As the clock struck midnight last night, I felt a wave of emotion I didn’t expect. Relief came first. 2025 was finally over. It had been a difficult year, one that asked more of me than I often felt I had to give. And yet, sitting on my couch with friends nearby, I found myself revisiting a gentle highlight reel in my heart, remembering that even the hardest years carry moments of tenderness.
There were bright spots worth holding onto. Rachel graduating from university and earning her degree in Interior Design. Rich and I marking our 30th wedding anniversary with a trip to Tobermory and the Bruce Peninsula, surrounded by the kind of beauty that slows you down and reminds you to breathe. I quit my toxic job that had left me depleted and s*icidal and then stepped into a new role that has brought meaning and purpose back into my days.
These moments matter. They are proof that growth and joy can exist alongside struggle.
Still, as the year turned, the heaviest emotion wasn’t about what had passed, it was about what lies ahead. There is an awful ache in knowing that every hour in the coming days are among the most difficult I have faced.
As I hold this special key charm close, a charm my mom has worn around her neck for years—I feel its weight differently now. In this moment, it feels less like a piece of jewelry and more like a prayer. Holding it, I feel a quiet, unrushed kind of faith. The key carries what remains sacred and unresolved: grief, memory, and love that cannot be neatly contained. The key feels spiritual, not something meant to force doors open, but something meant to be trusted. A reminder that time is not mine to control, and that some doors open only when the soul is ready, in ways beyond what I can see or ever understand.
There’s a myth that a new year resets us. But grief doesn’t follow a calendar. Sometimes a new year simply finds us still standing in the middle of something tender and unfinished.
As I step into 2026, I do so gently, with honesty and softness. For now, I am choosing presence over certainty, and trust over control, showing up one hour, and one day, at a time.
#trust #faith #spirituality #grief #presence #uncertainty #newyearsday #mentalhealth #onedayatatime #holdingon #brightspots #softness #honesty #youareenough #itsoktonotbeok #emotions
YouAreEnough 