Waking Up is Hard to Do

Wild Daffodil in Tiergarten, Berlin

There’s been a lot of talk lately about February 17th.

Astrologers call it a threshold.

NEW MOON “Ring of Fire” SOLAR ECLIPSE in AQUARIUS + Lunar New Year of the FIRE HORSE

The Lunar New Year, which for many marks the real beginning.

Maybe that’s why so many people weren’t fully invested on January 1st this year. The ritual of resolutions felt… thin. Futile. Almost naive.

How do you make promises to yourself in a time that feels like collective chaos?

How do you set goals when the ground feels unstable?

Maybe we’re not lacking discipline.

Maybe we’re lacking certainty.

There’s something about this new ushering — what many are calling “new beginnings” — that feels inseparable from endings. The two are braided together. Fire and ash.

The Fire Horse energy people speak of feels less like motivation and more like ignition.

And ignition can burn.

For me, this idea of “waking up” isn’t just metaphorical. It is also literal.

In July 2021, I experienced a traumatic brain injury. When your brain is impacted in that way, waking up is no longer casual. It’s no longer automatic. It’s no longer assumed.

Waking up becomes fragile.

Waking up becomes sacred.

Waking up becomes a question mark.

Waking up to the possibility that you might not wake up at all.

Waking up to a life that doesn’t resemble the life you had before.

Waking up to a body that feels unfamiliar.

Waking up to a mind that doesn’t move the way it used to.

This waking up is hard to do.

It’s a small play on that old song — “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do.” And most of us know that breaking up is hard. We’ve felt the tear of separation.

But what about waking up?

Waking up to the present moment.

Waking up day after day.

Waking up to a completely different brain.

Waking up to the fact that I don’t know what clothes I like anymore.

Waking up to the fact that I’m unsure how I want to present myself.

Waking up to the fact that I’m not certain what I’m attracted to.

Waking up to the fact that I don’t fully recognize the body I inhabit.

The sensations.

The rhythms.

Waking up to the question:

Am I getting better?

Waking up to the fear:

Will I ever earn a regular income again?

Waking up to the longing:

Will I ever live in New York City again — in the place I loved?

Will I see my family the way I once did?

I often meet this hardness with humor. Humor has saved me more than once. But humor doesn’t answer the questions.

It softens them.

It doesn’t resolve them.

There is so much not knowing in waking up.

And I suspect I’m not alone in that.

Even beyond injury, many of us are waking up to lives that feel unfamiliar.

Waking up to systems that no longer make sense.

Waking up to relationships shifting.

Waking up to identities dissolving.

Waking up to a world that feels both hyper-aware and deeply disoriented.

There is a deeper awareness emerging — of self, yes — but also of how inseparable the self is from the outside world.

Waking up isn’t just internal. It’s relational.

To wake up is to see.

To see yourself.

To see the world.

To see how they mirror each other.

And seeing is not always comforting.

But here is what I know.

I am waking up.

Even when I don’t recognize it.

Even when it feels slow.

Even when it feels like loss instead of progress.

I am waking up.

Every day.

And waking up is hard to do.

But I am doing it.