When I broke my leg in December 2024, I had just finished making a bunch of plans. My dad and I had spent an hour on the phone that day, mapping out my month-long break from grad school and how many days of it I could spend snowboarding.
The list of plans had other things on it too, things I can’t remember because just a few hours later, everything changed. One wrong step on a snow-covered curb, and I could no longer walk, let alone snowboard. All plans were off.
One day earlier, the plans had started to form but hadn’t yet been cemented. I had so many things I wanted to do over my winter break, but hadn’t yet figured out how to fit them all in.
I was in a therapy session, and my therapist asked me a great question (as she always does):
“When are you going to rest?”
I laughed, knowing her question was exactly what I needed - but did not want - to hear. So I mostly ignored it, and continued figuring out how to fit as much as I could into the next month.
The next day (Friday the 13th, by the way) - broken leg, plans cancelled.
This felt like the universe’s not-funny-at-all way of saying, “Guess you’re gonna rest now, huh??”
In the next couple of weeks, as Christmas and New Year’s passed by, I sat in bed with my leg propped up. Meanwhile, my social media feeds were filled with people celebrating at parties and making bold resolutions.
I started to really appreciate a different type of post that showed up in my algorithm. One that emphasized the slowness of winter, and the unnecessary human desire to “start over” just because last year’s calendar ran out.
There is so much evidence that this is not the way we need to be as humans, which can be seen in 347 screenshots and saved Instagram posts on my phone (that is not an exact number, but it is a lot).
To sum it up and not slow this post down too much (I’m working on slowing down my life, not my sentences), here’s the gist: many animals and flowers hibernate all through the winter, the Lunar New Year isn’t until February 17th, and our calendar used to be based on lunar cycles, including a full 13th month dedicated to resting (indigenous people always know best).
All of this gave me permission to stop thinking of January as the time to become a new version of myself.
If you’re a big New Year’s resolutions person, that is totally fine too! Go you! But at the beginning of 2025, I was grateful to discover this slower approach, because by springtime, I would be healing up and ready to start fresh!
“Haha,” said the universe. By the time spring began, I was getting a double mastectomy.
The fun thing about getting a cancer diagnosis is that people start asking you really awesome questions, like, “what do you think the universe is trying to teach you through this?” (please hear my sarcasm - this is not an awesome question, and definitely not one you should ask someone right after they’ve been diagnosed. But it is a real question multiple people asked me. Yay!)
Trying to answer this question, all I could think of was the same lesson I had already learned when I broke my leg. “I need to slow down, give myself time to rest and be present.”
But I ALREADY LEARNED THAT! At least, I thought I did.
Now, before I go on, I want to make sure this doesn’t come off as me telling anyone that they need to learn anything from their cancer experience. Because cancer sucks, no matter what. You might have some epiphanies during the process, you might learn something new about yourself or the meaning of life, but you also might just be miserable and get through each part of treatment and never want to think about it again. That’s totally valid too.
But for me, this did (annoyingly) feel like the universe was reminding me, once again, to slow down. My next quarter of grad school was supposed to start three days after my surgery. My doctor told me I would probably be able to type on a laptop after just one week, so I would be able to stay in school. But there was something in me that didn’t like her answer - like I wanted her to say, “it’s ok to take time off and just rest.” I didn’t know what I would feel like after getting my boobs ripped out of my body, but I knew I would probably need some time to reflect on it, and in the wise words of Grace Helbig (one of my all-time favorite content creators, who had breast cancer a couple of years ago and became a really supportive human during my own cancer journey), “process what the f*ck just happened.”
Although my body was screaming, “take a break,” I had an impossible time making the decision to take some time off from school (if my family members are reading this - thank you for spending 700 hours on the phone with me that week while I sobbed in hysterical overwhelm). Taking time off meant missing both spring and summer quarters, and I had no idea what I would do for an entire six months.
In a shocking turn of events (aka this will shock no one), those six months ended up being pretty busy. I went on multiple trips, went to events with friends, went through a breakup, and spent most of the rest of the time driving to doctor’s appointments and physical therapy (and also evicting bats from my house - more on that another day). I did spend some of the time moving slowly too, evidenced by the completed cross-stitch and latch-hooking (from Craft Club btw, in case you are a fellow crafty human looking for new hobbies) projects displayed in my house.
Fast-forward to now. It’s 2026, and I’m writing a post about how I believe in starting the new year slowly. So clearly I’ve learned my lesson, right?
I’ve learned it enough to at least check myself (before I actually wreck myself, like I did last year) - with the help of my therapist. In one of my sessions leading up to this year’s winter school break, I was telling her about all of my upcoming plans: Boise for the holidays, then Whistler with my dad, then a family trip to Kauai, all before leaving for Italy at the end of the January to work at the Olympics.
“Where did all of these trips come from?” they asked this time.
This didn’t make me rethink my entire month, but it did at least inspire me to cancel one of those trips (which sadly meant less ski days with my dad)... I do have to admit, I almost added that trip back because I really wanted to go snowboarding… but I resisted! See, growth!
So here’s how I ended 2025 and have, so far, begun 2026. I spent Christmas and New Year’s with my cousins and their kids in Boise. My cousin kept apologizing that all we were doing was being “lazy and boring,” and I kept telling her that that’s exactly what I wanted to do. We watched movies, we went on walks, we crafted. It was the slowness I needed.
For New Year’s, we didn’t have a crazy party. We watched the Stranger Things finale, ate snacks, and I got everyone to play a cheesy game with me (clearly exercising my role as the one who is studying to be a therapist). We all wrote down a few questions about the year on small pieces of paper, put them in a bowl, and took turns drawing out and answering the questions. It was cheesy and fun, and helped me realize that the hardest questions were, “what was the best moment of 2025?” and “what is one thing you’re looking forward to in 2026?” Not because last year sucked and this year will suck too, but because I actually had a lot of great moments last year, and already have multiple things to look forward to this year (I started writing this post while on a plane to Kauai, and I’m now finishing it in Bormio, Italy while reporting at the Olympics!), so I had a hard time picking one.
That said, I was definitely ready to say goodbye to that year. Someone asked me the other day at the doctor’s office if I’m having a hard time remembering to write “2026” on paperwork, instead of “2025.” And in that moment I realized, nope. I haven’t had any trouble with that at all so far. Probably because I was so ready to be done with that frickin’ year.
And so far, 2026 is off to a good start. I have taken 10 bubble baths, gone on many solo walks, and joined a 30-day journaling community and actually stuck with it for most of the month (thank you, Suleika Jaouad). I keep having an urge to do more and move faster, but I’m reminding myself that moving slowly now is what will allow me to do more later.
And if I really do want to become a new, better version of myself this year, that doesn’t happen by deciding to become a new person on January 1st. What feels more true, at least to me, is that I need time to reflect on last year, and time to imagine what I do want to look different in my life. I don’t know how other people make decisions or changes, but for me, if I’m rushing myself, I’ll just feel more overwhelmed and less able to choose what aligns with what I really want.
I also finally got news from my liver doctor that the weird things they saw on my liver are benign adenomas, and while they will require some monitoring, there’s nothing else to be done. So for the first time in over a year, I do not have any upcoming doctor’s appointments for at least a few months. No scans, no surgeries, no waiting for test results. It’s a beautifully anticlimactic ending to the past year.
So now I get to decide what’s next. What I will do with all of the time that I’ve been spending driving to the doctor and ruminating over health issues and test results.
But that’s for the springtime. In the meantime, I’ll be in the bubble bath, writing in my journal. My brand new journal, which, by the way, I dropped IN THE BATHTUB on day two of the new year. So 2026 is really trying to remind me that perfection is overrated. And maybe to slow down and pay attention so I don’t drop anything else in the tub…
The next couple of weeks will be a big test of this for sure, because I am currently reporting at the Olympic Games in Italy. I know, this seems like a ridiculous time to be posting about slowing down… But maybe that’s the point. I need to learn how to find slow moments even when life gets busy. Does my hotel have a bathtub? No. But it does have a nice mountain view, and I could definitely take some moments to meditate on the balcony, or mindfully eat a bowl of pasta, or, I don’t know, just actually get eight hours of sleep each night?
I don’t know if many Olympians are aiming to be the slowest out of the competition. But that is the gold medal I’m going for.
Did you decide to size up?