Is it unfair that my husband feels in the prime of his life while I'm creaking around in an unfamiliar and ancient body? Heck yes. But upon reflection, I'll take it. My body might at times feel like it's 90, but inside I feel 35 - ready to learn, ready to share, ready to soak up the joys of life that are always sparkling within “the rest of it” – and that is really all that matters.
My first real trip was a sprint through Europe. I've learned over time that a more leisurely pace allows my travels to change me - which is all to say that the old adage might be right. It's not the destination but the journey itself that matters.
I hate messing up. I hate it even more when I "get caught" making a mistake. I hate it most of all when my mistakes splash on others. Yet making mistakes seems to be an essential part of the human journey. In fact, mistakes are not obstacles on our journey to becoming good people. They ARE the journey to becoming better people.
My daughter planned a ski weekend for her birthday and we were thrilled to be invited. Yet I wimped out and chose not to go skiing. When I made my choice, I thought my fear of falling and hurting myself was keeping me safe - but it was really holding me back. Now that I understand this, I have to figure out how to choose differently next time.
Resilience is not about going back to the way we were before. It’s about moving forward as the person you’ve become because you’ve navigated something difficult and allowed it to form you into someone new, someone a touch wiser, someone slightly more evolved, someone filled with a little more humility and a little less fear.
Happy New Year! This year a single word is my New Year’s resolution, my intention for 2026, and my word of the year. The word is YES. You could say I came to this resolution the hard way and I'm grateful that I did. After years of challenging, painful, and scary life events, I have learned that these events themselves are not what causes me the most suffering. What sucks the life out of everything is my resistance to what is happening. So, mostly because I have learned the hard way that NO cripples the soul, I am all in as I greet this new year with a resounding YES.
Several months ago, after flipping through an old family photo album, a friend looked at me and asked, "What happened to you?" I won't lie. His joke stung. But do you remember the old story, The Velveteen Rabbit? Like that little toy rabbit, what happened to me is that I became "real" or loved. From that perspective, I hope life keeps showing up on my face for years and years to come.
We all have them - moments that forever demarcate before and after. In these defining moments, we have a choice. We can cling to what was - working desperately to get back to normal. Or we can choose to be curious - wondering about the possibilities of what lies ahead. It is a choice that will make all the difference in the way we experience our lives.
I love laughing and expect you do too. But did you know that laughing is more than just good fun? It can instantly sooth your worries and make you a better learner too.