flourish 2025

Some years, my word comes easily. Some years, it requires more active processing and journaling and contemplating. This year was much more the second. In the middle of November, I dropped into the chat – “what do we think about ‘full’ as my word, as in ‘live life to the’?”.

A couple of days earlier, I’ve driven to the next town over to visit a friend in hospital. Six weeks prior to that, I’d flown to Sydney to visit her in a different hospital, quilt in tow. As I contemplated my word, and what I wanted from this year, to live a full and wonderful life, I got the message just eleven days later, that it was time to rally the troops and bring our friend group home. In under twelve hours, everyone was on a plane or in a car, and we gathered for the last time as a group of six. Nine days later, we gathered again, now a group of five, to say goodbye.

Since that racing trip to Sydney three months ago, I’ve been mulling over exactly how ridiculously short life can be. It’s one thing to know it in theory, it’s a whole other thing to learn it the hard way as we grieve a friend gone too soon at 41. The recurring thought of these past few weeks, has been to come into 2025 and live big, live well, love hard, in honour of the one we leave forever in 2024.

Even so, “full” didn’t quite have the right vibe. As part of a bigger phrase, it worked, but I like my word to stand alone, to not have to explain it quite so often. I tend not to overthink my word too much once it comes to me, but enjoy listening to Car’s process as she picks apart her options and looks at them from every angle. This year was the first time I somewhat emulated her process, and felt the vibes of “FULL” leaned more to the negative. FULL might mean a full calendar, a week jammed packed of hustle. Maybe it would be finding myself FULL with no capacity to add in the things that make me happy. Could it lead to a FULL craft room, bulging at the seams and pushing me into overwhelm and inaction. FULL gives shades of too much, a step beyond sated, more than enough, uncomfortably so.

It just didn’t feel like the right word for me, for this year. Exactly one month after I first proposed FULL, its successor announced itself to me.

FLOURISH

This year isn’t always going to be easy. There’s going to be good times, and there’s going to push me and require strength and growth. In five weeks – exactly, to the day – we will load up our car and Bear’s car, and trundle eight hours down the highway to move him into his college and his new life. Five weeks from Monday coming, we’ll get back into the car, and five of us will drive eight hours home, leaving our big boy and a big part of our hearts behind to become a city dweller. And that’s just the obvious, most immediate Big Thing of this year. If there’s been one recurring theme of the Roaring Twenties, it’s that plans are more a serving suggestion rather than a solid guideline. Optimism is a radical choice, five years after I vowed to RISE from the ashes of 2019. It’s more a case, these days, of hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Maybe along the way, we’ll find ourselves somewhere in the middle.

But even when it’s hard and optimism feels a step too far, I get to embrace the challenge, to grow like a wee little weed finding root in the crack of rock on a cliff face. FLOURISH doesn’t demand excellence, it simply requires me to show up and make the best of the moment, whatever it might bring. Because, when it boils down to it, even the hard moments are moments are I get to experience, and that is a gift. FLOURISH is a reminder to celebrate that gift, and create a year of wonderful memories, fun projects, and exploring more of what lights me up.

Hello 2025. I’ll be gentle with you if you’re gentle with me. Let’s FLOURISH together.