Word of the Year: Love

[sonia]

My word of the year this year was Love. It started out feeling huge and amorphous and flinchy, and settled into being a warm flow in the background. It feels like it gently soaked into some stuck places and loosened them.

batdina commented on last year's post that Marianne Williamson says love and fear are opposites, and for me they have been intertwined. It feels like over the past year they have gotten more unwound from each other. I'm grateful that it's been un-dramatic, and also a little sad that there hasn't been any movement toward a romantic relationship. I did ask a cute friend of a friend to dance at a concert, which was fun, but it turned out he's married.

One of the things that let Love settle into being warm and gentle rather than scary and dramatic is separating it from Desire. I'm warily choosing that as my word for 2026. Sexual desire can feel dangerously overpowering, both my own and other people's, and wanting things in general feels like it makes me vulnerable to manipulation and can get labeled greedy.

I started out this Word of the Year tradition choosing words I desperately needed, and the last few years I've more chosen things that I want to make my peace with, although looking at the list, I still need them. I think of Love as an underlying force in the Universe, and Desire as an underlying force of being alive. We move toward what we want, and away from what we don't want.

While I feel as clear as I ever do in this Word of the Year process that Desire is the next one, I also feel a strong pull away from it. Which is part of my relationship with Desire generally, a strong pull toward and an equally strong pull away.


Full list:
2026: Desire
2025: Love
2024: Pride
2023: Trust
2022: Home
2021: Respect
2020: Kindness
2019: Warmth
2018: Care
2017: Solace
2016: Ease
2015: Music
2014: Welcome
2013: Relax
2012: Connection
2011: Delight
2010: Flow

Comments

[amethyst73]

What a great word - and my response to it feels similar to yours, pulled both towards and away. I hope it accompanies you well in 2026!

[runpunkrun]

<3

I admire your

[jesse_the_k]

willingness to think about one thing for an entire year.

May you have all that you desire, may you desire what comes your way

[sonia]

Thanks for the good wishes! And of course you're welcome to have it for a word of the year too. Interesting that you have a similar reaction to it. That's comforting to know, somehow.

[sonia]

<3

Re: I admire your

[sonia]

Thanks for the good wishes!

I feel like it takes a year to deepen my relationship with something, get past the surface layers and allow change to happen. Noting your icon. :-) Maybe it's not a neurotypical thing to do...