Unequivocal Joy.

I enter each year the same way. Quiet. Listening.

My birthday sits in the first week of January, a placement I once resented and now treasure. While the year is still unformed, I take stock. What is working. What is failing. What I am being asked to carry forward and what I am being asked to release.

While others set the goal of losing ten pounds, or waking up at 5 am on the dot. My first week is spent experimenting.

I do not set resolutions. I discern a theme.

The past five years have been clear. Focused. Unsparing. I lowered my tolerance for excess and sentimentality. I narrowed the aperture through which joy was allowed to enter.

Not sorrowful. Just… restrained.

A-joyful.

That restraint served me. It kept me precise. It kept me standing. But it also kept me dry.

This year asks for something different.

Not pleasure. Not distraction. Joy. Unequivocal and abundant. The kind that floods the system and rewires what feels possible.

I am done rationing it.