Melissa Romo, Author

Dear 2024,

I tried to love you the best I could. But I often complained about you, wished you away, or thought more highly of the ones who came before you or the ones who would come after.

I wasted your days like stacks of unnecessary napkins that will get left on a restaurant table, unused and forgotten.

You bored me. I watched your sun rise and your sun set, each 365 times, mostly too busy for more than a glance when you performed this feat for me.

I put you off. There is a long list of things I wanted to do, could have done, am able to do or would be better off doing…but I did almost none of them. I was waiting for your next day and your next day until a day would come that suited me for these activities, but none did. You did your best, but most of your days didn’t suit me enough. And now I wait for the year that comes after you, with the same meek intention.

I forgot you. Which day was the day a stranger caught my arm and pulled me back from the path of a speeding taxi? Which day was the day my husband’s flight landed safely on the other side of the world? Which day was the day one of my sons didn’t suffer a life-altering fall? Which day was the day? I really can’t remember.

But, dear 2024, you gave me all of them without expecting anything back. Before we part forever, let me just say: I am grateful you were free of conflicts and disasters in the places where I lived and traveled. Many people cannot say that.

I am grateful you were free of serious illness. There are years before you when I could not say that.

I am grateful you were full of births and news of miracles that touched my friends and family. Death abounds, but yet you continued to surprise us with the insistence of life.

Goodbye, darling year. Thanks for all of it, for every whirlwind second and minute, every generous hour and day. I will speak of you fondly, always.

#2025

Happy 19th birthday to our budding architect ! Papa and I love you to pieces! You changed our lives in all the best ways 19 years ago this morning ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Do you relate to Kathy? Tips in today’s newsletter and all month (🔗 in bio) about how to deal with that uncomfortable hybrid and remote work sensation of being forgotten. It’s not you!

From today’s letter —> “Kathy is a manager for a multinational sports equipment maker that is headquartered in the UK. Kathy finds out one day that a meeting has happened with everyone at her level, in her division, but strangely she wasn’t invited. She assumes there must have been a reason. But what? Is an org change coming? Was she going to lose some of her remit or be removed from a high-profile project?”

Do you feel like very little of what you do makes an impact? Do you wish it did, and you could feel that great, impactful energy? A fresh, hot letter is out today on the Showing Up newsletter to help you find MEANING in your distributed team! Link in bio.