2026: The Year I Learned What Alignment Feels Like

For the last six years, I’ve chosen a word to guide my year. First starting during the pandemic, the thought was to use a word to anchor myself and as something to pay attention to. Last year, my word was BUILD, and it carried me through a season of becoming: dismantling, reconstructing, and learning what I’m actually made of.

This year, my word was ALIGN.

And alignment, I learned, is not a soft process (cries in millennial). It doesn’t arrive neatly or wait for the right moment. It shows up in the places where you’ve been stretching yourself thin, the feelings you’ve been ignoring, and when the life you’re living starts drifting from the life you said you wanted.

ALIGN asked me to stop forcing things. It asked me to stop negotiating with myself. It asked me to tell the truth — even when that truth was inconvenient. And boy, was it ever inconvenient.

And so, 2026 became the year I learned what it feels like to live in alignment with myself.

ALIGNING WITH MYSELF

This year, alignment looked like choosing myself in small but foundational ways.

It looked like starting Wander Wednesdays — a night carved out just for me. A night where I wasn’t a wife or a mother. A night where I could wander, explore, breathe, and remember who I am outside of my roles. It had me asking myself "what do I actually like to do" and building that practice into my weekly routine. If you’re a mom, I highly recommend it!

It looked like attending a Women’s Conference at the LifeCentre in the morning and a RuPaul’s Drag Race show "War on the Catwalk" that same night — finding community in two completely different spaces, and realizing that my duality isn’t something to fix. It’s something that makes me unique and why I’m able to find common ground with almost everyone I meet.

It looked like trying my first Reformer Pilates class, feeling awkward and strong at the same time, and noticing how alignment often begins in the body before it reaches the mind. If you’ve never tried it, what are you waiting for?!

It looked like setting boundaries when Chris’ brother visited — choosing not to travel to Toronto with them for a day trip, not out of conflict, but out of respect for my own capacity. And it looked like discovering that I am actually a Cancer rising — a quiet shift that changed how I understand myself. This is your sign to contact the hospital you were born at for your own birth records so you know the time you were born (#iykyk). Suddenly, the parts of me that crave home, softness, nurturing, and emotional truth made sense. The way I protect my people. The way I feel things deeply. The way I move through the world with intuition first. ALIGN asked me to honour that version of myself instead of trying to operate from an identity that wasn’t really me.

ALIGN taught me that choosing myself doesn’t mean choosing against others. It means choosing my truth over performing what others expect of me. If you’re a woman reading this, I know this is not our default but it’s so important. Just like they say, you can’t pour from an empty cup.

ALIGNING WITH FAMILY

Family life this year was full of moments that reminded me what alignment actually feels like in practice.

We celebrated Lina’s birthday in our new home, a milestone that felt like a deep exhale after everything it took to get here (that alone could be a blog post in itself but I’ll spare you all the drama).

We went to high tea with my mom and Lina and I watched them experience something new together. Three generations at one table, sharing something simple and special. My heart was so full.

We took our first international family trip to Costa Rica (thirty of us — aunts, uncles, cousins and my mom)! This trip let Lina experience the world in a way that I did at her age (surrounded by family — granted much more glamorous with an all inclusive trip down south). That trip felt like alignment with the kind of childhood I want her to have: expansive, joyful, safe, and surrounded by family.

Now that we live closer to her school, I got to drop her off and pick her up most days. Those moments of us walking to and from school, her hand in mine, her stories spilling out, became the best part of my day. Alignment sometimes looks like proximity.

I created scavenger hunts for her, watching her excitement as she solved each clue. It reminded me that motherhood, in alignment, is not about doing everything. It’s about doing the things that feel true to both of us.

We celebrated Logan graduating from Algonquin, watching him step into adulthood with pride and possibility (although he is still living at home — baby steps!)

And I did something I’ve never done before: I took three full weeks off in the summer just to be with Lina during her first summer break. We went to La Ronde twice, Calypso, parks, museums, the Biodome, the Navan Fair (which I hadn’t been to since I was a teenager), and even a movie in the park, watching Zootopia 2 under the stars (and surrounded by mosquitoes).

ALIGN reminded me that family isn’t built in grand gestures. It’s built in the small, ordinary moments that blend together to create a beautiful and fulfilling life.

ALIGNING WITH PARTNERSHIP

At the end of June, everything shifted.

Chris lost his job and our home dynamic changed overnight. The roles we had been playing for years dissolved in front of us, and we had to figure out who we were without the structure we’d been relying on.

He stepped into the role of managing the home: the meals, the groceries, the lists, the day‑to‑day rhythm that kept our family moving.

He became Lina’s primary caregiver, the one who handled the mornings and the afternoons, the one who held the softness of her routine.

And I had to ask myself a question I wasn’t prepared for: Who am I if I’m not the one holding everything?

...and to be honest, I’m still working on that answer.

But to be honest, what surprised me was realizing how much I actually love this version of our life. How much I love seeing Chris in this role. How much I love the way it frees me to show up fully in the areas I need to (and want to).

We even started talking about whether he should work for himself going forward — whether he could build something that allows him to keep this flexibility, to keep this rhythm, to keep being the anchor at home.

And for the first time, I said out loud what I had been feeling quietly: I want this. I want him in this role. I want our life to look like this.

ALIGN asked me to redefine partnership — not as a division of labour, but as a shared truth about what actually works for us and this life we're creating together.

ALIGNING WITH HOME

This year, alignment also meant tending to the spaces that hold us.

We secured a new tenant after a terrible first one — a reminder that alignment sometimes looks like correcting what you tolerated before you knew better. A friendly PSA: YOU ARE ALLOWED TO ASK YOUR TENANTS HOW LONG THEY HAVE BEEN TOGETHER BEFORE THEY DECIDE TO MOVE INTO YOUR HOME. Trust me.

We did a series of renovations: extending the deck, landscaping, fixing the shower head, replacing the sink faucet, repairing the patio door handle, fixing the weather stripping. Many of them I did myself. There’s something deeply aligning (and satisfying) about learning to care for your own home with your own hands.

And we spent time together at Ottawa BluesFest, just Chris and I — two full festival passes, nights under the lights, music vibrating through the air. We even brought Lina one night to see Death From Above 1979 and stayed out until after 9:30pm! Alignment sometimes looks like remembering that partnership needs joy, not just logistics. And that it's ok to not be so rigid on bedtime routines when your favourite band is in town.

ALIGNING WITH WORK

Professionally, alignment showed up in quieter ways.

I stepped deeper into my IT role, bridging business and technology in ways that feel natural to me. So natural that I questioned why my boss is paying me so much to do something that I felt is so simple (yes, I did... and thank God he reminded me that I'm actually just really good at my job and deserve what I'm being paid). I stopped over-functioning. I stopped carrying responsibility that wasn’t mine. I stopped trying to prove myself in spaces where I was already enough.

ALIGN taught me I want to choose clarity over chaos. Communication over assumption. And working sustainably instead of becoming the real life version of the dog surrounded by fire (this is fine, everything is fine).

And in doing so, I found a steadier version of myself — one that feels grounded, confident, and aligned with the career I want to build next.

ALIGNING WITH PURPOSE

Like I mentioned last year, this year was a collective year 1 — a year of beginnings, initiation, and stepping into new identity. And for me personally, it was a year 9 — a year of completion, release, and clearing space for what comes next.

Beginning and ending at the same time. Opening and closing. Shedding and stepping forward. It made sense that ALIGN was the word. It made sense that so much of this year felt like rearranging the internal furniture of my life. It made sense that I was asked to let go of old versions of myself while stepping into new roles at home, at work, and in partnership.

If BUILD was about constructing the next chapter, ALIGN was about making sure the chapter is actually mine.

This year forced me to get very clear on my purpose. Purpose in the way I show up for my family. How I advocate for myself at work. How I define and honour my own limits. And how I choose to be softer without losing strength.

ALIGN taught me that purpose isn’t found — it’s lived. And, this year, I think lived it well!

EMERGING INTO 2027

It’s only September (yes, I’m super early to the reflection this year), but as this year closes, I can feel the shift — not a sharp turn, but a gentle opening to possibilities. ALIGN asked me to recalibrate, to tell the truth, to stop forcing what no longer fit. It asked me to look at my life with honesty and to make choices that reflected who I actually am, not who I thought I needed to be.

And now, standing at the edge of the last quarter before the new year, I can feel that I’m ready for something different.

2027 is a personal year 1 for me — the beginning of a new nine‑year cycle. A year of initiation, possibility, and stepping into the next version of myself. And collectively, we’re moving into a year 2 — a year of connection, collaboration, partnership, and being met by the world in new ways. A year where what we began individually now begins to weave together.

So I’ve chosen my word for 2027: EMERGE.

When thinking about my word, I teetered between EMERGE and RISE.

RISE is bold.

RISE is claiming.

RISE is stepping into the spotlight with intention.

And there was a part of me that thought I needed that. To prove my worth, to show my strength, to rise to the occasion in a way that was visible and undeniable.

But when I sat with it, I realized that it still felt like performing. In my next chapter, I don’t need to rise to prove anything. I need to let others catch up and see what already exists.

EMERGE is the word that honours the softness I’ve earned. The truth I’ve aligned with and the pace that feels right for my nervous system, my Cancer rising, my home, my partnership, and the alignment I spent this year cultivating.

And in a collective year 2 — a year of connection, collaboration, and being witnessed — EMERGE feels like the right way to step forward. Not loudly or dramatically. But truthfully.

EMERGE feels like stepping out from behind the curtain and letting myself be seen in the fullness of who I already am. It feels like moving forward at a pace that honours my life, my body, and my becoming.

It feels like allowing the version of me I’ve been quietly growing into to come forward.

EMERGE is the word that says:

I don’t need to force my next chapter. I only need to step into it.

So that is what I’m carrying into 2027 — a willingness to come forward gently, honestly, and on my own terms. A readiness to let my life expand in the ways it’s already trying to. A trust that the alignment I built this year is the foundation I’ll emerge from next year.

2026 asked me to align. 2027 will ask me to emerge.

And boy, am I ever ready to be seen!