselves?
We can all do ourselves a favor and NOT hold ourselves to an absurdly high energetic standard at a time when life is often calling for gestation. Tenderness. Gratitude as the fuel for a heart-centered forward momentum.
This year, I’m not doing the absurdity. Sure, I have goals and dreams. I have set them, and I’m reaching, betchesss. I created a new work schedule to guide my way to achieving my goals — gave myself some good structure.
But let’s be real, these are just plans. And if Disability has taught me anything, it’s that plans sometimes don’t fucking work out the way you thought they would, and a little tenderness goes a long way.
I feel like this is an important time to take stock of where our hearts are, what they yearn for, rather than what it might take to be that “better” version of ourselves.
I’m going into this new year with an allowance for life. For fuck-ups. For little successes, followed by little celebrations. For flexibility. For improvisation. For fluctuation. For all of it, amidst the work, the goals, the dreams, the big ideas and the simple pleasures.
I’m allowing more air for life to happen, so that when things don’t turn out as I planned, it doesn’t feel like so much of a defeat. Sometimes the plan isn’t “the plan”… sometimes there is a grander plan. And sometimes, shit just happens.
Like tonight, when I got into my car to go teach my Movement as Medicine class, and lo and behold, she was dead. I wasn’t going anywhere. Luckily, my car had enough juice to unlock my wheelchair from the floor system (another reason why I wear an Apple Watch — I’m not getting paid to say that, it’s just my safety net, y’all). From there, I pushed the ramp deploy button and watched in anticipation as it groaned its way out and down, finally hitting the ground in relief. I backed out and thought, ‘welp, let’s see if this bitch will actually go back in.’ A girl can dream.
I pressed the button again and watched with that painful, sympathetic strained look on my face as Space Wrangler squeezed out one more request, before fully closing. Phew. I did a 180° in the fresh dusting of powdery snow under my wheels, and went back inside to a happy little dog.
As much as it sucked to not be able to make it to my class, there wasn’t much I could do about it in that moment. I was alone in 18° weather, and even if I could find someone to help me jump my car, I would still be close 30 minutes late, if not more.
I made the executive decision: this moment didn’t call for rushed desperation as much as it called for surrender.
And while I felt badly for not being able to show up, the only thing I could do to be accountable was to call the necessary people and apologize. And hope that they will show up next time for class.
As I got back inside, I thought, how nice it is to feel the growth of 2024 in some of the first moments of 2025. I made myself some food, watched a little Daisy Jones and The Six, and did a little writing by the fire.
Wishing you all graceful fuck-ups, and meaningful little successes for 2025.
Big love,
KP
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