What We Carry Forward

January 1, 2026

Standing in my kitchen, looking out the window at the sun coming through the bare trees over the snowy landscape, I glanced over to check the thermometer. It’s the kind with a wire running through the door to a sensor on the deck.

Next to the temperature gauge on the counter, there are several dishes filled with flowers in various stages of drying. Roland collects clippings each year from the flowers in pots on the deck to add to his collection of seeds to plant in the next growing season.

In that moment they struck me, little bowls of hope and promise. I snapped a photo. (see above)

So much of what’s been in my feed the past few days has been about saying goodbye to 2025. Symbolically brushing it off, shaking it off, shedding whatever you need to - like a snake does with its skin - leaving behind what no longer fits.

The things people have said that may have stung and continue to toss and turn in your ears. The things you may have said that you still are wishing you hadn’t. The tightness in your shoulders, the heaviness on your heart. All seeking the promise of new beginnings. The notion that we can move forward without looking back. As if where we’ve been, doesn’t matter.

One tradition we do is opening the back door to let the year that is leaving, leave. Then opening the front door, to let the new one in.

I stood in the doorway last night and welcomed the year like I would any guest. I said, “Do come in from the cold. Welcome. I’m so happy to see you. How was your journey, would you like some slippers?”

On one level it would be nice to let 2025 go. Burn off. Drift away. Clean slate.

And yet like the drying flowers in our kitchen, there were also gifts from 2025 that I intend to carry forward. The seeds planted in me while my mother was dying? Those planted while I struggled at work? Or questioned my parenting. (yes, still.) The seeds of progress I made in taking better care of myself. The friendships I nurtured.

What did you cultivate in 2025 that will serve you well in 2026?

We are not simply “out with the olding, and in the newing.”

We are constant gardeners.

My friend David used to say, “Plant a radish, get a radish.”

Yes, there is a promise within new beginnings, but what about the seeds you’re already carrying?