Shannon Phillips

Usually I kind of try to block out the knowledge of how lucky I am, because in the moments when I’m fully aware, I’m just paralyzed by it. I have a warm and cozy home. I have three loving boys. I have a handsome, kind, devastatingly intelligent husband who has somehow been bespelled into thinking that I’m Venus risen from the foam. I did nothing to deserve everything that’s come to me, and there’s no way I can ever truly be worthy of it. And some part of my brain is always aware that my happy life is built on a foundation of fragile ice—one car accident, one malignant tumor, and we’d all be plunged into the dark and frigid fathomless depths.

I look at what at I have, and I’m grateful. I look at what could be, and I’m afraid. I light candles, I speak words of thanks, because fundamentally I know that I don’t deserve what I have, and at any moment it could all be taken away.

Maybe this is a darker New Year’s benediction than is customary, but it’s how I always feel as the year balances on its finest point. I understand the Aztec urge to sacrifice. The next face of the sun, the extension of blessing, how can it possibly come for free? But it does, or does not, regardless of what we offer up.

I’ll hold my breath. I’ll wish for life and light to continue. I’ll kiss the ones I love.

Happy New Year. I have been blessed, and I give you all what blessing I can.