2023 Word of the Year: Revenge

I’m very sorry and extremely pleased to report that my word for 2023 will be REVENGE. This is a no-backsies situation, as I’ve already ordered a custom necklace from gorjana with my WOTY engraved on it.

I spent both a lot of time and no time at all landing on revenge as my word of the year. At first, I was planning to repeat insouciance, my 2022 word, as I’ve been insufficiently insouciant this year. But after using “optimism” as a repeat WOTY in 2021 after 2020 panned out not so great, I couldn’t really stomach another repeat. (I mean, you do remember how 2021 turned out?)

My word of the year is usually something you could share in an accountability group or at a goal-setting retreat with little explanation: creativity, balance, freedom, clarity, presence. Those are all words that I’m sure spoke to the old me, whoever that was. This year’s word is for the Winona-Ryder-at-the-end-of-Heathers version of me.

How do I plan to embody revenge in 2023? Disappointingly, there will be no intricate plots to harm those who’ve wronged me, specifically. Instead, I’m taking a holistic approach to revenge, seeking vengeance against the entire universe for three years in a row of utter shit. In 2020, 2021, and 2022, I prepaid for what I will be collecting in 2023: a really fucking great year. If you don’t like me, bad news, you’re about to see some really great shit happen in my life. Jealous of me? That will get worse. Think I’m incompetent or a fraud? Gonna be hard to argue that by the end of 2023. As I tweeted in early 2020, “You can’t control other people’s behavior, but you can make them regret it.” In 2023, I will fulfill that promise. I am taking everything that was owed to me in 2020, 2021, and 2022, but, like, tenfold. I am writing unfathomable shit on my manifestation list, and if it does not flow to me freely through the love of the universe, I will compel it to me like I’m the goddamn Hypnotoad.

In conclusion, I’m so sorry to anyone who’s crossed me. It’s about to hurt.