remembering my "why"
a winter update
I’ve just finished the first round of translations for my poetry book everything in its season. The hardest part is done, woohoo!
One of my favorite parts of this process has been revisiting each piece word by word, remembering the version of me that I was between 2023 and 2025. Even in that short time, so much has changed. I’m reminded that this has always been a goal for me; to not remain stagnant and keep my heart open and help others do the same.
So much of what I write in this book parallels the work that I do with women. “It’s a series of love letters,” I told people at book fairs last year. “For the woman that is learning to love the life she didn’t expect to have.” It’s the book I wrote for the younger version of myself, and honestly, also for the version that of myself that I am today.
The Spanish translation though, is going to have something a bit different from the original. Last year, the week I approved final edits on my book my family lost my cousin Mariana. My heart ached tremendously; she was only thirty-one and left behind her husband and a young son. The duality of what that week was like was hard to process. How do I hold my dreams in the same hands as grief? This loss was a reminder too that ten years prior, our family had lost another cousin- Julito- who was just seventeen at the time.
Knowing that my dad’s family would be reading, I decided to dedicate the book to my cousins and include a poem to honor them specifically. 2025 was such a reminder that our time here is short and we waste so much of it on things that really don’t matter. My cousins are not going to have the privilege of growing older, and that’s a quiet ache that I’ve carried with me for the past year. But it’s also been a reason that has motivated and inspired me to embrace the life I have to the fullest. There is a time for everything; a time to mourn and a time to celebrate, a time to reflect and a time to act. What are we going to do with the time given to us?
This is my why.
I think that is all I will say for today. I am feeling grateful to have completed this goal, and I am grateful for the work that I continue to do with women.
todo en su tiempo will be available for purchase this April. I can’t wait.
Con amor,
Lizzy
everything in its season is available at www.lizzymadrigal.com.