Tag Archives: healing

Remembering and Healing: Lessons from a New Year Reflection

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I am struggling a little with the juxtaposition of today.

I am finding it difficult to be wishing people Shanah Tovah, a good and sweet new year, while at the same time remembering that 25 years ago today, our world changed in the most horrific way.

I remember the fear, the heartbreak, the disbelief, and the tremendous loss. But I also remember what happened in the days afterward. People showed up for one another. We checked on each other. We grieved for people we didn’t know. For a moment, there was a sense that whatever our differences, we belonged to one another.

Twenty-five years later, it is hard not to look around and wonder how we have gotten so far away from that.

We are angry. We are divided. We are quick to judge and slow to listen. We decide whose pain deserves our compassion. We sometimes see someone’s politics, religion, beliefs, or identity before we see the person.

And I say “we” intentionally, because I am part of the we.

Yesterday at work, we were asked to share a hope for ourselves as we enter the new year. I talked about wanting to find the balance between jumping in to get things done, which is very much who I am, and giving myself the space to listen, learn, be present, and appreciate the people and moments around me. To be more intentional about where I put my time, energy, and attention.

I’ve had more time to sit with that question, and I realize there is something else I want for myself this year: teshuvah.

It is easy to look at the world and see everything I wish other people would do differently. Teshuvah asks me to look at myself instead.

Am I listening enough? Am I too quick to judge? Can I disagree strongly and still see the person in front of me? Can I hold onto compassion even when it is difficult?

Teshuvah asks us to return. This year, I want to return to the person I hope to be. Not perfectly, but intentionally.

And today, before anything else, I remember.

May the memories of those we lost that day, and in the days and years since, be for a blessing. May we never forget the lives that were taken, the families forever changed, and all those who carried the physical and emotional consequences of that day long after September 11, 2001.

Perhaps one way I can honor those memories is through my own teshuvah. By remembering what I saw in people during those darkest days and asking more of myself now.

To slow down enough to listen.
To judge less quickly.
To choose kindness.
To see the person before the label.
To appreciate the people and moments in front of me.
To do better.
And to keep returning.

Yesterday, I had one answer for what I hope for myself in the new year. Today, with a little more time to think about it, I would add this:

May I become a little more of the person I hope to be.

Shanah Tovah. May the year ahead be one of remembrance, teshuvah, healing, compassion, and peace.

Purim 5786 (2026)

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I am not shocked anymore.
I am not even angry in the way I once was.
I am tired. Tired of watching harm unfold in slow motion.
Tired of waiting for systems to catch up to truth.
Tired of knowing that exposure does not equal repair.

I have always known better than to think that once the truth was visible, everything would change.
I knew it 29 years ago when I chose not to speak out.
And it has been confirmed by countless similar stories since.

I guess I just hoped this time it would be different. That something would shift.
That post #MeToo, post Larry Nassar, post Matt Lauer… this time, exposure would mean reckoning.
That documentation would mean protection.
That naming harm would mean it would stop.

Instead, it has reaffirmed that the system moves slowly, and sometimes not at all.
That power protects itself.
That victims…survivors age while investigations linger.
That healing is private work, even when harm was public.

After 29 years, my private work of healing continues.
And my prayers for the victims whose stories are still being unraveled in courtrooms, news cycles, and whispered conversations feel heavier than they once did.

Because I know what comes after the headlines.
I know the long quiet.
I know the anniversaries that pass while the world moves on.
I know the way people expect closure once the story has been told.

There is rarely closure.
There is survival.
There is therapy.
There are good days and hard ones.
There is the slow rebuilding of trust in a world that has shown you how fragile it can be.

I do not write this in outrage; I write from exhaustion…
I write it in recognition.

Recognition of the young women and men who were told to wait.
Recognition of the ones who were told it was “complicated.”
Recognition of the ones who are still watching powerful men age comfortably while they are left to carry what was done to them.

I am not shocked anymore.
I am not even angry in the way I once was.
I am tired.
But I am also clear.

Clear that exposure is not the same as repair.
Clear that justice, when it comes, is often partial.
Clear that healing is not delivered because a file is released.

It arrives slowly.
In private.
In the quiet work no one sees.

And that work, after 29 years, continues.