The calendar turns on a year that did not go quietly. We carry the salt of those long months on our skin— the nights where the silence felt too heavy to hold, and the sharp, jagged edges of plans that came undone. We learned that strength isn't always a roar; sometimes it is just the quiet rhythm of breathing when the world feels like it has run out of air. . . But we also carry the warmth of the unexpected. The way the light hit the kitchen table in March, the neighbor who waved when we felt invisible, the laughter that broke through the grief like a sudden rain. We are made of these fragments now— the bruises that turned into callouses, the tears that cleared our vision for what truly matters. . . Now, 2026 stands before us like a fresh fall of snow, untouched and waiting for the weight of our footsteps. Do not ask this year to be perfect; ask it to be kind. Leave the shadows of "what if" at the threshold and walk into the morning with empty, open hands. We have been forged by the cold, it is true, but that is exactly how we learned to recognize the sun.