I’ve been musing about what word I want to choose (last year’s word) as my guide for this year. One word keeps coming to mind, but I’ve been resisting it.

Rest.

Rest is something I’m not good at. As I’ve reflected on my words of the year, I’ve realized past words have not really been stretches for me. (Balance … Slow … Resolve … Focus … Content … Choose.)

It’s not difficult for me to focus on Ellie, Cigo, the farm. I love the life we make and I’m pretty content overall.

Rest, though. That feels hard.

Then last night, as I scrolled through my phone after Ellie went to bed, I saw this quote:

“If busyness is your drug, rest will feel like stress.”

Oh, I can identify with that.

Then another quote from the same post:

“Every single human function is improved or enhanced with sleep.”

I’ve been thinking about sleep a lot this past year. Once I go to bed, I sleep. But making myself go there is hard. Busyness wins most of the time. I can always find something else to do. Part of it is the season of life that I’m in where working til 3am sometimes feels needed. Part of it is choice.

But I’ve read about how important sleep is for long-term health, and I know I need to better.

So as I stay up later than I should tonight to write a blog post I had decided earlier today to put off, I feel like the universe is speaking to me. The word that has been floating around in my head for the last few weeks came out into the world and appeared in front of my eyes. I try to listen to the universe when it speaks. So I’m choosing rest as my word of the year.

This will be a goal for me. I’m going to have to make some changes and come up with some strategies to choose rest. But I think it’s time to stretch myself a bit more and it’s worth the attempt.

Busy is my comfort zone. Rest is not.

But here’s to a more restful 2024.

Happy New Year to you. I hope that 2024 brings goodness, whatever that looks like for you.