Happy New Year

Who am I when I’m not creating, writing, touring, content-ing, performing?
Who am I when I’m not locked in a goddamn never-ending tango with my ego demanding attention, validation, likes, streams, and all the external things that never actually made me feel whole?

For years, I’ve tried to find my center - that part of myself that knows how to exist without all the things. And every year, I think I’ve found it, only to realize I’ve landed in the exact same place. New clothes, new hair, a new name to perform under—whatever it is, underneath it all, there’s just me and my constant search for wholeness. Maybe that’s what being human actually is: a searching, a longing. But maybe it’s not about finding a result or an object at the end of the search, because really, there is no end. This whole thing - it’s about the hunt.

This year, I finally let go long enough to sink deep into the muck of it all. It’s almost silly when you get it and realize that getting it isn’t something you achieve - it’s something you just allow. Not pushing, not forcing, not defining. Just leaning into whatever the fuck it is and letting it swallow you whole. I’ve always needed a “thing” - a word, a profession, a relationship - something outside myself to define who I am, something to make me feel special, because simply being never felt special enough.

Spending an entire year watching another person become … a person will rattle you. It will force you to shed the people, places, and things that no longer serve you. It will also teach you that the only thing you can actually do—really do—is be. I’m deeply grateful to my daughter for showing me that none of the stuff I once obsessed over or thought I needed ever really actually mattered. It’s okay to want those things. It’s okay to be hungry for them. But did I literally need them to survive? I did not!

I’ve realized all we really need is love (The Beatles were onto something!) and to be seen, like, truly seen. Not the Instagram version of being seen, but being radically seen as a whole self, with all of our ugly, contradictory, and beautiful parts intact.

Next year, I want to return to the things I love in a new way. Not as definitions. Not as proof. Not as a trap in a never-ending feedback loop of comparison. I want to meet them with curiosity. With openness. With a willingness to simply show up. The way I watch my child learn the world - no rushing, no correcting, just witnessing. Nothing to prove, no result to chase, just a life unfolding in real time.

Happy New Year to you and yours.

xo Bethany