Soft Reset
Adiós 2025, Hello 2026
Happy January! Hope you’ve had a chance to decompress and reconnect with yourself.
After an intense fall, I was looking forward to a two-week winter break. Then vacation started with a sore throat, stuffy nose, and body aches. For 48 hours, I languished in bed, binge-watching crime series, first The Beast in Me in English, then Ciudad de Sombras en español, while amassing a mountain of snotty tissues and midlife malaise.
The timing was terrible, but the sudden sickness was not surprising. For months, I had been pushing myself physically, intellectually, and emotionally, too much anxiety and not enough sleep.
Fortunately, the symptoms subsided in time for the holidays. Last year, we celebrated Christmas in North Carolina with Jess’s mom and family and the new year in an RV in Virginia, glamping with goats. This year, we stayed home in New York and celebrated with our son, plus visits with parents, brothers and sister, aunts, uncles, cousins, niece and nephew. Last year, we built sand castles. This year, we played in the snow.
For the final two weeks of 2025, I didn’t wake up before sunrise and drive in the dark to the gym to run or swim. I didn’t take the commuter train from the suburbs to the city or bike downtown to work. I didn’t teach any Spanish or journalism classes. I didn’t chat with any colleagues.
I didn’t socialize with any friends, save one low-key lunch with a kindred spirit.
I didn’t publish any writing online, even as the Internet overflowed with year-end reflections and predictions for the coming year.
All that not-doing felt unfamiliar, unsettling, and necessary.
The absence of an agenda allowed for later bedtimes and wake-ups, chilly walks and hot baths, making meatballs and baking cookies, playing silly games of Moose Match Mayhem and Scrabble Slam.
Free time left more room for reading, like El Cuco de Cristal, a Spanish thriller (and new Netflix series), and Blue Lock, the mega-popular manga about a twisted soccer academy, a Japanese Hunger Games that got me fired up for the 2026 World Cup.
Above all, relaxing at home without incessant activity helped me reconnect with Jess, with our son, and with myself.
Inevitably, I reflected on some highlights of the past year:
Reinventing myself as a Spanish teacher and painting basketball courts in Cuba.
Training for a triathlon and rediscovering a love for running.
Spending fall weekends building a tree house with a woodworker friend and getting an intensive crash course in carpentry.
The common thread seems almost too obvious to name.
For me, many of the most memorable moments of 2025 were the result of practice, reflected in the stories I shared with readers every few weeks: 22 posts across the year.
In May 2024, I launched Swim Practice as a creative project to share the process of preparing to swim across the Hudson River.
Now, 18 months later, my swimming obsession has mellowed and I’ve been sharing other immersive adventures.
So what’s next?
Today, on the last day of winter break, in the first week of the new year, I’m resisting the impulse to declare resolutions, set ambitious goals, or concoct grand plans.
Instead, I’ll just keep practicing and writing. We’ll see what happens.
