The "Word" for 2022

Our best friends are the ones who love us, support us, enjoy spending time with us….and also who inspire us with their conversation. When I can leave a coffee date with a friend or a walk at the Audubon, a telephone (or Zoom in 2022) call, or a girls overnight at a farm or camp or beach house – if I can leave filled with ideas and thoughts swirling around in my mind which I ponder for days (or years), well that is just the BEST for me.

And I have friends like this.

Lots of them.

Girlfriends who have been with me since I was a girl, growing up and older together, laughing, crying, and inspiring.

No question, my girlfriends have absolutely contributed to the woman I’ve become –inspired and changed from their love and ideas and ways of being.

Recently, a BFF sent me a New Year’s card with a long, handwritten note. She filled up the entire card with her message. She wished me well in my upcoming retirement from my life-long career in the investment field.

Then she said she wanted to share her “word” for 2022. Evidently, this is an exercise she does every new year and she thought I did as well.

I had never heard of it.

But what an idea!

I love it.

She shared her “words” since 2019. She shared that 2022 will be a repeat of 2021 – hope – but in 2022, she needed to actually look to three words. One word just wouldn’t be enough after the last few years we’ve had. She shared her three words with me for 2022.

I smiled.

I pondered.

For a few days, as I walked and cooked and lay in bed at night.

“Let it go” became my 2022 “word(s).”

Let it go.

Let go of worries – about children, COVID, the world situation, climate change, retirement, aging. Let go of anger at past hurts… and the world situation. Let go of control, or trying to control, anything. Let go. Be fluid. Be open to whatever might come my way. Take each day, each minute, the present as it comes without expectation or judgement. Let it be. Let go.

I’ve never been one to love Halloween or want to dress up myself. It was always kind of a chore to come up with the ideas when invited to Halloween parties as an adult. I loved helping my kids with their costumes, and we had some good ones, but never liked it as an adult.

A few years ago, good friends threw a Halloween party. They were all in – big decorations, food, friends, even a fortune teller! For some reason, I really embraced it at that time. I really wanted to dress up and go to that Halloween party. (That evening, my older son proposed to the woman who has become his wife – magic was truly all around that night!)

And, for my costume, I decided to be Elsa from Frozen. (Let it go!) Of all the princesses, I loved Elsa. I got her (solitary, older sister, carrying the world on her shoulders). I LOVED the movie, the animation, the icy scenery – I am more of a winter girl than a summer girl after all. I’ve always been. I kind of thrive in the solitude and isolation in wintering.

Let it go.

Maybe, those words were whispering to me back then, at the Halloween party.

And now, they come to me, a little louder.

Let it go.

2022’s intention for me shall be let it go.

What word(s) might you set your intention to live by in 2022?