2025

My 2025 Word of the Year

/ Katie / 10 Comments

Before Lucy was born, I worked really hard to set tangible, measurable goals every year. I enjoyed the process, and I enjoyed the results, too. But…life looks very different now. So last year, I started a new practice, and chose a word of the year.

I have friends who’ve done this for a long time. They appreciate it, and it works for them.

It didn’t quite work for me last year.

But, to be fair, last year was very…overwhelming. (In a good way. And in a hard one, too.)

So, we’re trying again!

I thought hard about my word this year. I wanted to choose something that would adequately capture the challenge of living in a new place with a one-year-old and trying to figure out how my needs and the things that I want to accomplish for myself fit into that picture. I came to one conclusion:

That’s what I’m going to do this year.

I’ll explore my new home, and my creative goals, and my writing journey, and my own (scary messy but still somehow organized-ish) mind. My heart, my relationships, my feelings, my anxieties, my fears.

I’m going to make this year a year of glorious, purposeful exploration.

I’m so excited to see what I’ll discover.

Good Morning, Goodbye, Hello, and Hope

/ Katie / 2 Comments

Good morning, New Year’s Eve.

And goodbye, 2024.

What, exactly, should I say about 2024? Perhaps that it was a year of change and challenge, immense joy and incredible fear, deep and new and all-encompassing love, disappointments and expectations and successes and surprises and sleepless nights.

I hope that 2025 is kind to me, and to all of us.

I hope that in the new year, things get better and not worse. I hope my family stays safe and happy and healthy. I hope that love and comfort and peace find the people who need them most, and that all people remember that we have more in common than we think, and more to gain through compassion than through hate.

I hope that this new year brings joy and music and fun and good stories. I hope that the beach becomes home.

I hope that Lucy grows and learns and knows every day how loved and wanted and perfect she is.

I hope that I make good mistakes – the kind that lead to lessons and laughs and not too many consequences – and that I learn, too, and that I create, and that I discover more about myself and who I am as a mom, and as a writer, and as a human. I hope that I can bring those things together in harmony.

I hope.

I hope.

I hope.

That’s what I have. That’s what we all have, always. Hope is undying and eternal and as powerful as we allow it to be.

I choose power. I choose hope.

So, goodbye 2024, and thank you. For everything.

And hello 2025. Let’s work together to make something good.