There’s nothing like spring to make us feel hopeful.
It feels like a fitting time to slowly, hopefully, be emerging in some ways from this pandemic year. If anything, I’m ready for warm-weather hikes with my family and sunshine-y outdoor catch-ups with my friends.
And I’m absolutely not rushing back to the frantic busyness that seemed to define life pre-Covid. This clarity — of recognizing what we’re wholeheartedly missing and what isn’t essential to us, of knowing what truly matters and having the courage to live it out and let other things go — is such a gift.
I don’t know about you, but I have no more room for filler, for things that don’t align or fulfill and that I used to say yes to for the wrong reasons. And I’m more cognizant than ever of how finite our energy and time are, and how we need to spend them wisely.
I hope this awareness leads to decisions — both yesses and nos — that add up to happy, good and joy-filled days. Ones that feel true and bright and right, and hopeful like spring.
– Katie Vaughn
Katie Vaughn is the editor and co-founder of Northerly. She is a University of Wisconsin-Madison and Stanford University-trained journalist with experience as a writer, reporter, editor, blogger and author. She lives in Madison with her husband, daughter and son, and is always up for an adventure.