I’ve been trying to get back into running ever since Thanksgiving, and for the most part, I’ve succeeded. My pace is slow, and sometimes I don’t run more than a couple of miles, but my heart is getting its workout, and I always feel better after pushing myself to go a little faster.

I’m determined, like so many other people that I know it’s a cliché, to focus on my health this coming year. So before I could talk myself out of it, this morning I went for a run. I wanted music to accompany me, so I put on a song mix of some old favorites, and I went down memory lane: “Cowboy Take Me Away,” which reminded me of a man who broke up with me a few days after Thanksgiving and who I wished back so hard I cried for days and then weeks and then months until he finally showed up on my stoop one summer morning and asked if we could try again; “Halfway to Heaven” which reminded me of living in Oxford, Ohio and of nighttime in my little sad apartment and of wanting my life to be different and thinking for far too long that someone might make it different instead of finally realizing it was up to me to make the change; and “Iowa,” which reminded me of living in Chapel Hill and packing into a car full of friends and driving to Winston-Salem on Tuesday nights to go contra dancing, an act that saved me countless times from loneliness and heartache.

I’m glad to be where I am now, and I’m so grateful for all the lessons I learned along the way to get me here, and for the people who taught me, who helped me, who shuttled me from one point to the next. I have two friends right now who have been going through a particularly dark time, and I think of them both every day and hope that they are finding the steady light they need to lead them out. 

And to all of you, my readers, my subscribers: May you find happiness and peace in the coming days and year, may you push yourself in whatever ways your life is asking you to, may you be there for the people you love, and may you always find the unwavering light you need to move you forward.