Here we are, it’s 2025 and the echoes of ‘best … of 2024’ are slowly fading away. I thought about this for a while now – what I take from the year we left behind. It was filled with ups and downs, and close calls too. 

Cruel as they are, the latter ones, serve this one big, important purpose: to cultivate gratitude. 

For what we have, for what we came close to losing but did not, for the time we held our breath fearing that it’s too strong and it might blow all hope away if we let it all out. That’s how fragile it can all be. That’s how powerful what we hold inside. 

And yet. 

Here we are, knowing that we are still somewhat intact, hope restored, perhaps with a few scars, reminders of slivers that happened fast and deep. We are alive to feel it, and alive to know how lucky we are. 

September of 2024 left its print in ways that I will always remember. I remember this quote I read many years ago, which describes motherhood perfectly. “Making the decision to have a child – it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ” (Elizabeth Stone).

It’s true. I’ve been reminded of it many times since my sons were born, and most recently this past fall. My heart, now walking around outside my body for all I know, skipped a few beats due to an event that left but a story, without denting our family togetherness. Gratitude redefined. That kind of stuff takes the wind out of you, and it also pushes your nose close, very close, to where you finally see the fine print you kind of ignored because you had it good. All we have is now, be present. 

A month later after much toiling, I stepped away from social media for what I thought would be two weeks or so. To ponder. Two weeks came and went and I said okay, a month. The month went by and I was not ready. Or willing. I loved the new space where I was simply present, no obligation to translate anything into motivational bits, reels, or nerdy translations (but cool). In the end, I had to say it out loud: I want to be present. All I have is now. All we have is now. 

Time being. Time. Being. Funny how that sounds when you split them apart. 

The ‘now’ we give away too easily, too cheaply and too mindlessly. If daydreaming has been accepted as an attribute of being human and a dream-prone one at that (which can happen to anyone) having the now ripped away from under us by screens and especially the much-mentioned social media doom scroll is another matter. There’s an extra feeling of loss attached to it which I felt I parted with when I stepped away. And a feeling of freedom and of being present, fully. It’s a treat that gets better with each day, with each conversation you settle in fully, with each thought, be it worry, joy or the realization that you’re alive and breathing in the very air your most loved people are too. 

That’s the lesson I walk with into the new year. The simplest of all, the hardest of all. Being present. Fully.