To lead and be led... why "Happy New Year" just won't work this year

As I gear up for the Jewish holidays and reflect on a new year ahead, I’ve been trying to simplify some pretty complex emotions… and it’s been tough.

Choosing the RIGHT word is my jam. Simple communication for clients, simple conversations with kids, simple self-talk for myself... When given time and space, I’ll nearly always find the word that fits.

But, naturally, like any fabulous word nerd, I also know the limitations of language. The parameters a so-called “diagnosis” can set on a feeling or concept, without ill-intent. The same way a word can help express, it can minimize other possibilities.

And here, in this dreadful place of mute, I know I’m not the only one struggling.

The new year marks a beginning; A new opportunity for better or at least different. But, inherently, the word beginning means that something has ended. 

If I am happy, you understand I am not sad.

If I am nervous, you understand I am not calm.

If it is the beginning, you understand something has ended.

So, if this year is new, does that make the previous one old? 

That’s the part I’m struggling with. The year has not ended. Our hearts, brains, and memories are stuck in the shock and horror of last year's holidays...emotions as potent as morning breath. And as Rachel Goldberg-Polin shared countless times this year, the trauma "feels as though a truck has been parked on my chest…” In normal circumstances, tragedy starts and ends—the truck hits us and moves on. But for Rachel, and in entirely different ways, the rest of us, the heavy, relentless truckload of trauma continues to sit on our chest.

When will the truck move? It’s been sitting there for a year. 

So, like the truck, I’m stuck too. Sitting in a made-up moment of "newness," thinking of what I hope to gain, learn, teach, and experience this year. Yet, nothing about the past year seems old. Nothing has ended. So I'm not quite sure how to make sense of this forced renewal and am feeling lost as I desperately search for a word that comforts me, rather than lies to me.

————

I return to the Hebrew words themselves for guidance.

Rosh Hashanah, translated as ‘the Head of the Year,’ does not mean beginning, new or happy. It, like the name implies, is the head or the lead. Perhaps, reminding us that in a moment when we all feel stuck and numb - the opportunity to lead has never been greater. Like one at the head does, leading demands that others join. Leading is not for those who seek isolation. Leading is for those who choose a different path with others who do as well.

This is a definition I can work with.

That truck? It hasn’t moved. It’s still there, parked on our chest. But maybe the point isn’t to wait for it to move—it’s to learn how to carry it forward. To lead under interesting, unexpected and impossibly heavy circumstances. 

We may not be shocked anymore but we are stuck. Stuck in fear, sadness. But us stuck people get to be strong people too. And these stuck hero's just need to lead themselves through. We need to lead ourselves through, together.

So, maybe the word I’ll think about during this holiday season is LEAD. Not new. Not beginning. Just the opportunity to lead those around me and the reminder to let others lead me as well. Stuck hero's unite. Better times will come because...they have to.

I will lead myself. I will lead others. And I welcome the opportunity to be led. Happy leading to all the stuck hero's.