February 2026 Intention: Permission to Choose Joy

In what will likely come as a surprise to no one reading here, January went too fast. I spent most of it in a blur of lingering illness and trying to get my arms around so many things happening at work. I finally went back to the doctor after being sick for three weeks, got a different medication, and finally got back to feeling like myself… just in time for the ice storm to hit Dallas. We also witnessed yet another flash point for the United States, which almost seemed surreal because it reminded me of the 2020 flash point when we were all home to watch that, too. Have we learned anything between 2020 and 2026? Probably not as much as most of have hoped. It is strange to coexist in a world that feels exceedingly normal inside my own home and on fire when I open my computer to get some work done for my day job. Everything happening in the world affects my day job.

And so it goes.

January Reflection

Being sick throughout the month of January made it difficult to exercise my intention of reflecting on the people and places that have made our moments so good. There were a lot of really long work days in January. On the days when I had to do the public facing part of my job, I came home exhausted from presentations and would just go to bed. That meant that I had to get up extra early to catch up on the work that I didn’t get done in preparation for the next day. It was a bit of a vicious cycle if I’m being honest. (It also highlights the trade offs and sacrifices that I talked about in January, too. I am where I am because I understand that these two things have to coexist.)

We did take an evening to attend a dinner at our wine storage club. Our facility hosts two events per month, and these function as potluck dinners where people bring dishes and wine to share. It’s an interesting community – filled with people we would never come across in our daily lives. We’re all united by a shared enthusiasm for good wine. Good wine is subjective, and it’s always fun to see what people are excited to share. We haven’t been in a couple months because my schedule has been so busy. Despite that, we felt extraordinarily welcomed when we showed up. We were late because of work, but Tom and I both talked to so many people who were eager to catch up with us. That felt good.

We made it a point to go back to one of our favorite restaurants a few times this month. We know the manager and staff, and they are always excited to see us. It’s nice to be recognized. It’s nice to feel embraced (at home and abroad!). And, it’s nice to enjoy the familiar and the comfortable. It’s BYOB, so sometimes we get to share our wines with the manager – to let her try a little bit of how we spend our time when we’re not home. It’s lovely to share something you love with someone who hasn’t had the opportunity to try it. (Good wine is meant to be shared.) We were able to choose ease and comfort during a month that felt very chaotic some days. These dinners forced us to slow down, have dinner together, and be present in those moments. That felt good.

We will end this month with a Wine Around the World dinner at Fearing’s. These monthly wine paring dinners are something we started doing last winter. It’s a multi-course tasting menu that is a testament to how much we’ve grown in food, wine, and social comfort. It’s definitely a splurge, but it’s always worth it. We’re also having friends over on Friday night for charcuterie in wine. We’re taking advantage of the good moments at home, as much as we do when we’re traveling. That also feels good.

February Intention

I spent most of the iced-in weekend at the end of January taking care of things around the house that I have neglected for one reason or another. I finally cleaned off my desk after months of frustration with not being able to use it. My breaks were used for stretch workouts and strength training that I finally felt well enough to do. Both things felt really good. It gives me a great opportunity to try and reset my home-work life by confining my work to my office, if I choose. It also gives me a space where I can hopefully be creative. (My poor imac is definitely out of space, and I’m trying to fix that… otherwise, it might need an upgrade.)

In between all of these things that I was admittedly doing out of the realization that the avoidance of them was sabotaging my mental state, I was also paying attention to how the people around me were processing what is happening in Minneapolis. For me, it hasn’t just been about the violence – it’s about the reason behind it, the lies being told, and the humans that are being impacted by the overall policies that are being enacted.

And, one of the things that made me sad was seeing how many people felt guilty for trying to find or choose joy amongst their processing of something truly terrible. I have been telling my staff all year that joy is an act of resistance. The world is counting on you to lose joy, to become fatigued, and to stop fighting. Two things can be true – you can mourn the state of the world AND you can find joy in your daily life.

My intention for February is to continue to find joy to sustain myself in the days ahead, of the fights that will inevitably occur because our world is where it is.

The Importance of Finding Joy While Grieving

“You mourn, for it is proper to mourn. But your grief serves you; you do not become a slave to grief. You bid the dead farewell, and you continue.” ― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 10: The Wake

If you don’t believe that part of your sorrow for the world is rooted in grief, you might need to acknowledge that. And in some way, we might all be grieving different things. And, for some of you, this might be the first time that you’re coming face-to-face with grief. Maybe you’re grieving the loss of relationships due to a difference of opinion. Or you’re grieving the loss of understanding the world as you knew it. And maybe you’re just grieving the senseless violence being enacted on regular citizens – it’s not hard to feel empathy and wonder if it could have been you or someone you love now. Either way, it’s an act of grief and you have to make space to process all those feelings.

What I’ve seen in my life is that sometimes, in our grief, we forget that we get to live and we should live. There are times when our grief will call us to act, and we should act in those moments. But, we should also go on, exist, and embrace life. The world (and the dead) demand that of us. After my stepdad passed away in 2015, I was reluctant to take the two trips that he promised me that we could take together (Vienna and Istanbul, if you’re curious) because they were the only places he was sincerely interested in going. When confronted with the idea of taking that first trip to Vienna in spring 2016, I almost said no. I almost said no to planning it. I almost said no to stepping on the train. I almost said no to leaving our hotel room. But in the depths of my grief (which were debilitating in 2016), I knew that wasn’t what he would have wanted for me. He would have wanted me to see the city and find out if he was right about it being the crossroads of European history. (It is, and he would have hated it!)

What We Learned in 2021

That experience made it that much easier to make the trip to Istanbul in 2021. At the time, we were deeply conflicted because the world was in a state of grief due to the pandemic. So many people had opinions about how to approach the world. Many of those opinions came from a place of privilege that didn’t acknowledge that for many people, continued closing and existing in the virtual world was not financially sustainable for individuals across the world. My job required me to be back and in person as early as August 2020. I did this so my staff could stay remote. I have compartmentalized (but not forgotten) the days of double-masking and the fear that came with continued exposure to individuals. I did this to help students and families. There was no question.

I was vaccinated in early 2021 as an essential worker and someone with significant underlying health conditions. After a year of having to pivot my job to protect the jobs of my staff, the constant concern and worry for our students and families, my staff, and my community, I was exhausted. We decided to take the trip because we could do it safely and we felt like the safety measures in place for others were sound.

What we found in Istanbul were humans that were so very glad that we were there. While they had a better safety net built in to their society than we had at home, it wasn’t perfect. People aren’t independently wealthy. People begged us to send more Americans back. People need to pay bills, people need to eat, people are trying to exist. It was a good reminder that the way that so many people experienced the pandemic was rooted in privilege. You can make the arguments that governments should have done better, but that doesn’t change the reality of what people experienced.

When I came home, I realized that the simple act of participating in our world as it existed in that moment was quite political for some people I knew, and it remained so until (at least) 2023. They were grieving the world, but they never stopped to consider that some had to find ways to exist in the world. And sadly, some of those people have yet to find their way out of grieving the world. They’ve given up on joy, and at some point, I realized I could no longer help them try and find that. At some point, I had to let them go because I couldn’t continue to live in a world that didn’t have space for joy.

(My dad would have loved Istanbul, by the way. I grieved his lack of presence there and was often overcome with sadness that we would never experience it together. However, I savored every single moment because that’s what he would have wanted, too.)

Choose Joy

One of my favorite movies growing up was Beaches. I remember seeing it in the theater with my parents. It provided me comfort after my dad died. (My dad died of heart failure, which Hillary’s character experienced in the movie… It gave me some words and knowledge to be able to express myself as a 10-year-old who had lost her dad to heart failure.) It’s one of those movies that has stayed with me for YEARS. There’s a moment where CeCe says to Hillary, “You’re not dead yet. You’re still in the land of the living, so start living as if you are.”

This is your reminder that emotions can co-exist. You do the world a disservice when you wallow in despair. The world needs your creativity, your passion, and YOU to do things in this world. Things don’t get better unless we make the deliberate choice to make them better. Find ways to do that. Choose light instead of darkness. Show up for one another, show up for yourself, and take care of yourself. Choose community over division. Find ways to help others and take care of yourself. Live for yourself and pay tribute to those who have passed on.

Give yourself permission to choose joy.