So Long, Farewell

The vision of 2024 and the reality that bloomed from it.

This time last year, we had bought big, empty white poster boards from the supply store in town, and we had the biggest of aspirations. We were going to clip images and words from different magazines and construct our 2024 vision board. There were going to be inspirational phrases and beautiful imagery. A new year, a fresh slate—a beginning that we needed after a heart wrenching fall. Nothing will kick you into gear and make you crave becoming an entirely new person like a hard season of life, and we were no exception. Except, when the time rolled around to actually start doing all of those things, we had not one inkling of energy to do so. The empty poster boards remained empty, leaning dejectedly against the wall in the office, and there they still remain.

At the beginning of every new year, we also normally like to pick a “word for the year.” Unsurprisingly, just like the vision boards, that didn’t sound particularly exciting. So, at the cusp of 2024, as we looked ahead to the near year, where there was normally a word like “harmony,” “lighter,” or “action,” there was just… a blank space. Nothing. And that’s the way it needed to be.

January tumbled into February, then into March. Spring exclaimed its heady arrival with bursts of green, pink, and yellow blooms. We quickly forgot about our vision boards and our words for the new year, and just began… living it. By the end of May, we had relocated to our summer cabin in the San Juan Islands in Washington. A week turned into two weeks which turned into a month, which then turned into the whole summer. In May, our neighbors asked us if we’ll be staying all summer. We said yes. In August, our neighbors asked us if we’ll be staying all fall. We said yes to that too. Just yesterday, after a long morning visit, our neighbor asked us if we’ll be staying all winter. To that, we said we aren’t sure, but no matter where the rest of the season takes us, a part of home will always be here. So, in a way, yes. We will be staying all winter.

If you had told us this time last year that Savannah would graduate a year early from Vanderbilt, that we’d move out of our Nashville apartment for good, that she would sleep in a tent for over two months, that she would surpass three months of Bee Venom Therapy before the end of the year, that we would relocate to our janky summer cabin in the Pacific Northwest, that we would take a step away from our business, that we would befriend all of our neighbors, that we would eat dinners outside with our grandparents every few weeks, that we would share this special island with new, special people… none of it would have made any sense. But that’s the best part of it all, isn’t it? The surprise, the unknown. The goodness that sprouted, even when we didn’t have a vision board or new year intentions to draw it all forth.

For most of this year, we remarked to ourselves, how is it possible to be so happy and joyful, and simultaneously so low and drained. So hopeful, and so hopeless. So energized, and so bone-tired. How is it possible that we’re living the best time of our lives, and the worst time, all at the same time? That was the theme of the year—the nuanced and multifaceted nature of life’s experiences.

At the beginning of Savannah’s Bee Venom Therapy program, they had every member craft a vision board for what they hoped their life would like like during and after healing. Sometime in the spring, Savannah assembled hers. Today, as we write our last newsletter to you of 2024, she pulled it up. We sat on the couch together, realizing quickly that for every one of her vision board images, she had one that was beautifully similar. To honor and commemorate this past year, and all of the ups and downs that it has brought, we put these images together to share with you. The image on the left is from her vision board, and the image on the right is hers.

So, maybe our vision board for 2024 happened, after all.

See you in 2025!