Happy New Year!

I’ve been trying to figure out what I wanted to say in this post. Or rather, how I wanted to say it. And I think I’ve finally managed to slow my mind down enough to write out my thoughts.

Every year I pick a word that I want my year to encompass. A word that helps me set an intention for the year rather than picking specific new year’s resolutions. My word this year, begrudgingly, is patience.

I chose this word because I keep feeling like I’m trying to rush parts of my life. I want to skip past all the messy middle parts. I don’t want to wait months to get fit. I don’t want to take time out of my day and feeling sore to get there. I don’t want to wait years to fall in love. I don’t want to go on painful dates and have lackluster conversations to get there. I want to skip to the feeling good part. But that’s not how life works. Any of it.

Have you ever heard the saying, if you pray for patience, God will give you opportunities to be patient? Whether it’s true or not, it is essentially saying that patience takes practice. You can’t just suddenly be patient one day. So, when this word popped in my head for 2026 I immediately told myself no. I didn’t want more opportunities to be patient. I didn’t want to be challenged in that way.

I thought I got out of it. I thought I had already previously chosen this word. And I don’t like to repeat words. But as luck would have it, I had not. I thought of any other word that might fit for my upcoming year, but nothing quite seemed to describe the intention I was feeling. And I thought that if I was avoiding this word so much that probably meant it was exactly the word I needed to choose for this year, even if I didn’t want to.

So, my word for 2026 is patience. But it’s not just about being patient with life or with the people around me, although those are all worthy and justified. It’s more so about being patient with myself. With the small moments in my life. To let things breath without rushing through them.

I want to be more active this year. My 30 year old body is feeling the aches and pains of getting older already and I’d like to keep that from getting worse. But that takes time. It won’t happen over night, but it can get better with consistency. I want to be patient with myself through the process and especially on the days I don’t want to do any exercises.

I am actively dating and trying to find the love of my life. I want to be more patient with myself throughout the process. Through every rejection. Through ever mismatch. Through ever dry period without any likes, matches, or dates. I want to let conversations breathe without trying to figure out within the first few messages whether or not we are meant to be together. I want to stop over analyzing every single conversation I have so I can try and avoid getting hurt. I want to be patient with the process. And maybe even allow myself to enjoy it in the meantime.

I refuse to believe that choosing patience means I won’t fall in love this year. That was my fear and worry. That choosing patience and focusing on it for a year meant I would be given the opportunity to be patient for another year as I wait to fall in love. Not that waiting all my life up to this point hasn’t been testing enough for me.

I do think it is challenging enough to be patient with the middle. To let things sit. To sit in the uncomfortable unknown and let go of all expectations. That is my challenge for this year. In all aspects and areas of my life.

I’ve been feeling pretty discouraged around my love life lately. With everything going on in this country and our world it is difficult to feel like looking for love is worth it. That it is worth spending my time on. There is so much I am grateful for in my life and that is going right in my life, it feels silly that I am looking and hoping for love. I’ve literally told people that: I feel silly for wanting this. I feel like such a little girl dreaming about the man she might one day marry. How trivial that seems. How domestic. How much it feels like it goes against my independence.

But tonight, even if it is for a fleeting moment, I started to realize how serious love is. Not in the stiff sense. But in the sense that love is not silly. To want love has never been silly. Our whole existence is based in love. The movies and books and shows and music and poetry and so much more in our own society almost all have love as a foundation. The yearning that used to exist more poignantly that booktok loves to reference. The gospel is founded in love. Love is everywhere. And maybe that’s why I started to take it for granted.

When I say I feel silly for wanting this, it isn’t just any kind of love. I have so much love in my life that I am so incredibly grateful for. If I’ve learned anything by being single all these years it’s that there is more to life than just romantic love. That love thrives in all parts of our life, not just romantically. I needed to learn that. But just because I haven’t experienced romantic love, doesn’t mean I never will. Just because I want this thing I’ve never had, doesn’t mean it’s not worth having. And just because I want to fall in love with a man, doesn’t mean I haven’t already fallen in love with my life and love so many others that I am grateful to have in my life.

It is easier to write off romance for myself than to believe it is still coming. And yes, I recognize I’m still young. But I’m not sure anyone can quite understand the emotional pain you feel wanting something you many never get until you go through it yourself. Hanging onto to an unknown hope. Being patient with it in the middle. That is what is difficult.

But just because something is easier, doesn’t mean that is the path you should take. I will still want to choose that path. I know there will be days that path will be the only thing that gets me through the moment. But I don’t want to go down that path forever. I believe I have this desire for a reason.

Love isn’t fickle and I’ve been a bit of a fool to believe that it was. I labeled romance as silly because that’s what I internalized as a girl. Not from family and friends, but from everything else around me. From romance books being labeled as less than. From becoming a strong independent woman who doesn’t need a man and thought it was crazy to dream about her wedding day. But both can be true.

I can be a strong independent woman who wants a man in her life to share in the ups and downs. I can dream of my wedding day when it brings me more joy than sorrow. I can love reading romance even if some days it hurts to read about something I may never get.

Feminism is all about choice anyways. It has never denounced falling in love with a man, as much as some might choose to believe that. I’m grateful to live in a place where I don’t need a man to survive, but can choose to share my life with one because we are in love and just want to do life together.

Somewhere somehow, though, I started to internalize a message that said that romantic love was passive. That either it happened or didn’t. That it was easier for some than others. That work and life and kids and hobbies and everything else mattered more. But what if it all mattered just as much as the other? What if love mattered more?

Why does it feel so silly to want love? Because there is so much bad in this world? Shouldn’t that make me want it more? Haven’t I been wanting and searching for a life changing kind of love? Don’t I believe that people can impact each others lives? Sure it doesn’t need to be romantically, but it could be.

There’s a bible verse in 1 Corinthians 13 that you may have heard at weddings. It talks about how love is patient and love is kind. That’s the part that is usually read. But at the very end of the chapter in verse 13 it says “and now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

But the greatest of these is love.

I needed that reminder. How could I ever lessen the value of love just because I want something I’m not sure I’m going to be given? How could I have put limits on God’s own love for me for not yet providing something for me I thought I’d have by now?

Love isn’t silly. Wanting to fall in love is the least silly of them all. This isn’t just some bi-product or side hustle or new product I want to buy.

I want this. I want the romance. I want to learn their quirks and what they like and don’t like. I want to learn how to fight in the healthiest way possible. I want to figure out how to share my space with someone else. I want to learn what makes them laugh and how to support them when they need to cry. I want to understand who they are and want to become. I want to adore every messy part of who they are. I want to be known and seen and heard by them even as terrifying as that may sound at this moment.

None of that is silly. All of it is worth searching for. But it takes time. It takes patience. And yes, for me, it probably means shattering my expectations of everything I thought it would look like for me. Especially how it might look to get there.

There will always be something else to worry about. Some dark part of this world will always be uncovered. And yet that doesn’t mean love isn’t worth finding. If anything it means it’s needed and necessary.

Not everyone wants this. Not everyone will get this. I may not even get it. And all of that is ok. I will be ok. We will be ok. But I refuse to settle by telling myself it just isn’t meant to be and that I am silly for trying. Some of the best things worth fighting for were once thought of as silly.

So here is to the year of patience. Not passive patience. But actively seeking the things I want for myself. Unashamed and unabashedly, yet patiently, asking for what I want. Even if, maybe especially if, that thing is love.