I’ve been writing letters to myself, God, food and dead people for a long time. I guess this is what it’s like to be single or, well, to be me? Writing is a tool I’ve been using for as long as I can remember, one that I’m lost without. I wouldn’t necessarily call the periods of my life without writing “dark” but they certainly were not clear or as meaningful. The ultimate reflection of ourselves are our words on a page, they translate where we are now into where we’d like to be and, sure, it’s scary to write down everything we feel, want, don’t want and haven’t yet received - but there is liberation in getting it all out. I promise.

To close the year I like to reflect and ask myself a few questions. Should you choose to go on this adventure with me, you can write your very own love letter to 2024 by beginning here. Now, I cannot promise that the questions won’t make you feel, pause and wonder; they may even bring up something that still makes you angry - but it will be worth it. When we ask ourselves hard questions and reflect, we learn something about ourselves and what we’ve been through. In this learning there is living and an opportunity to re-do, re-think and move forward. And if we’re not learning, well, we’re not living.

My best advice as you’re writing and answering the question: try to bring out the humor in the unkind moments you’ve faced. Don’t focus so much on telling the whole story as to why you were wronged “The people in my family were assholes when they XYZ’d, but I really showed them when I XYZ’d .” vs “This year there were some family disagreements and I learned how I want to show up for others even when I’m feeling pain and outside of love.” This is your chance to reframe events and leave hurt or anger in the past, it’s a love letter. Think about how you want to answer the questions, in your truth, but also think about where YOU were accountable and where YOU could have also done better. Anger doesn’t read well and it doesn’t look good on us. Nor does it give us the opportunity to shine light on something.

Questions for the love letter:

What were your biggest wins or accomplishments of 2024?
What can you do today that you couldn’t do one year ago?
What were some of your greatest challenges of 2024?
What did you learn from your wins and challenges?
How did you take care of others in 2024?
How did you take care of yourself?
What is 1 thing you let go of in 2024? How did it feel?
What are you thankful for? List 3-5 things you were grateful for this year.

Remember, life doesn’t happen to us - it happens for us. It’s also what we make of it. See life as a shitstorm, uh, it’s gonna be a shitstorm. See the possibilities, it’s gonna be beautiful and give you a chance. Life is messy, unexpected and hard - sometimes we don’t feel like we have a choice - but we do. We can choose to get all up in life and do the best we can. I fail some days and I’m sure you do too, but it’s in those failures that we also find a reason to keep going. Now, start writing.

Here’s a link back to my Love Letter to 2024

Take a bath, put on some pj’s and get a box of tissues and or chocolates.

Happy writing. Happy reflecting. Happy discovering.

PS: If you really feel like going on an adventure, dare to write a love letter to yourself.

How To Write A Love Letter to 2024