Come 2026 with Me

Walking into the new year backwards

I was all prepped to write a great New Year’s post. I don’t remember what it was going to be about, but I feel confident it was something awesome.

Instead, it’s January 8th and I’m not sure how to untangle the last few weeks.

I spent Christmas with my parents and brothers’ families while my kids were with their dad. After all that festive fun — and a moment of silence for the reality that sometimes festive fun isn’t fun when you’re missing someone(s) — I sort of buried myself in my house, turned off social media and the news, and finished a rough draft of my thesis. (Not to interrupt the narrative, but if the people want to know, I’m finishing an MFA in Poetry and my thesis is a collection of prose poems about divorce, kind of.)

Finishing the draft was huge and cool and stuff, but also kind of like asking for a gut punch over and over. Very painful to relive and re-embody. But also important.

With the draft turned in, I got my kids from the airport, and we spent a wild 36 hours pretending it was Christmas. And then at about 2:50 p.m. on Sunday afternoon I was hit with some sort of GI something. It was bad. I’m talking eating spoiled fish at a buffet in Cairo bad. I kept fevering, moving in and out of consciousness, sleeping. Waking up in pools of sweat. Moving into nightmares that left me gasping.

Part of me wonders if finishing the draft started an exorcism. I will ask my therapist and report back.

Anyway, this is all just a backdrop.

Photo by Leonard von Bibra on Unsplash

This morning, I woke up feeling more like myself and did a tentative poke into the news. I wish I had just found a bunch of articles about Taylor Swift’s wedding, instead I got Venezuela, the ICE murder, and another deadly shooting at a church in Salt Lake City.

Was this another feverish haze?

I couldn’t breathe.

More shootings? More international and intentional mess? Was I reading Station 11¹ or something?

Does anyone else feel like they’re a throw-away character in a post-apocalyptic novel?

(Or would this be the novel about the apocalypse?)

I don’t know how to hold the incongruity of me, here, sitting on my couch, next to my little dog, watching my neighbor’s Christmas light flash from red to green to white to red again, feet up on the ottoman, typing to myself, up against the madness going on out there in the world where I can’t see. I feel so powerless, like whatever peace I’m living isn’t earned because so many other people aren’t living it.

What do we do?

Truly, what do we do?

I have no answer.

And I have no idea how writing this helps, except to reach out to anyone else who feels like they’re in a fever dream.

The thing is, I don’t think the bad guys win. And maybe it’s because I watched too much 80s and 90s TV where everything was solved in 30 minutes, plus commercial breaks, or maybe it’s because the hope I carry is stubborn and old and has been through some stuff. I don’t know. But I just don’t think the bad guys win.

And if the bad guys don’t win, it’s probably because there are plenty of good people everywhere.

So, good people, wherever you are, let’s make good things happen. It won’t make any news app’s buzzy headline, but let’s stuff 2026 with as many good things as we can anyway. Like unexpected compliments and warm loaves of bread and walks with friends and planting flowers and just being kind.

I’m going to be kind, 2026, and you can’t stop me.

Photo by Randalyn Hill on Unsplash

1. This is a brilliant book.