This year will be built on a sticky note

This year, I will build. 

In the past, I have reduced my New Year's resolutions to just a word (or sometimes a phrase) instead of trying to remember a list of things. I am sure I did the same thing last year, but when the condo flooded at the beginning of January, and we were unhomed for six months, whatever theme I had for the year went out the window, er, the drain. The year before, I had two themes that served me so well that perhaps it is ok that I skipped last year. The year before, I had YOM and BTL as my theme. Cryptic, right? YOM stood for year of me, and BTL stood for Be the love. YOM was meant to remind me to put myself first. I got in better shape. Ate much better. Read much more. Learned much more. And was more myself - it almost felt like I travelled back to before all the dark shit happened - before 2017 - before everything went black. I had a yellow sticky note on my work laptop with YOM in black magic marker. At the end of the year, I gave that sticky note to B, feeling like it belonged to her then, and she left her abusive relationship and then spent the next year on her own healing journey. 

The second sticky note - BTL - was a shortened version of something that Leona had said to me before she left. Be the love you want to see. At the time, I thought I understood, but honestly, it wasn't until I had been seeing S off and on for a few months that I really started to get it. I had to be the love, stand my ground, be unconditional in what was worthy before I could see it for myself. S was struggling so much at the beginning. He wanted something but felt it was out of reach. He had so much guilt and insecurity that we couldn't get our footing. But I did my best to stay constant, to show him what could be, and he eventually saw it too, and then he showed me what true love was. I have never experienced a love like the one I have for S. I never told him about that sticky note. I'll give that to him later (I saved it). Two sticky notes changed my life, and then helped change my best friend.

Two sticky notes once changed how I saw myself and how I loved. This year, there's only one. Build. It carries everything that came before it — the healing, the patience, the choosing. I don't know exactly what I'll build this year, but I know it will be intentional. Not because I need motivation, but because I'm ready to be deliberate. Build the life I want. Build the work that matters. Build the habits I lost and the ones I've earned. Build a life with S. Last year reminded me how much can be taken without warning. This year is about choosing what stays — and building it, piece by piece.