Rise
Austin, TX | 2022 ©️ Alicia Kae Miller
Just past the stroke of TX midnight on 1/1/2023, a friend in California texted, "I hope you are celebrating another chance to get it right!" Little did she know when she sent the message that I was not out burning up the dance floor but fast asleep since I needed to be up by 6:00 AM the next day. When I finally got around to scrolling through my messages, I laughed out loud when I got to hers.
To know T. is to love T.
She is not only a laugh-a-minute, brutally honest kind of person but is also generally more right than wrong. So while I am not suggesting that T. is mistaken in her annual revelry thinking, from my perch, we should view every day, not just at midnight on the last day of December, as a chance to begin again, especially when it comes to being empathetic.
Seeing, hearing, and understanding is more than a one-and-done box to be checked.
Instead, empathy asks us to shine a light daily on sometimes challenging feelings of curiosity, vulnerability, compassion, and altruism with ourselves and one another.
On that note, feel me now.
Imagine that we are sitting across the table from one another. We have our party hats on, horns and blowouts at our fingertips, and we are grinning from ear to ear, grateful to be in the presence of one another, celebrating one more chance to get it right.
The countdown begins at 10, 9, 8…..
As we near that moment, our misty eyes meet in recognition. The past is the past, and the future is yet to be. Mindfully present, we honor this moment for what it is = once-in-a-lifetime:
For you.
For me.
For the whole of humanity.
As with any new beginning, we will fumble in the darkness of the seemingly unknown.
Still, every day is another chance to realize T.'s get it right by rising, shining, and putting empathy into practice by bearing witness to someone else's lived experience.
So, tell me, fellow reveler, what are YOU feeling today?
Until we meet again, yours in admiration, gratitude, and solidarity. ❤️
-akm
January 2023