2025 Reflections

This year, I walked through more grief than I thought I could handle. There were many moments when I was sure I would break. Sometimes I still feel like I might. This was not a year of gentle transition or peaceful endings. It was a year that felt cruel.

I willingly left an ecosystem I loved more dearly than I had ever loved anything. I left a life that had grown thick with meaning and texture. I miss my dog and my old cat Hector with an ache that doesn’t leave. I miss feeding the birds and the squirrels and the neighborhood cats. I miss my wise old oak tree shading my sanctuary backyard. I miss the quiet of my patio, honeysuckle drifting on the breeze. I miss walking into my kitchen and knowing I had an abundance of creative meal choices. I miss the tight fabric of community - coming home to treats left at my door, a thoughtful text from a neighbor, the unspoken duty of watching out for one another. I miss small-town Pennsylvania friendliness: people stopping to help without hesitation, offering a smile, striking up conversation. I miss hosting gatherings and fires and holidays. I miss my hundreds of books. I miss my home arranged exactly as I loved it. I miss being the heartbeat of a home filled with life.

Even arrival offered no mercy. I met a kitten I fell in love with, only to watch him die in my hands a month later. Grief did not pause to let me settle. It layered itself relentlessly, one loss on top of another, until numbness began to feel familiar.

And from the outside, people watch in confusion. They don’t understand why I would choose to leave. They don’t understand why I would give up what I had just to struggle now. That used to hurt more than it does. People aren’t obligated to understand.

What’s difficult to communicate is the relationship between the dream and the grief. From the outside, loss looks like evidence of mistakes. Grief is read as proof that the choice was wrong. What isn’t seen is that the grief was never accidental. It was the known cost of something that mattered enough to pursue anyway. I didn’t choose grief instead of safety. I chose the dream, knowing grief would be the toll.

What is familiar to me is the response. This pushback isn’t new. I’ve seen it every time the stakes were high enough to make people uncomfortable. When I moved across states. When I moved internationally. When I made major financial decisions. The pattern is consistent: the larger the vision, the louder the resistance. The higher the stakes, the stronger the pressure to play smaller.

The concern is usually well-intentioned. When people see someone hurting, they want to relieve the pain. From the sidelines, relief looks like retreat: slow down, pull back, undo what’s been set in motion. That impulse comes from care. But it hinges on a misunderstanding that the dream caused the grief, rather than required it.

The resistance always peaks at the most fragile point: the riskiest, leanest stretch, when there’s the least margin for error and the most at stake. At that moment, concern turns into doubt. And doubt, offered then, doesn’t protect. It drains. At the moment when encouragement and heart is craved most deeply, doubt diverts energy from the focus and resolve success requires. Stopping would not restore what was lost. It would only damage the delicate seedling already budding.

This year taught me to keep my dreams close while they are still taking shape. I am no longer willing to defend or dilute a vision to accommodate others' fears. Explaining something mid-construction invites negotiation rather than understanding. And because this vision did not come cheaply, my commitment to it runs deep.

I've never been more grateful for a partner who can stare down a challenge at the most ruthless moments without looking away or looking for a gentler exit. Some seasons require a small circle and a steady nerve.

There’s a phrase that has carried me through many difficult chapters: If you find yourself in hell, don’t stop. Accelerate. Not recklessly. But deliberately. When you are already in the fire, slowing down doesn’t make you safer. Commitment does. Momentum does. Finishing does.

So I wake up and put one foot in front of the other. Again and again. My stubborn hope carries into 2026, not because this year was kind, but because I'm too much of a force to ever back down. I imagine a future where everyone's nerves can settle, where our dreams takes physical shape, and where this passage of our lives no longer needs defending.