what's in a word?

what do i want in 2015?

    i want COLOR! clothing, surroundings, imagination.     i want DANCE! movement, expression, story.     i want LAUGHTER! happiness, relief, well-being.     i want POETRY! imagery, cadence, metaphor.     i want ENERGY! vitality, zest, élan.    

my husband likes this bygone photo of me. he says i look imperious.

and indeed i do. i was full of life and love when this picture was taken, ready to conquer the world.     i'm always preaching about rediscovering one's essence. well, my aim this year is to reconnect with my own.

i want to recapture the essence of that 20-year-old april.

to ignore the aging, and recall the effervescence. to remain carefree, daring, awake, and seek out new adventures.

as i grow older, i refuse to dull. so i chose a word that will help to remind me . . .     when i was a teenager, i hung advertisements from an international brand all over my bedroom walls.

ESPRIT ads represented creativity, identity, effortlessness, authenticity. i was always fascinated with the color, the charisma, the innovation, the energy that exuded from those photographs.

in the company's own words, "this chic celebration of style, culture, and fashion aims to revive customer awareness and take them on a journey of discovery into the inspirational world of esprit."    

and so, my 2015 word revealed . . .

esprit (french): spirit, enthusiasm, wit, liveliness. active mind and spirit.     i'll be lessening the dark trappings of winter, even in the frigid month of january.

i'll be focusing on the luminosity of summer, through internal sunshine and grit.     to further motivate and inspire me daily, i purchased a set of stacking rings. emblazoned with my words of the year from 2011 to 2015. untethered. bold. wave. audacious. esprit.

    i want to feel vibrant, animated, exhilarated. i want to delight in being alive, spontaneously encounter joy. i want to experience a sense of "joie de vivre" with every breath i take.     the evolution of my thoughts, leading to the revolution of my behavior.     in the words of my favorite band OneRepublic: "hope when the moment comes you'll say . . . i, i did it all i, i did it all i owned every second that this world could give i saw so many places the things that i did yeah, with every broken bone i swear i lived."     i choose to live. and i'm already brainstorming about and plotting my first renovation of the new year.

esprit. 2015.

    *******     welcome in 2015 with a transformative journey through my 7 essential elements. a delicious encounter with self. weightless.   [maxbutton id="1"]