A new year, after a year that asked a lot

image found on the internet, author unknown

After the turn of the year, I finally felt ready to sit down and write again. Not because everything suddenly feels light, but because the year behind us, heavy as it was, has been carried. Nothing that happened was impossible to bear, yet much of it arrived without warning, and that combination has a way of asking for time, silence and recalibration.

What our home needed most in those last weeks was rest. And yet, our house was full. Full of people we care about deeply, people who showed up with warmth, food, conversation and presence, people who have quietly carried us through the past year simply by being there. That combination of rest and connection turned out to be exactly what we needed. Mentally, we were ready to begin again, to step into the new year without dragging the old one behind us.

When the world interrupts your inner reset

Just as that sense of a new beginning started to settle, the world made itself heard again. On January 3rd, the news of the incursion in Venezuela reached us, and with it came that familiar, unsettling feeling that the ground beneath global order is less solid than we were taught to believe.

You can debate endlessly whether a leader is good or bad, legitimate or illegitimate, and I trust that courts and legal systems will continue to examine those questions carefully. But what struck me most was something else entirely. The rules that are meant to protect people, borders and agreements were not followed. International law, once presented as a safeguard, suddenly felt fragile, almost theoretical. This is the kind of reality you wake up to with a quiet jolt, not dramatic, but deeply sobering.

Living with polarization without becoming it

Moments like these feed polarization. People retreat into camps, slogans replace thinking, fear sharpens opinions until nuance disappears. The danger is not disagreement itself, but the speed with which complexity is flattened into certainty. When that happens, listening stops, and once listening stops, so does any chance of understanding what is actually unfolding.

The real risk of polarization is not that people think differently, but that they stop seeing each other as human. When everything becomes a side to choose, reflection is replaced by reaction, and power fills the vacuum left by dialogue. History shows us where that leads, quietly at first, then all at once.

And yet, there is also a different movement available to us, one that asks for maturity rather than alignment. It asks us to look beyond the immediate outrage, to question what is being framed as inevitable, and to resist the urge to outsource our thinking to the loudest voice in the room.

Answering children’s questions in an uncertain world

At home, these events do not remain abstract. Children ask questions, sometimes directly, sometimes sideways, trying to understand what kind of world they are growing into. The challenge is not to give them answers that sound reassuring, but to offer answers that are honest without being overwhelming.

I find myself choosing language carefully, not to soften reality, but to place it in context. Yes, rules are being tested. Yes, power is often misused. But no, this does not mean that everything collapses at once. It means that we are living in a time that asks for discernment, for the ability to see through narratives, and for the courage to hold complexity without rushing toward fear or cynicism.

What I want them to learn is not who to blame, but how to think. To notice when emotions are being manipulated. To understand that disagreement does not require dehumanization. To see that hope is not found in denying what is happening, but in choosing how we respond to it, both privately and collectively.

Where hope still lives

Hope, for me, does not sit in grand solutions or quick victories. It lives in homes where people make space for rest after a hard year. In conversations that remain open even when the world seems to close ranks. In the willingness to start a new year without pretending the old one didn’t change us.

This is not naïve optimism. It is a quiet, grounded trust that clarity grows where people refuse to give up their capacity to think, feel and stay human at the same time.

This blog is a first drift, a beginning. Not a conclusion, not a statement carved in stone, but a place to stand and look around before moving on.

from a tired mom, moving gently with what is