Reflection on 2025 and Thoughts for 2026 -- Word of the Year

 

Each year I take time to reflect on the past year and look towards the new one. I reflect on my word for the year and pick one for the new year. My word for 2025 is hope. I knew with the change of the president I was going to need some hope to survive the year. I will say that our country is in total chaos, but it is not as bad as I worried it would be. It saddens me to see the history he has destroyed with his upgrades but that is for another time. I picked hope for 2025 so I could keep my hope and try to focus on the positive sides of things and the positive that I hoped for. 

The truth is 2025 was a bit of a hard year. At the end of 2024 Hazel had been sick with Covid and then pneumonia in both lungs. When she got back to school in 2025, she hurt herself in dance class. She didn't realize how much of an injury it was until she mentioned it at her physical. My parents' health has been on a decline. My father's Alzheimer's is progressing, and it is often hard to be sure if he truly recognizes us. My mother has had quite a few health issues including issues with her heart. This year she seems to be having more frequent problems and the last one she is not rebounding like she normally does cognitively. She even had to watch her younger sister's funeral by Zoom because she was in rehab to try to learn to walk again after a hospital visit. She was devastated to miss her only sister's funeral but was glad she could at least see it. Throughout it all I have tried to focus on the hope of it all. We knew my mother would not be home for Thanksgiving but hoped she would be home for Christmas. She was not but we were able to spring her for Christmas dinner. She will be returning home this week. We are hoping she will recover completely. It has been a year of hope. 

The other day one of my coworkers asked if anyone made resolutions for the new year. I explained my word of the year and how I picked hope for this year. Several of our coworkers enjoyed my response. I like picking a word of the year rather than making a resolution. Even when I am not focused on my word, I can always come back to it throughout the year, and I definitely feel like I do this each year. It is not the ruined resolution when you make a mistake or give up. I started this tradition in 2019. Here is a list of my words of the year. 

I went to Dollar Tree and bought a small journal with blank pages so I can reflect on my word and make word art with each word. I started it with all the words I have had and as you can see my word for 2026 is joy. 

I picked joy for 2026 for a few reasons. I want to find the joy in every day. I feel like with the chaos and news of school shootings and the Epstein files as well as the renaming and renovations happening in Washington, I need to find something else to focus on and find the little things that truly bring joy to me. Joy is different than being happy. Happiness is felt for a short period of time. Joy is more of a conscious choice and is more spiritual. It lasts longer and can be felt even in times of distress. 

This year joy seems like the best word for me. My aunt who passed away in November is my Aunt Joy. In honor of her I feel it is the right time to focus on finding joy in ordinary things and times. I am hoping I can find joy each and every day and stay in joy even when things get tough. 

To get my focus on joy, I went to Canva.com and made these fun pictures. I literally searched "joy" in the elements to find the pictures. I added the year and joy if it was not part of the picture. Then I added a short quote containing joy. I also went and searched Inspirivity's store on Zazzle. I love her creative and colorful artwork, and she has a line of artwork featuring one word. I ordered a few magnets and cards so I can put beautiful pictures of "joy" everywhere to remind me to focus on finding my joy. I also have Word of the Year Pinterest Board where I pin artwork and quotes I like with my word in it.  I also started my Word of the Year journal where I hope to keep reflections and artwork of each word I do from now on. How do you focus in the new year?