“At this point in my life
I'd like to live as if only love mattered
As if redemption was in sight
As if the search to live honestly
Is all that anyone needs.” - At This Point in My Life by Tracy Chapman
From Life: Poems to help navigate life’s many twists & turns by Donna Ashworth
“Why do we start a new year, with promises to improve?
Who began this tradition of never-ending pressure?
I say the end of a year
should be filled with congratulation
for all we survived.
And I say a new year should start with promises to be kinder to ourselves
to understand better just how much we bear
as humans on this exhausting treadmill of life.
And if we are to promise more
let’s pledge to rest, before our bodies force us.
Let’s pledge to stop, and drink in life as it happens.
Let’s pledge to strip away a layer of perfection to reveal the flawed and wondrous humanity we truly are inside.
Why start another year
gifted to us on this earth
with demands on our already over-strained humanity?
When we could be learning to accept
that we were always supposed to be imperfect.
And that is where the beauty lives, actually.
And if we can only find that beauty
we would also find peace.
I wish you peace in 2023.
Everything else is all just a part of it.
Let it be so. - Donna Ashworth
Amazing and beautiful truths.
I am looking forward to one of YOUR poems, Jena! With YOU speaking it!