Living in the In-Between: Reflections from a Stretching Year

Photo credit: https://www.kittybirdphoto.com/

Some years don’t gently close their chapters.They stretch you—sometimes in opposite directions—before letting you turn the page.

2025 was one of those years for me.

After a much-needed pause, I’ve been slowly returning to the rhythm of reflection, reading the end-of-year posts filling my feeds. Celebrations, lessons learned, aspirations whispered forward. I feel a deep appreciation witnessing how openly people are naming both their growth and their longing.

As I look back, I see a year marked by challenge and alignment.

As a coach, I’m deeply grateful for the continued impact of this work. Reading testimonials and thank-you notes from both new and returning clients has been profoundly grounding. I’m in awe of the courage it takes to pause, turn inward, and work through fears and limiting beliefs. Watching clients step more fully into their leadership and professional potential continues to affirm my purpose in this work.

I also closed my chapter as Community Outreach Director of our local ICF chapter. Leading an extraordinary team over the past two years, we achieved the highest number of service hours in a decade and more than doubled our community partners. I leave that work with pride—and with confidence—knowing it’s now in the capable hands of Wendy Irwin, whose leadership will continue to expand the chapter’s community impact.

As Artistic Director of Leela - An Indian Community Theatre, I collaborated with a brilliant group of creatives to produce an interactive theatre production and a double bill centered on meaningful storytelling. Giving voice and representation to themes drawn from our Indian community’s lived experience felt deeply aligned—art as both mirror and bridge.

And then there’s the role that stretches my heart the most.

As a mom, I witnessed my children meet medical challenges and new school transitions (hello, middle school!) with resilience and bravery that reminded me—daily—what courage looks like in its purest form.

Through all of this, one realization became impossible to ignore:There’s a new version of myself I’m being called to step into.

2025 asked me to question what truly matters for this next chapter of my life.

While many welcome the new year according to the Julian calendar, my internal reset doesn’t arrive until the Lunar New Year. January, for me, lives in the in-between. A liminal space where the old self has been shed, but the new one hasn’t fully arrived.

If you’re here too—uncertain, unformed, or quietly questioning—know this: it’s normal. It’s okay not to have everything mapped out. Our visions don’t follow calendar months. For millennia, we’ve lived by lunar cycles and seasons, not productivity timelines.

So I allow January to remain a season of reflection.

For fellow Stranger Things fans, this space feels a bit like the Upside Down—still, shadowed, unclear—but temporary. A pause in time where imagination, rest, and dreaming quietly take root.

From here, I rest.

From here, I dream.

And yes—from here, I begin to shape what 2026 will become.