It’s a new year.
Welcome, 2026. Where have you been my whole life?!
Turning the page.
New mercies every morning.
A clean slate.
There is something so alluring and crave-worthy about starting a’fresh.
This year want to…
stay the course.
finish what I start.
check all the boxes.
What I don’t want is to…
fall off the wagon.
lose my direction.
revert back to old habits.
Am I setting myself up for disappointment?
Probably.
Am I being unrealistic in wanting this year to find me different?
Maybe.
But, none-the-less, here I am.
Fingers to keyboard.
Hoping for something adhesive to happen.
Listening to some good 90’s music today whilst being chauffeured by my youngest adult man son, I was delighted to hear old familiar artists crooning through the speakers, one after the other, whom seemed more like old friends…
Sugar Ray (did I really let my then 6-year-old oldest adult man son sing along to “Every Morning” on the drive to his elementary school on the regular? you bet I did. I just didn’t know better.)
Barenaked Ladies (has it really been one week since you looked at me?)
Del Amitri (Look around your world,pretty baby, I still know every.single.word to “Roll With Me”)
THEN, Semisonic. If there could be one song to define an era in the life of me-as-a-young-adult, it would be this one-hit wonder, “Closing Time”. I smiled to myself as I glanced away from my driving son out the right passenger window. “Closing Time”. How many times did the DJ queue that it was time to stop dancing and head home?! I quit singing the lyrics and began listening to them with now-grown-up-ears. That’s when I heard it.
I’ve been trying to put my finger on what this new year is to be for me.
I’m so tired. Aren’t you?
2025 hit me with a bunch of hooks and jabs that have left me feeling flat out beat up. Bruised to the core. And I want a gentler 2026. I exited ’25 with a paranoia of what’s around the corner…a feeling of defeat…a thirst for something more, something different, something simple.
It seems ole’ Semisonic’s words of wisdom were exactly what I needed to hear today, from the passenger seat of my Subaru:
“Every New Beginning…Comes From Some Other Beginning’s End”
Did you catch that?
Today marks a new beginning.
It is gifted to me from the end of last year’s beginning.
Oh boy! The joy found from listening to a 1998 song! Does Semisonic know the power of those words!?
Immediately my head started compiling a list of things that came on the heels of some other beginning’s end. Not all are praise-worthy, but there are many, many good turns that have come as the result of certain things ending.
2025 was hard. There were a lot of trials and obstacles that were unexpected. Some things just took the wind right out of my sails. But I realize today that with a new year, those hard things of 2025 are now behind me and looking forward, I’m excited to see every new beginning birthed from some other beginning’s end. I’m looking for the good – expecting the good! – and taking 2026 as it comes, one day at a time, one foot in front of the other.
the toenail 