The Year of “Is It Going to Be Okay?”

Mollie
Dec 31, 2025
3 min read

New Year’s Day 2025 started off differently.

I did a Polar Bear Plunge, air temperatures in the low teens, and as shocking as the water was, I had a deep knowing that this year was going to change everything. Every year I choose a word. My word for 2025 was Jump. Looking back, I probably should have renamed it: Is it going to be okay?

By the end of January, my time in corporate America came to an end. I left behind a team I had watched grow through marriages, babies, families, and life. I left a close work friend I talked to every morning and throughout the day. Overnight, my routine disappeared.

For years, I was up at 4:30 a.m., fitting everything into the day. Workouts, work, follow-ups, life, and sprinkling in art, self-care, and adventure. That rhythm came to an abrupt halt.

I knew this day was coming. I had always said I would take one year and do whatever I wanted to do. That included a trip to Hawaii.

Three weeks in, I accepted a role supporting a small business in the healing space. Soon after, I began working with my career coaching organization and was suddenly surrounded by people navigating endings of their own. In between, I spent time with my mentor, started my business, and had many 2:00 a.m. wake-ups, staring at the ceiling, asking: Am I going to be okay?

During this year, I also completed an intensive training in a powerful healing modality. Before I could help others, I had to do the work myself. Everything I knew, titles, roles, beliefs, stories, was dismantled. It was the hardest work I’ve ever done. And I am forever changed.

And just to keep things interesting—my longtime hairdresser went on leave, I found a new stylist, and she changed my part.

The worries were not really about money. They were about who I would be without my job title, my work family, and the structure I had known for 25 years. I was good at corporate life. Raised by parents strong in systems, a social worker and an engineer, I think in processes while also carrying intuition and a deep desire to understand people.

What I did not know was where this would take me. So I made one agreement with myself: For one year, you’re going to explore wherever this leads.

I coached people through massive layoffs, and the theme was always the same: I gave everything to work and look what happened. But it was not victimhood. It was remembering. A remembering that worth was never meant to be measured by performance reviews or rankings. Many had believed their job was proof of who they were. Without that mirror, they had to meet themselves again. I witnessed courage, I saw people at their bottom. I was there to remind them during their own 2:00 a.m. wake-ups that they were going to be okay.

I thought this year would bring endless time. Instead, life still moved quickly. I rushed Christmas cookies. I barely decorated. Routine is comforting. When it is gone, we question who we are. And yet, the phoenix rises.

In the Chinese New Year, this was the Year of the Snake. A year of shedding. Of releasing what no longer serves. And if I am honest, I do not quite know who I am anymore.

The routine of 25 years has fallen away. My days look different. My year has been an unwinding. Along the way, new friendships, teachers, and communities appeared.

The path still is not clear, but I trust my purpose and my vision because vision always finds you. It may not arrive how or when you expect. But when you live aligned with your values, it works out.

The 2:00 a.m. wake-ups happen less now. When they do, I remind myself:

You’re exactly where you should be. Everything is going to work out.

I was reminded recently that the Chinese New Year does not begin until February. Astrologically, your new year begins on your birthday. So maybe I have until May.

And for now, that feels okay.

I chose Jump thinking it meant leaping. What I did not realize is that the real work happens mid-air, when there is no ground beneath you and no clear landing.

It is okay to be between identities.

Between answers.

Between versions of yourself.

I do not know exactly where I am landing.

But I do know this: I jumped. I am still here. And I’m going to be okay.