Risk Everything For Joy

Today is our 10th anniversary. I can’t believe it. Time and I never make sense to each other.

10 years ago Saxon and I met at a party at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs. That day I was with my best girlfriend (who ghosted me when I got pregnant. That’s an unsent I’ll share soon!), and we decided together - on a big rock in Joshua Tree - holding our crystals - that this would be the year where we truly live for ourselves and not for others. I started that night, committing to myself so seriously with the mantra in the hotel bathroom mirror: “Do only what feels good, girl. Don’t do it if it doesn’t feel right.”

It was going to be a new year! A new me!

As soon as we got to the party, 26 year old Saxon walked by and said, “Happy new year.” And I said, “Where are you going?” And the rest is history. Happy anniversary, baby.

2025 was about building up Unsent, committing to my writing practice, deepening my relationship to my body, my family, my husband, my mothering. I got on the mic at Listen To Your Mother and shared my story of motherhood and holidays (will share soon!). I shared the power of Unsent on the radio. I am forgetting so much that happened, that I made happen, that happened to me. To us. And then.

We found out our kids school is closing in June. And then it became about deciding to leave Denver. It was about giving ourselves permission to dream and vision about what our life will look like in 2026 before we hunker down and plan (that starts next week!).

From August 26 to Dec 30 I didn’t bleed. I thought I hit menopause. I felt like the sky in Denver - dry, cold, off her rhythm, strained, and refusing to snow down on us. Somehow I was so stressed. I tried so many methods, so many doctors, healers and helpers to help with perimenopause that my body thought I was on birth control - or just refused to snow.

But yesterday it happened! Out of nowhere. At the dinosaur museum, during a wonderful space talk in the outer space exhibit, where the kids and I were reminded we are made of stardust and we are a wild part of existence and we have these human bodies and we are miracles made of science and love and light and space and time.

I cannot tell you how relieved I am to be letting go. 4 months of holding - stagnation, bloating. So bloated in fact, that the older woman at the naked Korean spa asked me if I was pregnant. No, I’m just perimenopausal. “Are you sure? You really look pregnant.” She gets an unsent for sure.

I won’t do resolutions this year, because mine are always the same - forcing myself to finally do what I want and not just go through the motions of life - paint, dance, travel, explore my sexuality, write the book. Maybe it’s not about living life like it’s my last year on earth, but my first!

We will go to nature today and hug our tree at the Lair of the Bear trail. We will tell each other 3 things we love about them, and 3 things we’d like them to work on this year. We might come home from nature and make vision boards. The kids will tell us where they want to travel, and we’ll start to ask the universe for guidance together. We’ll eat sweets. I’ll make my lasagna.

Maybe we’ll have family movie night. Order take out. Watch the ball drop in other countries - countries we may visit next year. Maybe we’ll declutter. I’ll give the cat his medicine since he got attacked by a racoon on Christmas Eve. We’ll be grateful we don’t have the flu anymore. We’ll feel grateful for all we have, and all that’s coming. I’ll call my dad and I’ll good cry, missing my mom on yet another marker of time passing. I’ll burn one of my 13 wishes for the new year. I’ll meditate and clean my altar as the kids draw and read on my bed next to me, receiving all the blessings.

I’ll try to remember what my therapist said during our last session about my anxiety: “You are not going to die on January 1st, Britt.”

I know I’ve never been one of those lucky souls who knows what their purpose is from day one. No one told me who to be. They expected me to look a certain way, act a certain way, want certain things, write thank you notes, say I like presents when I don’t, but there was no forcing of a career or purpose. I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I am a visionary and a community organizer and producer and artist - and these things all co-exist, and these roles manifest in different projects, jobs and roles as I go.

I like to build worlds in my head, in stories, and in real life. I love working with people. I love listening to people’s stories. I love traveling. I love loving my kids. I love music most of all. Are these things my purpose or just my loves? My new favorite movie is Soul - the first time we watched it was after we got married on New Year’s Eve at the courthouse during Covid on Dec 31, 2020. It was a beautiful coincidence that we met on NYE and we got officially married on NYE. Thank you universe!

I cried so hard when we watched Soul with the kids when we got home from the courthouse, but it hit differently last night. It reminded me it’s all about finding your spark - the spark of being alive and enjoying the human experience. That’s really it for me. “Letting the soft part of your body love what it loves.” Allowing myself to love the smell, the taste, the hugs, the tears, the music. Bad Bunny whilst cooking mac n cheese. Yes please! Nothing else is certain.

Except one thing: When people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always had the same answer, since I was 7 years old: “I want to see the whole world and write it all down.”

And so that’s what 2026 is going to be! The dream is the truth.

We’re leaving Denver, taking Unsent, 3rd Act Life Reviews and Saxon’s music on tour, starting in Germany. We are going to world school the kids. And we’re going to see where this adventure takes us. We will trust the path will unfold as we go with lots of planning and even more serendipity. I am so excited to interview elders around the world y’all - it’s about story gathering, listening, recording wisdom. This is so clear to me.

We will risk everything for joy this year. It’s time. I’m good-scared!

If you know of a place we can stay abroad - if you know of a venue where we can host Unsent - if you know an elder who would be open to a 3rd Act Life Review with me - if you know a family who’s home schooled their kiddos - if you have financial resources to offer - if you know of funding opportunities for this kind of work - please reach out.

We are only $500 away from our end of year fundraising goal! If you feel moved, your support will really make a difference. It will confirm we’re on the right path. It will make me so happy. What a gift! You can find out more about our plans and make a donation here. Plus check out our cool new website, thanks so much Nicole!

Here’s to releasing the old, moving towards joy, embracing chaos and discomfort, sending those unsents, using our voices to find them, and going with the flow. And yes, maybe a little painting, dancing and writing along the way. When it feels right.

Love and boom, and all the gratitude to the ancestors.

Britt