When One Word Isn’t Enough

It’s late December—that quiet, in-between stretch of days when time feels suspended. When you’re not quite sure if it’s a Tuesday pretending to be a Saturday or vice versa. The holidays are winding down, my calendar is blissfully empty, and there’s an unspoken permission to pause. It feels good. Earned.

I’m sitting with a cup of coffee that’s already gone lukewarm, and an empty notebook open in front of me like it’s waiting for a confession. I’m not making resolutions. (But I’m still keeping up with the Sunday Letter Writing project–I don’t consider that endeavor a NY resolution FYI.) I’m not making any promises to magically become someone who wakes up cheerful at 5 a.m. I’ve learned my lesson there. Instead, I’m staring at a single blank page, trying to choose one word.

All week, my phone has been buzzing with headlines announcing the Word of the Year, as if dictionaries have convened a secret council to decide what we all collectively lived through in 2025. Oxford English Dictionary crowned rage bait—content that was engineered to provoke outrage and keep us scrolling, clicking, and arguing with strangers we’ll never meet. 

Merriam-Webster chose slop, which feels both rude and deeply accurate. Low-quality digital content—often AI-generated—poured onto the internet like an all-you-can-eat buffet no one asked for. I imagine the word, slop, was delivered with a weary sigh, the dictionary itself exhausted from pretending everything online is meaningful.

Then there’s Dictionary.com’s pick: 67. Just a number. No explanation. A Gen Alpha inside joke that took over TikTok and classrooms, fueled by memes and the song “Doot Doot (6 7).” It makes no sense—and somehow that’s the point. I laugh, realizing that if language is a mirror, 2025’s reflection is chaotic, very online, and slightly unhinged.

What’s remarkable, though, is that language keeps adapting. It always has. It bends itself around the way we live.

I set my phone aside and return to the blank page. While dictionaries choose words to define a culture, I’ve been drawn to a quieter ritual: choosing a personal Word of the Year. Not a resolution or a checklist—just a single word to act as a compass. Something to return to when life feels noisy or scattered.

Two words keep resurfacing.

I write believe, then circle it. It feels soft but strong. Hopeful even. A reminder to believe in myself, my writing, other people, the slow and often invisible process of becoming. To believe that even when things feel stalled or uncertain, something meaningful is still unfolding. I sit with it for a moment, noticing how it settles in my chest.

Then I write intention beneath it, underlining it. This one carries more weight. It asks something of me. To move consciously instead of coasting on autopilot. To choose how and when I show up. Alfred Huang’s words drift back to me: If we act consciously, we evolve consciously. 

Believe feels like the foundation—the quiet faith that steadies everything else. Intention feels like the practice—the daily choices that give that faith form. I think about this more. Believe without intention can drift into wishful thinking, while intention without believe can turn into effort without ease.

Together, they feel balanced. Complete.

I don’t decide right away. I just stare at the page, at the neat circle around believe and the firm underline beneath intention. And then it occurs to me—quietly, almost mischievously—that nowhere is it written I must choose just one.

Who decided this was a one-word-only situation, anyway?

The dictionaries can have their singular verdicts. They’re summarizing billions of people. I’m just trying to live one life, and it turns out it might require more than a single syllable to do it justice.

Maybe believe is the foundation—the trust beneath everything else. Believe in the work. Believe in myself. Believe that showing up matters, even when outcomes are unclear. And maybe intention is the practice—the choice, repeated daily, to move deliberately instead of drifting. Side by side, they don’t compete. They partner. 

I close the notebook without crossing either word out. The year doesn’t need me to simplify it yet. While dictionaries wrap 2025 in words like rage bait, slop, and 67, I’m allowed nuance. I’m allowed complexity. I’m allowed two words if that’s what this season calls for.

And maybe that’s the real takeaway: the power isn’t in choosing perfectly. It’s in choosing consciously—and trusting myself enough to know that I need more than one word to guide me forward into 2026.

Follow Me Here

Jan. 1-31, Julie will participate in “JanYourStory”, a 31-day writing initiative put on by MemoirNation. It’s a simple challenge: Write 500 words per day. It’s free! Join me! #JanYourStory.

In February, the audiobook for Twice the Family, A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Sisterhood releases. More information forthcoming.

Feb. 26 and March 18, from 1:30-2:30, I will teach a webinar for the Author Learning Center, titled “Essays That Echo: Crafting Personal Essays That Resonate.” Join me online for either date by registering here.

March 3 finds me at the Westchester Public Library in suburban Chicago where I will give a workshop on memoir writing. 

March 13-15, I’ve been invited again to attend the prestigious Tucson Festival of Books as a presenting author in the Adoptee Authors Booth. 

March 20, Join Julie at the J McLaughlin store on Longboat Key for “Sip ‘N Shop” from 2-5. Julie will be signing books, and a portion of the store’s profits will be donated to the Longboat Key Library.

Follow Julie by visiting her website, subscribe to her bimonthly newsletters, and listen to previous podcast recordings where she discusses topics like adoption, identity, family relationships, sisterhood and belonging.

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