Ah, January 1st, a rebirth. A return.
That’s how intersection feels to me, a return to myself.
Easy enough, right?
I poured over dictionaries for this word, using my grid notebook to count out each letter, in the hope of finding just the right 10, 11, or 12-letter word/s.
While exploring downtown Denver, I found it, via a mural on the road temporarily named Santa Claus Lane. The painting is fuchsia, golden rod yellow, and cerulean-stripes, all pointing to a center. It’s an intersection, kinda like Dark Side of the Moon‘s prism, but just a slight subversion of primary colors instead. Like me, where I know the rules. And still try to add my own color. That intersection. The mural works by seemingly bending expectations yet still finding order; so do I.
And that’s what I’ll be exploring this year! With intersection as my word for 2026, I’ll post about it on the 10th of every month by following the order (or maybe not?) of how the word is spelled in English. Some ideas are below, with the italicized words representing each letter of intersection:
- January 10th: I – Perhaps this first one will be about my tension between independence, introversion, and/or isolation and how these influence fellowship and extroversion.
- February 10th: N – Right now, I’m looking at needs, wants, and being grateful for it all. This one is very values-driven!
- March 10th: T – Trusting in God’s plan and my own sense of time are on my mind. Likewise, not being afraid to write about time and money. Both are huge currencies in my eyes.
- April 10th: E – Ease and enveloping and environments are considerations.
- And so on through the year.
As you can see, I will be going through intersection letter by letter, often with phrases or comparisons. Such monthly writing is nothing new. For some meta-commentary, I am doing something different in 2026, though. I will also be writing about how my values inform habits, including my 2026 goals, on the 20th of every month. Living a values-driven life includes seeing where values align, how I position myself, and who I support. And acknowledging that changes as I go, grow, learn, and evolve.
I don’t want to write about cliches in intersections. Through exploring intersection(s) as my word for the year, my aim is hold space for (often big life) crossroads and changes.
Values naturally inform other values, but sometimes values feel contradictory or in tension with one another, sometimes because of life stuff. So, my goal is to write on both, so to embrace both change and consistency… see what I did there? That’s an intersection!
As an example, I am a librarian now, but I also have 10 years’ experience in marketing. How do I make space for both, when one is public-serving and another is seemingly commercial? On a physical level, both value storytelling, information sharing via usability, and right place/right time/and perhaps right (Face)book. Similarly, on an emotional level, I’m grateful for both careers; they inform each other.
In all of this, life remains steadfast. I am grateful to be here, writing. 2026 is my 8th year writing on the blog, and it is my 5th time publicly sharing a word/phrase for the year. What a gift! I anticipate deeper dives than my posts about my word for 2025, due in part to the natural reflection of values grant me. I also expect some new ways of thinking about my book, Omit to Commit because there’s honesty in seeing what still holds on via writing about my values. I anticipate healing while moving forward this year.
How about you? Do you set a word for the year? I’d love to see them!