A New Year story about choosing kindness, becoming whole, and learning to be the light.
New Year, New Hope
The bar was still standing when the year finally gave up. Same cracked vinyl stools, same neon sign that buzzed like it was tired of pretending. A few of us stayed past midnight, not because we had nowhere else to go, but because places like this remember who you were when you forgot.
Someone said something about resolutions. Someone else laughed. I stared into my glass and realized how many years I’d spent trying to become what I thought the world needed instead of who I already was.
It turns out becoming yourself isn’t loud. There’s no announcement, no clean before and after. It’s choosing honesty when it costs you comfort. It’s learning when to stay and when to walk away.
It’s forgiving yourself for the years you survived instead of lived.
I watched the bartender pour drinks like he was blessing strangers, one refill at a time. A woman at the end of the bar cried quietly, and no one asked why. They just stayed close. That’s how light works, I think. It doesn’t interrogate the dark. It just shows up.
I asked her if she was okay and for a moment, I believe I gave her hope.
Somewhere between the countdown and the clink of glasses, I understood something simple and terrifying: the world doesn’t need louder opinions or shinier success stories.
It needs people brave enough to be kind when no one is watching.
People willing to become whole so they can help others remember they aren’t broken.
The new year didn’t promise anything. It never does. But it offered a chance, to be gentler, truer, more present.
To stop hiding the parts of ourselves that could save someone else.
I stepped outside as the new year had begun. The street was quiet. The sky didn’t change.
But I did.
This year, I decided, I won’t chase the light.
I’ll be it.
My God, My Music, My Life 