2009 Word-of-the-Year: ENLIVEN

Note: December is Word-of-the-Year Month at Christine’s Blog. As we roll into another New Year, each day will feature a new guest author who chose one word as a way of setting intention for her whole year. Today’s guest is Margaret DeRosia. More about Margaret below.

Last New Year’s Eve I was having dinner with my partner and friends in a beautiful Indian restaurant here in Toronto, Canada.  The candles on the table and dim lights made our faces softly glow.  Though the restaurant was crowded, the place felt hushed, intimate.  After dinner, I suggested each of us choose a word to usher in the year with hope and purpose.  Some of them laughed it off, but others grew reflective and suggested possibilities.

It wasn’t my first time choosing a word for the year.  At the start of 2008 I’d chosen “brave”.  Back then I was engaged in a process of healing from long-buried trauma.  Returning to and confronting that past was not easy.  All of me was in flux.  Meditating on and living in bravery steadied me well.

I’m glad I chose “brave”; I needed it.  But by 2009 I wanted a word less stoic and heroic.  A word less about me reacting to and rising above pain.  It was time to let that tiny kernel of joy and excitement I’d recovered – or discovered – come forward.  A word that captured a feeling I could only describe as my heart getting bigger.

So I chose “enliven”.  A verb.  Active.  The quality of making life pleasurable and full.  The feeling of breathing deeply in and out, unencumbered.  It was what I felt that night at the restaurant, enveloped by the love, food, and laughter of my people.  It was time for me to move beyond brave and begin enlivening.

Over the course of 2009 I learned how right my choice was.  I began to act on my insights and deepest desires.  The energy I felt from these actions enlivened me more.  The bravery I’d nurtured the year before grew more instinctive and foundational.

There were losses last year, too.  Some people,uncomfortable with me taking up space and rejecting insecurity, left me.  And I decided to leave a career that for years had been deadening, not enlivening me.

Amid these losses, however, I experienced more beginnings.  Things that stirred new blood and life.  In January I took a novel-writing class and formed a writing group with some of my classmates.  We have continued to meet ever since, workshopping each other’s fledgling novels and charting our writing goals.

Last year I placed writing and dancing at the center of my life.  I started taking care of my body by sleeping and eating better.  Even my home space was enlivened.  This September, my partner and I redesigned our kitchen on a modest budget.  I now have the Frida Kahlo colors I’ve always wished for, colors that will make my kitchen warm and inviting on even the coldest January days.

Each of these steps has been guided partly by my choice of word.  The past years have taught me that I will not live by responding to fears and others’ expectations.  At the end of 2009 I trust myself more.  I feel genuinely free and hopeful for the first time.  In 2010 I won’t seek a new career, but an expansion of my already full and passionate life.

What will my next word be?  I prefer to be spontaneous and let it take shape on December 31st.  My words have been like patient teachers showing me what I already knew.  Like “brave” a year before, I find I no longer need to reflect on “enliven”as a daily guidepost. Now, both simply and complexly, it is embodied in my everyday living.

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Margaret DeRosia is a freelance writer and educator living in Toronto.

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