My birthday falls on the first day of December. The legend of Sara is that I was supposed to be born on what we call Thanksgiving the year I was born, but decided to come nine days later. I jokingly tell people now, because it pays to be honest upfront, “I was born late, will probably die late, and that means I’ll be late to everything else in between.” In other words, don’t expect me early.
I have learned over the years that even when I try to be early, I’m still late. For example, I leave early enough to arrive not just on time, but with some time to relax, but a car accident and/or traffic pushes my arrival 10 minutes late. In one classic moment, I was late due to traffic, got into an argument with the person who I picked up, and then proceeded to get stuck behind a garbage truck on W 18th St in Manhattan, further delaying us by 40 minutes. In that moment, I thought to myself, ha, we were bound to be late no matter what.
I bring this up because the month of December taught me that I’ve been late to myself for some time. I’ve shown up late for myself for the last 10 years, but definitely over the past 3.5 years. I promise to share the rest of the legend of my birth at a later date, by the way.
We are on the 9th day of the new year according to the calendar. I don’t believe in the New Year on January 1st. For some time now, I’ve chosen to celebrate my personal new year on my birthday: December 1st of every year is a new start, a fresh page, and portal to new opportunities and experiences. I also celebrate the Spring Equinox as the true new year, along with a few other cultural new year celebrations in between, Lunar New Year and the Persian New Year.
This is an important detail because a few days after December 1, 2023, my personal new year, I received alarming news. It matched news I had received a month earlier, literally to the day, about my heart, but then seemed incorrect. This time around though, I was referred to a cardiologist, who turned out to be a real pill, and resulted in a full meltdown. I should share that I was overly emotional at this point due to another situation taking place in my body. A situation that I understood as I sat in the Dr.’s office, being connected to my heart. The tears that were falling were a combination of fear, loss, and shame. They were also tears of clarity, determination, and catharsis. All of the lessons and understandings from my three-year herbalist program came rushing back to me.
I won’t get into all the details in this post because that story will come as these posts get written over the course of 2024, but I wanted to center my heart today, as we move further into January because my heart is where my art, writing, and desires reside. It is where my secret sauce starts. Moving forward, everything produced by me and shared with the larger public will involve centering my heart and my health surrounding my heart.
It is rather funny how we can step away from something - a purpose, person, task, goal - and come back to it when the time is right. My heart journey began long before this post, or December 13th for that matter. It started most likely with the first letter I ever wrote. While sorting through my thoughts for next steps in the HeartedS2 and my personal worlds, I keep going back to the first love letter I ever wrote to a boy in high school. (That will be a blog post, I promise!) As I’ve shared on my website, the medicine I created as part of the program I studied herbalism between 2018-2022, Elkheart Alchemy, revolves around the heart - it is all about medicine for opening and healing the heart. My connection to the heart has been long, covering decades at this point. It isn’t new, but it’s time to take my own medicine.
Since December 13th, I’ve been afraid of my heart, and it is time to declare that my heart is not something to be afraid of. Reader, your heart is not something to be afraid of either. The emotions, feelings, and vitals that your heart shares with you are not anything to be afraid of, instead they are signals of discovery, or rediscovery, and direction.
As we got past the Christmas holiday, I decided to travel with my youngest brother to California. I spent New Year’s Eve in Arizona and New Year’s Day on the road between Arizona and California. I spent December 31st ringing in 2024 with one of my closest friends from college and her family. I understood that I was going backwards as part of a fresh start. That the lessons for the future require a visit to the past. In fact, part of the reason I wanted to visit LA was to visit an exhibit at the Getty Villa about the Egyptian Book of the Dead. From death we are reborn. From the past we can move forward. From the old comes the new. Perfect messaging as 2023 ended and 2024 began.
So here I am being careful of my heart. Working to nourish it and my body. To not be afraid of what it wants or needs. To sit with it, reflect on it, love it deeply, and move with it. More importantly, I’ve learned to finally show up for it - to not be late to it or myself anymore. It is incredible to offer it to others, but it has to be offered to myself first in order for it to meaningful be shared and given to others. Love is after all the greatest and hardest thing we do in our lifetime.