By Catherine DiMercurio
This year was not my best in terms of writing output. Too many BIG things happened, things that consumed my energy, the way whales swallow krill. Family medical issues, a break-up, selling a house, buying a house, and moving across the state, alone. And a kiddo starting grad school, which though more an event in their life than mine, was something I wanted to be present for to a greater degree than I was able to be.
Still, I managed to write a couple of small things, do some revising, and I’m ending the year submitting short new pieces, along with longer, older ones that have not yet found a home. I have pieces out at journals and small presses in the poetry, creative nonfiction, short story, novel, and short story collection categories. Not bad for a slow year. I’m eager to see what 2026 will bring, and like any writer, I’m hoping for some acceptances.
But more than anything, I’m eager to get back to creating. I’m on the waitlist at a pottery studio and I’m so missing the wheel, the feel of clay beneath my hands. I’m excited to delve back into ongoing writing projects and begin some new ones.
This year was not without other creative efforts, though. Turning a house that was someone else’s, and then vacant for two years, into my own home took a lot of creative energy. I’m loving the way things have come together in this small space. It has the cozy cottage vibe I hoped for. And I haven’t even started on the yard yet. So much fun—and hard work—ahead. It’s the type of hard work that feels especially good, digging in the dirt, creating something beautiful. Maybe I will finally plant a vegetable garden again after so many years of not being able to do so.
In many ways, this has been a year of letting go. I had a low, low point this year. I didn’t know if I was going to proceed with my plan to move toward the lake, and there were many things happening that made me feel frightened for myself and for people I love. In that moment, I turned to someone whom I thought had my back. I poured out my heart, overwhelmed and full of uncertainty. That person’s reply to me was brief, a single line of text saying that I’d get through it. It was the last thing I hoped for or expected to hear. I hadn’t felt so alone in a long time. I thought there would be a sentiment of being in it together, an offer of support, a show of love. At the time, I didn’t know how I’d get through it, and I just wanted to know I wasn’t going to have to figure it all out on my own. Again. Still. You get exhausted from doing that sometimes; I was. But they seemed to be telling me that alone was precisely what I was in for. Sometimes people are (intentionally or otherwise) clear about what it is they can and can’t offer.
I had to let go of a lot of expectations this year. They’re not that useful, as it turns out, expectations. I learned over the years that there is a line between how much you need and how much others think you should need, or how much they are okay with being needed. It’s a blurry line and it shifts and you don’t know when you’ve crossed it until people sort of pull away. You can’t begrudge them this; everyone has their own energy and resources to protect. There’s not a lot of communication about it though, so you’re left a bit fuzzy about the state of your relationships, romantic or otherwise. And then you stop asking for help because you realize that there is a mismatch between what is offered and what you need, so to protect the relationships that you have left, you do what you can on your own and try to tame the needs that go unmet. Tuck them away. Try to silence the voice in your head that shames you for needing too much, for not understanding what “too much” means.
We’re humans; our evolution as a species involves community as well as self-reliance. But the balance is always tough to achieve. Some people are drowning in the micro-communities of their own households. Or they feel like the krill, and their world is a whale. So many married people have confessed to me that they long for solitude more than anything else; they tell me how much they envy me. I cherish my solitude, and I’m attuned to the gifts it offers. As happy and satisfied as I often am, it doesn’t mean that I don’t sometimes miss having my own micro-community larger than me and my canine housemate. But as I sit here in the cozy little house that I have created a home out of, and as I look at all I’ve managed to accomplish on my own, I know I’ve made good decisions.
Following that lowest of low moments earlier this year, I had little confidence in my decision-making abilities. It’s taken me many years to have any surety that I could trust my gut again. And in that moment, I struggled to make out what my gut was telling me. Luckily, I had some truly supportive voices that were able to amplify my own instinct to leap into the big new thing that I imagined for myself: life near the lake. My children and a few key family members and friends reminded me of the reasons why I had hatched the plan to move near Lake Michigan in the first place. They kept me going in ways they probably don’t even realize. And once I had been reminded, never wanting to forget about the importance of this leap again, I commemorated the decision with the leaping rabbit tattooed on my arm.
I feel as though it has taken me half a year to even start processing the spring break-up, not to mention everything else that happened. I’m grateful for the luxury of this downtime between Christmas and New Year’s Day, where I can write, paint, work on a puzzle, bake, rearrange furniture, exercise, look at the lake, and simply sit with a cup of coffee and think, feel. I can hurt and cry, laugh and dance, and watch my dog watching me figure myself out all over again. I am thankful for the constant he is in my life; a solid, loving, loyal soul who lets me be whomever I need to be, need however much I need to need.
And I’m thankful that each new day offers us all the chance to take leaps large and small, to trust our gut, to reinvent our lives, completely or incrementally at whatever pace feels good. In my case, that reinvention was about me meeting my own greatest need: to create the space and the conditions necessary so that the person I’ve always been has the room she needs to fully exist, to grow and thrive. Any creative effort is a leap into some unknown, and things usually don’t turn out the way you expect. Sometimes they’re even better.
May all your lucky leaps be lucky.
Love, Cath
Chronicles of the Open Hearted 