Here we are. It’s officially 2025 – in fact, several weeks in. (Actually, more like a whole month…) While I am usually quick to write, reflect and set intentions, this year kind of chaotically stumbled and rolled along without much pause.
I started this blog with the intention of committing myself to focusing more on the good than the bad, and with that, tried to infuse most posts with positivity, gratitude, hope, and joy. But when I sat down to try to craft a little post of the past year, writing it in a positive and playful tone felt… insincere. There have been years that I can reflect back on and unequivocally, sincerely, and passionately say “this was a good year.” Maybe my age is showing, maybe the swing of my pendulum is getting smaller, or maybe the middle is where things kind of shake out.
The last few weeks, I keep coming across the proverb “sunshine all the time makes a desert.” I have, on my occasions, criticized the disingenuousness and superficial nature of rewriting any narrative to primarily reflect on the wins ands the positives. I promise. I’m not a curmudgeon. (Yet.) I want less “I’m doing great!” and more “you know, I had this wonderful win, and also, this other thing has been stressing me out.” The closest friends are the ones who have welcomed me into their days of sunshine, but also rain, snow, sleet, thunder, and everything else in between. But not every year can be sunshine… And all the years with sunshine create a drought.
The older I’m getting, the more I’m realizing that I’d rather be alone (actually, what I mean is, with the dog) than around those who I can’t be myself with. The intention behind this little blog was for it to be a place where I can just be. Whatever that might be – happy, sad, melodramatic, cheerful, pensive, hysterical, anything in the world. It’s still a work in progress – and finding a balance of writing something truly sincere and real from the heart while publicly sharing it is apparently an art. (Writers, novelists, and all – hats down to you… scientific writing is easy in comparison… this feels relatively less so.)
In ways, this little project has chronicled my life for the last several years. Without looking at my thousands of photos, I think reading through the posts would have me thinking that I have been living my best life all the time, grateful for all the good and bad, and always seeking some meaning in the flow, smiling, laughing, and like a Hallmark movie, always finding that inner peace and happiness in the end. That, my dear friends, is not the truth.
In fact, I think last year was one of the harder years for me since I’ve started the blog in many ways – personally, professionally, financially, mentally. Last year was also a year of major transformation – and like a pinball, my life kind of pinged here and there and seems like, maybe, is a bit more grounded and clear.
I was certainly just kind of floating through life, pretending all is well, checking off the boxes, and just kind of trying to figure out the next steps. (This is where I am grateful for those intentions I wrote the year prior – when I felt a bit too lost – I just picked one at random and focused on that.) That said, another little message that kept coming through for me, was along the lines of if you don’t know where to go next. What now? Well, I finally realized that maybe when I didn’t want to be somewhere else, then perhaps I was meant to stay exactly where I am.
I learned about my own dimensionality. My flexibility. My loyalty. My ability to be a support to others. I learned (and am starting to believe) that the world “needs the medicine I bring to it” and that I am meant to be here. No reasons necessary. And I say this out of a place of darkness, fear, and loss, with unclear sense of direction. Some might even call it an existential crisis, or angst. But being able to say this was a step forward from an overwhelming undercurrent that had me feeling small, insignificant, and mostly a burden. I suppose all that stuff about pain transmuting is real, and like a snake, (ha it is the year of the snake…) a little bit of my old self had shed, and a raw but slightly evolved version of me was forced into existence. Sometimes, it is the things we dread the most, that help us to really take an honest look at ourselves and either keep doing the same things, or maybe take a different turn to end up somewhere new.
I also felt like this was a year of opening myself up to spontaneous and unexpected opportunities that came along. And the universe did not fail to deliver. This year, most certainly carried me along into chance encounters that I couldn’t have ever predicted, in a way that almost feels like it was meant to happen and was planned. (Kind of weird, but also, kind of amazing!)
I finally went on that Japan trip – my “one day” trip. I finally saw and entire field of sunflowers (it’s just flowers, I know, but something I’ve never gotten to do, and always wanted to see). I finally went to Portugal, took a stained glass class, went to a speed dating event (for those super curious, the event was grossly unsuccessful, but I did make a new friend). I went to a retreat. I finally took Scruffles to Acadia (I’m not so sure he loved it). Finally took a proper wine tasting class. Finally got to see Spain a small piece of its beauty. Took my parents to a soccer game. Bought more crystals than I need (those rose quartz ones better get to work). Saw a terrible production of Carmen (my favorite of all time, the irony). Attending a meeting as the PI for my very first study ever. (Which for me, felt like a reminder from my younger self, who used to think, “I’ll be one of these people here, one day.”)
This was a year of ups and downs. Darkness and light. Gains and losses. Pain and joy. Sunshine and rain (and maybe even a tornado here and there). So this was most certainly not a “good” year by any definition of the word. It was a transformative year. It was a painful year where I truly felt lost. And in that darkness and loss, the serendipity of saying “sure, why not” to things I would have never been brave enough to do or made the time to do, has actually brought me closer to what it is that I actually want to be doing.
I was scared, a lot of the time, and still am, and what I hope to carry forward is that it’s ok to do the things you want, even while you’re scared. We are all scared of failure, ridicule, and judgment, loss, something
I’ve accidentally practiced “rejection therapy” with a few of my patients, or simply, asking them to supply me with 3 “failures” of the week. So when I myself set out to “try to fail,” some of these leaps actually turned into some of the biggest and most transformative “failed attempts at failure” of my life. We truly do sometimes live within the limits of our minds and are simply too afraid to fail, so we don’t even push the boundary of what we can do.
I do feel that this year reminded me that the universe really is carrying us where we are meant to go. Sometimes, that closed door actually does truly mean we’re being redirected into a direction that aligns with our greater purpose, or is actually a better option for us.
I was rejected from a training program I applied to last year, bawled my eyes out, felt that it had stripped me of the identity of who I thought I was and was hoping to work toward, only to learn the following day, that something I never thought was even possible for me to do, had miraculously fallen into my lap. No effort, it just kind of showed up. That said, sometimes things that are meant come to us, find their way to us. That said, I’m excited for this year and how things shake out in my life. I’m less focused on the destination, and more focused on trying to enjoy the ride. I guess once you find the scenic route you’re supposed to be on, it is really not so bad. Finding it is the hard part!
Everytime I said yes to something that felt completely foreign to me, the universe somehow expanded my world and carried me through. I’m starting to think that life is like an escape room, except without a timer, and the hints come from our own intuition and attunement to the signs. Once you satisfy one room, only then do you get to the next one.
I’m hoping after this hard year, I can go into this new one and allow the universe to really conspire on my behalf. After all, “no rain, no flowers.”
XOXO,
❤ Kathy
Simple Serendipities 