new year (of the 🐎), new us
Ramadan. Lent. The Lunar New Year. Eclipse season. All arriving at once. The symbolism working overtime to get our attention.
As they converge on the calendar today, I can’t help but wonder if this is some kind of portal to a collective reset? (tysm for this literary device, Carrie Bradshaw.) Wishful thinking, I know, but stay with me here.
If we’re judging by energy alone, something is different.
To recap, in case you are new to Earth, the Year of the Snake was far from gentle. It asked us to stop romanticizing what was unsustainable. It pushed us to confront uncomfortable truths about ourselves and the systems we move within. The shedding was personal, and communal.
Now, we’re moving into the Year of the Horse.
A year that runs.
In my last post, I wrote about how this moment in beauty x culture is all about reclaiming joy.
Happiness is building momentum.
As if it’s about to rush towards us, loud and undeniable. (Florence + the Machine’s Dog Days Are Over is the perfect soundtrack for this emotional thesis, bb.)
As this cultural resurgence of happiness arrives, it will be shaped by everything we just relearned the hard way.
We’re meant to do life together, in community.
We are meant to include one another in the fabric of our everyday lives. Sharing meals. Exchanging ideas. Laughing at our self-inflicted missteps until we cannot breathe. Those moments, those unremarkable evenings, are the very best of what life offers. We should make room for more of them, as often as we can.
Fortunately, the culture is beginning to bend back toward these evergreen values. Dinner parties are back. Friends are meeting more often. Mahjong tiles are clicking across kitchen tables. Hobbies are stepping out of exile. Phones are increasingly forgotten, stacked in other rooms.
We are learning how to be with one another again. We’re remembering something we never meant to lose.
Maybe that’s all a portal is, after all. Not a way out, but a way back to each other. 💫
(Dear Sebastian Maniscalco, we might be ready to open our front doors and welcome company into our homes again. 💖)
first + second white horse and crystal mosque images sourced via Sara Shakeel. third image: a mirror selfie sourced from my camera roll 💛
