As the year closes, many of us are reflecting on 2022—the things we did and the things we should’ve done or wanted to do but didn’t. This is going to be a bit of a ramble, but stick with me. I won’t take much of your time.

Morgan Harper Nichols—an artist, poet, and one of my favorite Instagram accounts to randomly pop into my feed—recently shared these words:

Any little space you create to do nothing at all right now matters more than you know.

And they struck me because I’ve been drowning in the bustle. The end-of-year scramble. The tasks at work to complete before the holidays. The schedule organizing and plane ticket buying. The decorating and cleaning and cooking and visiting. Not to mention the diaper changing, snack finding, runny nose wiping, and laundry.

The list continues.

Thankfully, so did Morgan.

Through it all, you are a human being who has made it through so many things and it still matters when you make room to just be (even if it takes time to see it that way).

For me, writing is an important part of making room to “just be.” Whether it’s journalling, posting here, or adding to one of my ongoing writing projects, this act of sitting alone to jot in my notebook or clack at my keyboard is important to who I am. It is a place, a mentality, an act that allows me to be.

Morgan’s words reminded me that this aspect of myself still matters—even in the bustle.

Yes the world is lined with questions, but it is lined with horizon lines and tree lines too—bold reminders at the edges of our current landscape that we must continue making room to rest, to breathe, to be.

I love this. And I needed this. Let me tell you why.

See, I had this goal at the beginning of 2022: to complete a manuscript I’ve been chipping away at for years. I entered this year on fire, determined to finally finish this book, so ready to get it out into the world. I was making amazing headway—until about three months ago.

Now I find myself, two weeks from 2023 and thousands of words (and hundreds of hours) from a completed manuscript.

If I move too quickly, I might easily write off this last year as a fail in the writing realm.

I might easily forget to marvel at the tree line.

Have you ever done that? Stared at the shadowy silhouettes sprouting from the horizon line until you could make out the needles on the branches, the bumps along the trunks, the surprising chinks of negative space between trees where the sunset bursts through in full color?

I highly recommend it.

Those moments of staring, breathing, marveling remind us that each tree contributes to the forest. Each silhouette is an individual and tangible expression of growth and possibility. Each tree holds in its being life and death, dormant leaves and bursting buds, fruit and tender shoots and branches brittle with age and weather. It has roots reaching deep and spreading wide; a canopy providing shade, kissing the ground, and tickling the sky with its uppermost branches. Each tree is deserving of consideration and reflection and appreciation, because without it the forest would cease to exist.

If you’re lost in the metaphor, that’s okay. Go explore. The rest of us will be here when you get back.

It’s easy to get lost in the magnitude of the forest: a landscape of unfinished chapters, incomplete character arcs, saplings incapable of maturing for lack of time and nurturing. I was lost in the fact that my manuscript I’d been so sure would be complete by the end of 2022 is nowhere near finished. I felt that familiar feeling of this book will never be finished.

Until Morgan reminded me to pause. Take a step out of the forest and turn my eyes to the horizon line. To the tree line. To the conversations—hours upon hours of them—that helped put flesh on skeletons I’d been stringing up like lifeless marionettes. To the dozens of pages erased to make room for a stronger plot. To the characters who I’ve spent years molding, listening to, and coaxing into the ones they are now—the characters that one day, a reader will meet on a blind date in a book shop.

When I take a moment to pause and stare at these trees… it doesn’t change the fact that the manuscript is still incomplete. But it does make it impossible to see any aspect of 2022 as a fail.

Very often we critique each other (and ourselves) for “not seeing the forest for the trees.” Don’t give up on your big goals and remember to regularly zoom out for the bird’s eye view—while taking those vital moments of silence to sit, reflect, and marvel at the tree line.

Here’s one way to find the trees in your forest…

Start with a blank sheet of paper and a pen. Write out the twelve months of the year, leaving blank space under each one. Then move through 2022 month by month, thinking on the trials, triumphs, and significant moments of each month. Write them down. Not every month will look the same. Take your time. Move chronologically as if you were reliving each day, or jot as you remember things, bouncing around the calendar.

Once you’re satisfied (or have run out of blank paper), step back. Consider the forest. The dense places. The sparse spaces. Then take a walk through your forest. Marvel at the trees.

PS. I owe knowledge of this activity to my best friend Megan. That’s how I know it’s way more enriching and fun to do with a trusted, dear friend.

PPS. Read more of Morgan Harper Nichols’ insightful words on her blog here.

Have a blessed holiday season (and a Merry Christmas)! May you create space for doing nothing here at the end of 2022, in preparation for all that’s to come in 2023.