Melissa Romo, Author

Dear 2023,

I tried to love you the best I could. But I often complained about you, wished you away, or thought more highly of the ones who came before you or the ones who would come after.

I wasted your days like stacks of unnecessary napkins that will get left on a restaurant table, unused and forgotten.

You bored me. I watched your sun rise and your sun set, each 365 times, mostly too busy for more than a glance when you performed this feat for me.

I put you off. There is a long list of things I wanted to do, could have done, am able to do or would be better off doing…but I did almost none of them. I was waiting for your next day and your next day until a day would come that suited me for these activities, but none did. You did your best, but most of your days didn’t suit me enough. And now I wait for the year that comes after you, with the same meek intention.

I forgot you. Which day was the day a stranger caught my arm and pulled me back from the path of a speeding taxi? Which day was the day my husband’s flight landed safely on the other side of the world? Which day was the day one of my sons didn’t suffer a life-altering fall? Which day was the day? I really can’t remember.

But, dear 2023, you gave me all of them without expecting anything back. Before we part forever, let me just say: I am grateful you were free of conflicts and disasters in the places where I lived and traveled. Many people cannot say that.

I am grateful you were free of serious illness. There are years before you when I could not say that.

I am grateful you were full of births and news of miracles that touched my friends and family. Death abounds, but yet you continued to surprise us with the insistence of life.

Goodbye, darling year. Thanks for all of it, for every whirlwind second and minute, every generous hour and day. I will speak of you fondly, always.

❤🥂