Yeah, so 2018 turns itself in in four days, and 2019 gets the spotlight and me? Well, I’m wondering what in the world I’m gonna name it.

Because I name the year. Every year, actually. And actually? Lots of us do.

We name it, call it before it’s really even born, that thing we wish it would be, hope it will be, want to remember what to make it.

The truth is, you can always make the year or the month or the day or the moment what you want it to be, no matter what’s going on in real life.

Want to name your year or your day or your right-this-very-moment “gratitude”? You can. And if you look hard enough, you’ll find something in this year or this day or right-this-very-moment to be grateful for.

Think that maybe this is the year you’ll call “brave”, so that you can maybe find the brave inside your days and inside yourself, every day? You can. And if you dig deep enough, you’ll find enough bravery inside for this year and this day and right-this-very-moment.

You kinda get the idea?

Yeah, just days away from the new calendar page and the new digits at the end of every date stamp and me? Not even the hint of a name for 2019.

The truth of it is, this world kind of distracted me.

Pulled at me with all its news and stress like it does when you’re just trying to stop and think.

Sometimes you need to do the hard work of stopping in order to think.

So I do. I stop and breathe and do the impossible – I turn off the world for a bit, so that I can tune in to what’s real.

I stop and breathe and get out the markers and the watercolors and the crayons and the paper and I light a candle and I pick up a brush and I paint and draw and figure out what this new year wants to be.

I do the hard work of figuring out what’s real, and what’s right, and what it is that I want to write on 2019’s nameplate.

And I do get there, and I do get it figured out.

And I breathe.

Sigh of relief that I actually did come up with a name for the year.

Sigh of relief that I actually managed to get away from the world and the stress.

Sigh of relief that I managed to stop and breathe and paint and draw and listen to what this moment was telling me.

And I breathe in the scent of the candle and I love it.

And I name the year that’s starting in just four days.

“Now.”

My year of “now.”

Now, what will you name yours?

~xo,
LuAnne