The Lucid Millennial

The Idea

Each month of the year I am going to focus on a different word and concept and spend the month working on really embracing that concept in my life! I have decided to come up with a different decoration scheme/theme to go with each month to help visually represent the shift. Here is my current plan, however this may change as the first year goes on. My hope is that each year my decor collection will grow, and each concept will get easier, and I’ll be more and more excited for each month (the way I currently am for Halloween and Christmas). [month | word/concept | decor theme]

1. January | Growth & Self Improvement | Citrus
2. February | Love & Connection | Red, Hearts, Conversation Bubbles
3. March | Comfort | Cottage Core
4. April | Confidence | Tigers/big cats (this will likely change)
5. May | Beauty | Greek Statue Stuff, Strong Women Art, Purple
6. June | Community | Stars, Night Sky, Space
7. July | Self Love | Pink, Gold, Cherries
8. August | Adventure | Hot Air Balloon, Maps, Travel Stuff
9. September | Improving the World | Globes, green and blue
10. October | Reflection | Skeletons, Mirrors, usual Halloween stuff
11. November | Gratitude | Blue and White Porcelain
12. December | Joy | Christmas Decor

As you may have noticed, where I could I decided to lean into the holiday decor already happening at certain times of year!

How did I get the idea?

Last month, on my 31st birthday, several of my friends got together for lunch at a place that serves Detroit style pizza. Between elections and some work setbacks, it had been a hard week for us all, and it was nice to be able to just get together with people I care about and not have to be cheerful and fake. I’d been having a good morning, but when lunch was over and everyone went their separate ways, I found myself feeling sad and lonely yet again. That has been a pretty heavy theme for me for the last year, so it wasn’t all that surprising, but it was disappointing. 30 was a hard year for me. I cut contact with my narcissistic mother shortly before my 30th birthday, my dad got diagnosed with cancer this past August and I spent a month back home taking care of him, I had rats in my apartment for 2 months straight; it really just felt like the hits kept coming.

I spent the afternoon moping around town in different stores, hoping some retail therapy would improve my mood. It helped a little. All the Christmas decorations made me feel warm and happy and excited for December. Eventually I decided to head back home to do some vision boarding type activities, for the next year of my life. Normally I do this in January, at the beginning of the year, but I really wanted to do everything I could to boost my mood.

When I got home, I started, as one does, with a Pinterest search on “vision boarding.” Looking back through my pins, it looks like I didn’t actually save the one I ended up starting from, but there was a pin that listed roughly 12 different categories. I wrote those categories down on a Bristol board pad I’d purchased at Michaels, and made a little chart for me to write down goals I have for each category.

While I was thinking through my goals, I was pondering a few specific things:

1. Where do I want to be at the end of my 31st year?
2. How do I want to feel at the end of my 31st year?
3. How do I get myself there?

One of the categories was spirituality, and the thing I ended up writing down in that box was “figure this out.” There is a lot of research that talks about how people who have faith in something live longer, happier, and healthier lives, but I have really struggled with my beliefs for quite a few years now. Sometimes I try to lean back into my religious roots, other times I turn to what I like to call “the witchy shit” in an attempt to not take myself too seriously. But while I was staring at “figure this out” in my messy handwriting, I wondered out loud to myself, “what is my problem? Why can’t I just believe?” and that was when it hit me: I just don’t fully believe in God or magic right now, and trying to force myself to, or going the ‘fake it ’till you make it’ route really isn’t working for me either.

One of the ways in which people really draw benefits from faith, I think, is in their daily practices. Whether it be prayer or spell casting, the ability to believe that you can have some influence over your life, or that there is some higher power out there guiding you, and taking time to sit with those things every day really helps people. So with that in mind, I asked myself “what do I believe in?” The answer, I was surprised to find, is people. I believe in people, relationships, and connection.

This hasn’t always been true for me. In fact, I can look back to a fairly recent time in my life when people often felt like the worst part of it. But since I moved away from my childhood home and some toxic family, I have met many wonderful, lovely, caring, supportive people, who have stepped up to support me in ways I didn’t even know I needed.

So with that in mind, I started thinking about ways I could incorporate a daily practice in my life that was human-centric. Having found so much joy in seeing the Christmas decorations earlier that day, I really wanted to do something that could bring that kind of feeling to every month. From there, I used the results of my vision board outline (which included 3 main themes: self love, security, and improved mood) to pick the 12 different words, one for each month of the year!

The Nitty Gritty

So, for each month, for the first year especially, I’ll be curating a collection of decor items that match the theme I’ve picked for the month, and using those as a visual cue to help represent the concept I am supposed to be focusing on in my life. November 2024 was the first month I did this, and I started on the 10th, but part of my goal here is not to push myself or force myself to do something every day that I don’t want to do or don’t have energy for. One of the goals here is essentially recovery from the hard parts of life. So this is supposed to be an easy going thing designed to make me feel good.

For every month, there are a few key things I want to do:

• Decorate to match the theme
• Choose new phone screen background images that either match the theme or really spark the relevant feelings for me
• Use a list of prompts about the topic as conversation starters for building deeper connections with the people around me
• Find different and relevant ways to really embody the concept – self love month will look very different from gratitude month, but might actually have a lot of similarities to comfort month!
• Make both a meal and a dessert that become a traditional part of that month for me every year
• Be kind and gentle with myself
• Refer back to the overall goals to remind myself who I am trying to grow to be

I am really looking forward to sharing this journey with you! I will be posting regularly about how the months are going and my experiences doing this!

Tata~
Meagan <3