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There’s a meme going around that says 2025 feels like being awake for surgery. And I’ve never felt anything more deeply in my bones. This year has been one long operation: raw, necessary, and relentless. And there’s no anesthesia left.In my own life, everything shifted at once. My mother-in-law died early in the year. My father died later. My son graduated from high school and then left for a semester in Africa. I stepped away from the company I built and the role that used to define my every day. There were moments when I felt like I was shedding an entire identity, layer by layer; mother, daughter, leader. Meanwhile, the world outside burned hotter and meaner.Every conversation I’ve had lately sounds like a version of the same story. People are losing parents, jobs, faith, patience, direction. They’re rethinking what “success” means. They’re questioning what kind of world their kids are stepping into. Everyone I know is standing in some pile of rubble, trying to figure out what’s worth rebuilding.I keep thinking about how much of this feels designed. Not the deaths or the milestones, but the constant overwhelm, the exhaustion, the chaos. It’s profitable to keep us distracted and divided. It’s easier to sell outrage over nuance. The longer we fight each other, the less we question who benefits from the fighting. While we’re yelling across the aisle, someone else is hoarding the power and the profit. That’s not a conspiracy; that’s capitalism.When I stepped back from my day-to-day role, people asked how it felt. The honest answer? Terrifying and clarifying. I realized how much of my identity had been built on motion: being needed, being busy, being seen. When that stopped, I had to meet myself again. Without the noise. Without the armor. Without the title. It felt like standing naked in a bright light. It also felt like truth.When my parents died, I started to see time differently. There’s no later. There’s only now. I watched my son board a plane for another continent, and I felt every version of motherhood collapse into one moment. Pride, grief, awe, fear. It was a reminder that love and letting go are the same act, just from different angles.So yes, 2025 feels like being awake for surgery. The anesthetic wore off a long time ago. It was really just the illusion of control, the comfort of certainty, the safety of systems that were never built for everyone anyway. We’re awake now. We can feel everything. It hurts. But it also means we have a say in what gets cut away and what gets saved.Here’s what I think this year is asking of us: Stay conscious. Stay human. Don’t hand the wheel to people who profit from your distraction. Don’t numb out. Don’t let algorithms or politicians decide what you care about. Choose curiosity over cynicism. Choose connection over comfort. Choose presence over panic.If we allow ourselves to be anesthetized to what’s happening, it will get worse. But if we stay awake, even when it hurts, even when it scares us, we get to help shape what comes next.And maybe that’s what this surgery is really for. Not to kill something off, or to remove anything altogether, but to make space for what can finally heal right.
Last week, I reposted a hard topic on Instagram. Later that day, a woman I follow sent me a direct message. We are not ‘friends’. We have been around each other in physical spaces, but we don’t really know each other. Her note was calm and kind. And she said she’d unfollowed me because my repost was disturbing. But she decided to reach out to me to explore whether or not the repost was landing in a way I did not intend. I felt defensive for a beat. Then I made tea and reread her note.She shared what she was seeing in her feed. She said some posts in her space downplayed Jewish pain. She said other posts turned fear into words that dehumanized Palestinians. She told me that my post could read like a strawman where she stood. I could see it. Two people. Two feeds. Two very different sets of cues and triggers. None of that makes either person bad. It does make talking harder.I wrote back and thanked her for the care in her note. I told her I heard her. I said I stand against antisemitism and Islamophobia. I said I grieve for Palestinians facing harm. I said I can condemn a government without erasing a people. I also owned what I missed. I could have added context. I could have noticed the gap between our feeds before I hit post.She replied the next day. She led with grace again. She said, no rush. Then she shared a concept she appreciated from Britt Hawthorne’s book - “Urgency is a construct of supremacy.” It made me pause. I can move fast and push hard by default. Her note was a reminder. Care does not sprint. Care slows down so people can breathe and think.Here is what changed in me. I felt the shift from proof to trust. When I sit alone with my screen, social media algorithms tell me what is true. They also decide for me who I should fear. That’s a trap. In real, person-to-person conversation, truth has more room. Pain has more room. Two truths can sit side by side. No one has to shrink to make room for the other. That is not acquiescence. That is what it means to be a grown human.I also saw the cost of silence. When humans feel shame or fear, we pull back. We watch, we scroll, we judge, and we harden. That cycle makes us easy to push around. It makes teams stall and families split. Talking will not fix every harm. Still, talk is the door to any opportunity to fix what is harmful. Policy needs conversation and debate. Trust needs discussion and sometimes compromise. Real change needs people who can hold both pain and hope.After that Instagram exchange, I decided to keep practicing in real life. I reached out to someone I appreciate but usually avoid talking politics with. We met for coffee and compared what each of us had been seeing online. It felt like we were living in two different countries. Our feeds were telling two different stories, each one edited to make the other side look cruel or blind. Seeing it side by side was sobering. We didn’t solve anything with that meeting, but we remembered that real connection is bigger than our algorithms. We both left that table a bit lighter.That divide isn’t random. It’s intentional. These platforms profit from our outrage, and politicians feed on our fear. Every click, every share, every argument keeps us busy fighting each other instead of noticing who’s holding the real power. When we stop talking to each other, that system wins. When we start talking again with curiosity, care, and humility, we make at least some progress. We remember who we are: we’re not opposing sides. We’re not avatars or labels. Just people who, at the end of the day, actually need each other.The woman who reached out to me had unfollowed me first. Then she came back. She wanted to understand before she judged, and she asked me to do the same. That choice, her choice, changed me. It reminded me that courage isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s a quiet message that says, “Can we talk?” That small act of grace reopened something big. It reminded me that connection isn’t just nice, it’s survival. And if enough of us do what she did, reach out, stay curious, and come back to the conversation, we might just remember that we belong to each other after all.
October is LGBTQ+ History Month: a time to remember that our families are history-makers. Every protest, every dinner table, every open-door act of love adds up to the movement that got us here. While politicians and school boards are working overtime to erase our stories, Family Equality is doing the opposite: protecting them, amplifying them, and making sure future generations know where they come from.
This work means a lot to me. I’ve served on the board of Family Equality for 15 years because I believe that every family deserves safety, dignity, and joy, no matter how it’s built or who’s in it. I’ve seen up close how this organization changes lives: helping families find community, challenging discrimination in schools and courts, and preserving the stories that show we’ve always been here.
This year marks Family Equality’s 45th anniversary; forty-five years of building belonging and fighting for equality. If you believe, like I do, that visibility is power and that love is legacy, I hope you’ll support their work.
Please make a donation to Family Equality and help keep our history and our families thriving.
Layoffs are hitting hard again . Locally at companies like Target, Amazon, Cargill - but it's all across industries. SNAP benefits are drying up, the government is at a standstill, and healthcare costs are about to soar. The stress is rising fast, and for many people, it’s going to get rough before it gets better. So let’s remember what Mister Rogers taught decades ago: look for the helpers. And more than that: be one. Open your calendar for coffee with someone who’s struggling. Offer advice. Donate to a food shelf. Sponsor a family’s holiday. Organize a drive at work. Big or small, it all matters. If you can do something, do it now. The world doesn’t fix itself. We do, together.
The photo above shows my son in Tanzania, walking to the bathroom at his campsite when he found himself face-to-face with an elephant. (Only my kid, right?) Even in a year full of loss, fear, and change, there are still moments like this; unexpected, wild, full of wonder. Seeing him out in the world, standing a few feet from my favorite animal, reminded me that joy still sneaks in. It shows up in the middle of everything hard, if we leave the door open for it.
Whatever chaos you’re facing, I hope you get a flash of that same joy this week. A small, impossible, heart-thumping reminder that the world is still breathtaking, and that we’re still here to see it.
I'll be doing a set of private corporate events between now and the end of the year! If we end up in the same room - please say hello!"Today, if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other".
-Mother Theresa
