Reclaiming Me

I'm looking back at my Facebook memories for today. So many posts about what a crappy year I had survived and how I hoped the next one would be better. I had no idea just how much worse it could get.

But as I stand at the threshold of 2026, I have no urge to reinvent myself. There is no checklist. No declaration. No pressure to become someone better.

The pain and darkness of 2025 led me back to a version of myself that was hiding. The girl who learned early to shrink, to wait, to protect herself. It was like someone had pushed the pause button and set her off to the side, while the lost and broken version took her place to survive.

The great irony is, that in order to survive this year, I had to find her and find the courage to reclaim that life and that soul that should have always been here.

I had to reclaim her.

Only then could I move forward into my God-given purpose in this life.

I had to go home to myself in order to heal. I had to heal to become the lighthouse God intends for me to be.

What I know today is that I am more myself.

More whole.

More understanding.

More empathetic.

More prepared.

This is the woman I came here to be.

This is where I stop surviving.

This is where I start to live.

The Greatest Gift

This year has changed so much about me, especially how I see the world through a spiritual lens. While I appreciate the traditions most have at Christmas time, I'm all too aware now that Jesus was never meant to be celebrated as a birthday. My soul has the greater understanding that He was meant to be a way to be lived.

So I choose this year, for myself, to focus on why He was born and why it still matters. His essence lies beneath the holiday noise, beneath any institution, beneath the stories layered over Him.

He never asked to be worshipped. He asked to be remembered in how we love. He was sent here as a compass to guide us back to what we already carry within us. He is the teacher sent to teach us that the kingdom of God is within us. Not somewhere distant or external. It is within us every minute of every day.

It's accessible in

how we love,

how we forgive,

how we extend grace,

how we steady in our faith in times of darkness and hopelessness.

There is no physical gift to buy, no race to run or special trail to follow. No cheat code. No trappings of expectations in anything you can see around you.

Christ consciousness isn't something we achieve or buy. It's something we return to every time we choose love...

over fear,

over control,

over the need to know what happens next.

The greatest gift we can give to God, this world, and ourselves is a life lived in alignment. That is the only gift exchange ever divinely intended.

God,

May our gift this season be how we live.

May it be the way we choose to love when fear would be easier.

May it be the grace we extend when judgement feels justified.

May it be the forgiveness we offer, the compassion we practice, the courage we find to trust You even when we do not know what comes next.

May we remember that heaven is not far away. It is within us, awakening each time we love as Jesus showed us.

Let this be our offering.

Let this be our return.

Amen

Love with Courage

Since the moment I found out I was pregnant, I have been completely devoted to my son. Now here we are 17+ years later preparing for him to move back to RI without me. Yes, I said, WITHOUT ME.

Just thinking and typing those words is still jarring to me emotionally. But, I find myself in a unique space of greater understanding now. There are moments, without question, that sting and burn and feel like paper cuts on my heart. As a mother, I'm already grieving for the loss of his daily presence. If I'm completely honest, also for the loss of being his safe place every day.

What I realize now is that it's not a letting go, but more of an expansion. Our hearts aren't being wounded, but are stretching, like a muscle learning what it's capable of.

He needs more independence, new perspectives and a chance to experience himself differently.

I know I don't have to hover to hold him and my love is not bound by distance. He will learn through this that love doesn't disappear when space is created.

That is a gift I can give him. It's a gift Tony has given me. Tony has already shown me that presence is energetic, not geographical. And because of that knowing, I trust that Jack will feel me... steady, loving and present... wherever he is.

I will applaud and support his courage to make this change. I will recognize in myself the courage it takes to find peace in it. And I will trust that we are both divinely guided.