Epiphany 2021
On the first day of this new year, I allowed a website that I started in 2007 to disappear from the internet. The last time I posted on Fridaville.com was a few years ago, and even though it never had a big following, it was still a wrench to let go of 11 years of content. But I’d been paying a hosting fee for a site I stopped maintaining, and when I decided to let go of it, the decision felt completely right.
I admit I often hang on to things that I’ve outgrown far longer than I should: the website that ceased to be relevant; a favorite pair of jeans I’d never fit into again; and more important, an inflexible version of events in my past that didn’t allow me to see them from anyone else’s view.
I eventually traded my jeans for stretchy velvet leggings, but changing my mind, admitting fault, or reframing old family stories? That isn’t as easy because I confess to being a bit of a control freak--of planning dinner before breakfast is over, of worrying about catastrophes that might never happen, of skipping ahead to the last page of a book to make sure I’ll like the ending. Letting go of the website was a light-bulb moment that I hadn’t anticipated, a realization that I could do this in other parts of my life as well. I could try to quit the outcome of just about everything in the world. My practice this year will be to read one page at a time, to think about dinner when it’s dinner time, and to put tsunamis and the San Andreas Fault firmly to the back of my mind. But I will never, never stop worrying about an invasion of Burmese pythons.
Nikki Hardin is a writer of stories, musings, and memories. Her poetry has been published in Riverteeth Journal. She was the founder and publisher of skirt!, a monthly women’s magazine in Charleston, South Carolina. You can reach her at nikki@thedailynikki.com.