Would That I
hello, 2026...
Caution. What I’ve written is saccharine with hope and sappy, flowery language that could never express my feelings properly, no matter how many times I edit or trim them, so I didn’t do either. In a world so full of pain and rage and sadness, I can only look to the opposite of things at this point to inch forward.
That’s why I was scrolling Instagram. I had a purpose I treated like a spiritual quest conducted from my couch. And the algorithm, for once, did its job. It served me a note that said, “I hope your 2026 feels the same as screaming ‘ooh’ at a Hozier concert,” as his voice filled a stadium and the crowd sang Would That I back to him.
Hozier is one of those artists who lifts people from the earth, filling the atmosphere for miles with joy. I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s more spiritual than any church I’ve ever been in. Radiohead does this too. I’ve seen stiff, guarded people slowly loosen until even the guys who thought they were too cool to sing are waving their hands, sharing smiles with strangers they’ll never know the names of between lyrics. It still blows my mind that I experienced that not once but twice in 2025.
On paper, that math does not square.
To say I lived through this year would have been enough. The broken water main. The leaking hatchback on my Volvo. No work. No insurance. No sex. Chipmunks and rats staging a full-scale coup in my house while draining my bank account. I went the way of excess in all things, sometimes by necessity. Sometimes, because I leaned into it. My annoying inability to stop looking for something optimistic in a pile of shit turned the year into too much. Turned me into too much… as always. I wrote every hour I could muster the courage. Planned unplanned experiences. Recorded everything in video, pixels, or words because my memory blurs when emotions come too fast and too big. I imagined bobbing with a helium balloon, hoping not to hit anything sharp before I sank with grace.
For the last four weeks, I’ve been floating around my house with two goals. Finish the third draft of a manuscript1. And figure out how to come back from four months spent living on the road2. I need more time to sort that out, and I’m taking it without my usual apologies or long explanations. I just know my plan is reduction in a world that is simply too much for me. At least for this week.
What I loved most about traveling was living in the moment. Letting things go. But that’s not sustainable. Bills don’t get paid with vibes. I needed it more than I can explain, though. I’ve accepted that I require a steady dopamine drip from inspiration to feel okay. I need relationships that challenge me, support me, and share creativity as often as I need solitude. That means being online for real connections with the Truehearts Collective and my Aloha Writer’s group, and those Insta buddies who share Hozier clips to remind me I’m not alone but leaving before the algorithm takes more than it deserves.
There’s something in that song that isn’t really about the song at all. It’s about wanting something fully, even when you know it might burn you. A kind of devotion that isn’t tidy or efficient, choosing to feel again and again, even when feeling has cost you before. I doubt most people in the crowds are thinking of a fire they’d return to because the alternative is numbness, which just feels worse. Or maybe they are. They come back to the chorus with a growing intensity that could easily combust.
I don’t make resolutions, but I am inherently a goal person. For the last couple of years, my best friend and I have made a list we share at the end, tallying what went right or wrong, or what still counts as progress either way. When I sat down to make my list for 2026, I realized how thick the fog of 2025 still is and probably will be for a while. But I do know the theme of the year ahead is Less.
Less of everything, even if I don’t want that to be true.
I won’t check my phone or likes or YouTube home page as often. I’m happier when I’m not longing for something else. I’m kicking added sugars again. I’m always happier without those. I’ll continue connecting to the inescapable passion that braids music and emotion together. I’ll read books that don’t wallow in sad-girl mode and host dance parties in my living room. At times, I’ll burrow like the mole that comes and goes in my yard, leaving piles of loose soil too big to fit back where they came from. My new mounds will be full of laughter and connection that exist in real life, face to face, feet tapping on the ground.
I have other goals I won’t bore you with, so I’ll just say this. Thank you. Sincerely. For being part of the year that DeRailed. I hope you know you don’t owe anyone a plan. Or an explanation. Or a list of intentions for public approval. You’re allowed privacy and room for your creativity to stretch out. I shared what I could, hoping to connect, and I stepped back when I needed to stay sane and whole. I hope you give yourself that same permission in the new year. And if you’re lucky, find a small community of like-minded people, like we have here, to inject a dose of positivity straight into your bones.
“ooh, ooh…”
Which I’m flying through, 3/4 or the way… seeing the end and its purpose coming together in a whole new way. Very exciting.
The trip, which I’ll write more about, had huge ups and downs that became addictive but also left me feeling jetlagged emotionally. I’m not sure of my home rhythm yet.