365/365.

dear twenty twenty-five,

i’m writing this with the grit you left in my hands & with the resilience that i’m carrying into the new year. you were lightning trapped in glass bottle: beautiful & dangerous — a force to be reckoned with but these words come from a place of pivoting & learning so  please consider this to be an olive branch. you came in like a stampede of wild horses wide open, untamed & completely unafraid. you left the gate open & dared me to follow & so i reached for a saddle & took hold of the reins.

there were quite a few moments that really defined this year: taking a once-in-a-lifetime two-week vacation to visit puerto rico & colorado, visiting los angeles, blue collar fridays, the integration of the teacher crew & my blue collar family, first friday traditions, long distance conversations with my brother in richmond, riding around with my closest friends on backcountry roads to close out the workweek.

you brought a lot of stretching & reshaping this year — the professional challenges that i faced at work this year, growing into my role as an elected official, the ever-growing sociopolitical challenges that we face as a country but i can’t say that all of this was your fault; earlier this year, i received the word ‘strength’ as my guiding word for the year & i had personally chosen the word ‘collapse.’ but from the ashes of this year, there have been some moments of hope & light. this year, i really gravitated to the word community, whether it was serving others or receiving care & next year, i want to dive even deeper into what community means.

so thank you for the memories, the laughs, the lessons & the stories but this is where the road ends for us — no more nightmares of not being enough at work, no more working twice as hard to get half the recognition, no more fighting for seats at tables not set for me. only adventure, creativity, advocacy, exploration & creating better spaces in the world.

so this is my white flag & this is my exodus — farewell & please leave the door wide open for the next chapter.