My Choices Reflect My Hopes, Not My Fears

Almost two years ago — though it feels like a lifetime — I created a vision board. It wasn’t a half-hearted exercise. It was intentional, deliberate, and deeply considered. What’s striking is that the images and ideas I chose then still represent my vision today.

For a significant part of my life, I was living in an environment where I was exposed to small doses of something toxic — odorless, invisible, yet lethal enough to cause real harm. I lost parts of myself without fully realizing it. It wasn’t until I finally stepped into fresh air that I understood the truth: I had been a walking, functioning version of the living dead.

When I began to breathe again, something shifted. My moments slowly moved from deep sadness toward peace, calm, and even happiness. I began believing again. Trusting again.

That vision board reflects the beauty I want in my life — the values, the feelings, the way I want to move through the world.

But sometime over the past year, I drifted. I veered toward what was comfortable. Very comfortable. And I’ve long known that this kind of comfort is my poison. Not comfort in things or places, but comfort as a mindset — familiar, predictable, and quietly limiting.

I’ve always experienced myself as someone who feels deeply and sees beneath the costume — beyond what the naked eye and ear can perceive. Somewhere along the way, I let my guard down. I let my hopes shape my reality, and in doing so, I opened my heart to hurt and betrayal — at varying depths.

A seemingly small moment — a causal thumbs-up to a “good, the cat’s out of the bag” comment — served as a wake-up call. The hurt landed, even if it landed differently than before. Still, the messages were/are clear.

As I prepare to close out 2025 and look toward 2026 — something I’ve never done this intentionally, after spending so long in survival mode — I find myself reflecting on lyrics that have stayed with me: “How to find the sunshine in the shadow. For so long I was walking around with my eyes closed. I see how beautiful this life is, full of wonder and surprises.”

2025 is the Year of the Snake. Year 9. A year of massive shedding.

Shedding what no longer serves me.

Shedding those who don’t — or can’t — care for my heart.

Shedding sadness and old hurt.

Shedding, shedding, shedding — with just a touch of fuck you mixed in.

Earlier this week, I received a message that felt uncannily aligned:

2025: The Great Dress Rehearsal.

A year of living between worlds — one foot in the familiar, the other tentatively reaching toward something not yet fully named. The future called, but the universe kept pulling you back, asking you to finish unfinished business, to grieve what was ending, and to release what you had outgrown. It may have felt disorienting, but transitions always do.

This year has been a mixed bag. And yet, I feel nothing but gratitude — for all of it. I am humbled. Hollowed. Deeply appreciative.

So I think I’ll change just one thing on my vision board for 2026.

My choices reflect my hopes — my truth — not my fears 💫