Love...actually?

How a leap of faith and a Scottish witch changed the course of my New Year

The universe is tricksy.

It dangles ideas like cat toys and we jump.

Well…I jump.

Sometimes I’m rewarded with a shiny new adventure. Other times I thud to the ground, claws empty. Sometimes I get the prize, but only after an asses-and-elbows free fall.

Yes, the universe is tricksy, so I shouldn’t be surprised when, in asking for guidance, it cracked its knuckles and had a bit of fun.

The Witches of Insta

As the founding editor of Geezer magazine, promotion is one of my main jobs. This means hacking through the bewildering thicket of social media.

I find Instagram particularly vexing—posts and reels and threads, oy vey!—but in the process of experimenting with the platform, my personal algorithm has taken on a life of its own. Which is why, between the pop psychology and never-ending menopause posts, something or someone will catch my eye.

This was the case on December 22, the winter solstice, when a charming Scottish witch dropped into my feed.

Insta can apparently tell I’m a sucker for an authentic Scottish accent (whenever I try to do one, I sound like Groundskeeper Willie from the Simpsons). It also knows I’m open to a bit of Wiccan influence.

I took the bait and clicked.

Lucky number 13

Her voice, smokey as a single-malt scotch, beckoned me to use the solstice as an opportunity to set an intention for the New Year.

She told me that to do so, I should write 13 wishes, wants, or dreams on small bits of paper. Don’t overthink it, she lilted, her soft, round face warmed by candlelight; just capture whatever comes to heart or mind and jot it down.

As a lifelong overfeeler/underthinker, this was not a problem.

Next, I was to fold the papers up and mix them all together. Then, every evening between now and January 1, I was to burn one without looking at what it said. Each torched offering would convey my request to the universe, thereby allowing me to let go and trust in the fates.

The last remaining bit of paper, lucky number 13, was mine to open on New Year’s Day. This, said the biddy witch, was my own intention to focus on for the year. The most important one. The one I needed to handle on my own.

12 softballs, one hardball

I can’t remember most of what I wrote down. But they were simple aphorisms such as: “ground yourself in yourself,” and “surprise yourself with joy.” Softballs scratched hastily from the top of my head. I mean, how hard is it to surprise yourself with freaking joy?

But there was one that almost stopped my hand as I scrawled. And I would be lying if I said it came out of nowhere. This was the one that set my stomach churning:

“Allow love to take a new form.”

You can guess which paper I unfolded on New Year’s Day.

Ha ha, universe. Very funny.

I wrote it reluctantly because it had become clear a relationship with someone I loved would not be the relationship I envisioned. After a long and protracted jump at the cosmic cat toy, I had hit the ground hard. The twist is that it seems this person will remain in my life.

By writing it down, I set myself up. I subconsciously conjured the toughest challenge I could think of—and the wily universe smacked it right back in my court.

I am now tasked with allowing love to take on a new form.

What does that even mean?

I was up most of last night thinking about this challenge and pondering love in the many ways I have experienced it.

There’s long-term romantic love, threadbare and comfortable. There’s my ever-evolving, eternally consistent love for my son. There’s my low-key drumbeat of love for friends and family. There’s love that ebbs and flows as you shed your skin. There’s white hot love that leaves you singed.

And I wonder: If love is energy, and energy cannot be created or destroyed, what shape will this incarnation take? And am I strong enough to accept it in its new form? Late at night, it’s hard to know. In fact, and I get that this sounds hyperbolic, perhaps learning to accept a love transformed is the greatest, most uniquely human, challenge of all.

The easy thing is to cut bait and run.

To tell the other person to take a flying fuck at the moon. Turn love into a zero sum game where pain and anger call the shots. Transform your grief into armor, your sadness into a sword.

But in my case—and in the case of so many other people who have loved and hurt each other—I think the kinder, wiser, much harder thing is to accept love in its new form, however much it hurts to see the old shape dissipate. By allowing love to change, we make space for it to someday show up better. Maybe in the way it was supposed to from the beginning.

I don’t know. It’s all getting a bit woo-woo. But when a Scottish witch tells you to do something and the universe corroborates, you pay attention.

Consider your advice solicited

“The course of true love never did run smooth.”

This line from A Midsummer Night’s Dream has been rattling around my heart for months. Today I add to it, “Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds” from Sonnet 116. That is to say, true love remains, even in the face of change.

But, friends, as you know, this is easier said than done. And as I enter my mid-fifties, after a lifetime of confidently steering the ship, I find myself a beginner in so many ways.

So consider this an invitation to share your stories and advice. Do you have a love that took you in a direction you never imagined? Or a trick for calming the heart? Please share. Your experience would be deeply appreciated.

I’ll sign off by wishing you a New Year full of love, in whatever form it takes. And may your witchiest of intentions hit the mark in 2026.