How to feel alive.

Last month I went away, alone, to a cabin in the hills. I went to write. To finish a memoir I’ve grappled with for twelve years. I knew it was the last time I’d do major work on it. One final chance to be brave. Honest. Open.

I walked into the cabin with a box of food, some wine, a manuscript and a few hundred comments from my editor.

I walked out four days later with the memoir as good as I’ll ever get it and a different man after digging into things I’d always been too scared to explore fully.

I also walked out with a conflicted feeling I’d not felt before - that this was the best thing I’d ever write, and that in the same breath, I didn’t know if it was any good. I felt euphoric that is was done, but also sad for that. A melancholy that I wouldn’t have access to those heady highs I’d so indulged in when I was alone, and writing, and so very inspired. I didn’t know how to express this to anyone else. It felt silly and self-important.

But just this morning I heard a wonderful (and far more established) artist talk about this same thing:

‘It all feels really alive. The writing of the record is like the thrill ride for me, it’s the scary part. As a songwriter, you always feel like you’re on the brink of your last good idea. I always get depressed and anxious, there are these big highs of ‘this is so surreal, we are making this thing that I’m so excited about and everything’s just fallen completely into place and then there’s these inexplicable lows of fear and anxiety and sadness that the work that gives me life and my sense of purpose, is done for now.’

—Waxahatchee

This feeling - it’s alive. It’s joyful. It’s sad. It’s life.

I hope for such a feeling for you in 2025.

Best,

Aaron