Did you catch all those Ms in the title? My brain is apparently ready to move on to 2026 and my next letter (though I don’t anticipate any of those Ms being a theme choice), but they also relate to how focusing on things I love has kept me from writing as much this year…

Marginalia is one of my favorite poems. in it, Billy Collins writes:

and I cannot tell you
how vastly my loneliness was deepened,
how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,
when I found on one page

a few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil–
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet–
“Pardon the egg salad stains, but I’m in love.”

I don’t eat egg salad, and you can’t stain a web page (this poem really speaks to why I still buy physical books when I really love them…) but what I’ve thought about writing each time I know I should approach a blog post is “pardon the delay. but I’m in love.”

I am so used to keeping busy, to setting myself sometimes arbitrary goals and tasks… and the second half of this year has veered toward the really hard work of letting myself just be, of giving myself the time to re-evaluate and let go of some things I was committed to, and rediscovering so much of what I love (running far, acting, just sitting and watching a movie with my kids.) Things feel really hard right now, and to be completely transparent, I don’t have or want to give the brainpower to things that aren’t helping my mental health or my family, and recently that’s included this blog. I LOVE this chronicle of these years of parenting though, and I’m not ready to let go of it. I just have to take the next month to re-evaluate what that looks like. So This is likely my last post for the year. I’m ready to move on. I’ve read over 54 books this year and tackled some hard life questions so there’s been plenty of learning. I’ve already talked about how “less” looks very different but has certainly come to pass- the deepening and narrowing of my focus. I’ve looked at the world in wonder and while that has shown up more on my instagram page than here, I feel like I’ve documented so much of the little and big things I’ve noticed. And so I’m going to give myself a pass on a post for December (just like I did for October… and August…) and just enjoy time with my loves as I try to navigate the holiday chaos and focus on what touches my heart about Advent and Christmas.

I’ll be back in January with an update no matter what I decide the blogging part of my life is going to look like in 2026. Lots of love in the meantime… I honestly can’t believe my posts get as many readers/visitors to this site in the year 2025 when blogs are SO out of date so, thank you for continuing to give me any of your time and attention. Especially during this very inconsistent year. It means a lot.