Continuing my 2025 reflection posts (see my 2025 in writing post here), I wanted to return to last year’s word: balance.
I tend to have two speeds in life, stop and go. Putting things in proportion, making slow and steady progress, rolling the ball a little further up the hill before calling it a day…this is not how I do things. But it is a better way to do them. It is a healthier way. And in 2025, I was often forced to approach life this manner. I was too busy for anything else.
Particularly in the last third of the year, my schedule was jam packed. So I had to be disciplined just to get through the foundational stuff. But I did. I taught all my classes, and I finished drafting one book and editing another. On top of that, I got my kids to their activities and appointments, and I ran a 5K, and I started knitting a pair of socks, and I read steadily, and I baked a lot of bread. And while I could’ve used more slack at times, I generally felt good.
In that vein, my word for 2026 is sustain. I mean this in the sense of “to give nourishment to” but also “to prolong” and “to give hope.” I want to keep making the choices that allow me to meet my obligations, to create, and to thrive. I feel over the writer’s block that ensnared me from 2017-2020. But once something like that has sunk its claws into you, you can always feel its breath over your shoulder, even when you’ve freed yourself. It’s there, lurking. That asshole.
So for next year, I want to think long-term and to make the choices that allow me be in this for the duration. I’m too proud of what I’ve built for anything else.
Emma Barry 