The close of the year is an opening to a new one. The recently passed solstice, the turn of the calendar both call us to shift our cycles. What can you let go of? What will you embrace?

I intended to write about the light-dark /  ending-beginning of this month last week on solstice, but I felt called instead to make space. I stepped away from the computer a lot. I read. I brought my hands into a warm ball of dough and baked bread. I breathed deep in the twinkling light of the tree and the flicker of the fire. I read some more.

With all the to-dos of this month behind me, but a little more celebration and family time to go, I’m sinking into the open space I deliberately created—no work in this interholiday week of school vacation.

2015 Year in Review

Back in January, I set open as my word of the year. Aside from this open space here at the end of the year, how else did I open?

I opened to new ideas about my work and ended up with this. I don’t know why I resisted change for so long, but I’m loving the ghostblogging/content management world I’m thriving in.

I opened my door each morning and stepped outside. I looked up at the trees and the sky. I counted crows, black spots against the blue. I found the lingering moon and noticed pink-gold streaks. I felt the ground firm but yielding beneath my feet. I opened my eyes to notice.

I opened up space in my schedule for writing that I felt called to do. I was consistent with it for a while. I need to step back and re-open that space.

I opened to hope, as I do each spring, and to being in the moment with my kids.

I opened to possibility, to figuring out how instead of saying I can’t. In the past, friends would post about trips they had taken and I’d wonder how they managed. Who watched their kids? How did they afford it? How did they find time in a schedule that seems always too full? But when an old college friend asked a small group of us to get together, I was open to making it happen—and I ended up soaking up the quiet and the deep conversations in Tucson.

I opened to adventure, the kind I haven’t had in years.

I opened to the fullness of my experience in December as I do each year—and got surprised.

I didn’t open my body with yoga like I intended (though I have a plan for next September when I have two kids in school full time).

I didn’t open up more space in my house the way I wanted to. Clearing out clutter has been a molasses slow process, and the open space I create seems to fill in almost immediately. I’m still working on that one. It’s a good goal for a new year.

The year is closing, but a new one opens. I’m thinking about what I want that year to feel like and staying open possibility.

What openings did you create last year? What openings do you see coming in the new year?