What Changed This Year (And What Finally Let Go)

The Moment That Used to Break Me

I'm writing this from the Oregon coast, watching seagulls play in the wind. I'm in a completely different space than when I wrote what follows - lighter, more present, grateful.

But this story from Thanksgiving is still true. And the lesson still matters.

Sometimes we need to look back at the heavy moments to remember how far we've come.

Here's what changed this year...

I spent Thanksgiving with Dad and Hans. After getting up early to make a meal, I plated some for my husband and packed up the rest for the boys.  We were fortunate to also have sashimi and laulau, so that became their feast, and they saved the traditional meal for the next day. Familiar counts for a lot these days.

Friday unfolded the way it usually does when I'm in town: a few errands, and more running around than I expected. Dad and I split off after the tire shop—he had things to take care of, and I needed to finalize the sale of the trailer.

That trailer used to be my quiet little hideaway on my parents' property. But during the last year of my mom's life, after a falling out with my dad and brother, I stopped staying there. Hotels, Airbnbs, friends' homes—that became the new normal.

Once I stopped using it, the trailer sat empty. Then not-so-empty. Over time, people stayed in it—eventually people I didn't even know. It changed from a place of peace to something that no longer felt like mine. Moving it to a friend's property and eventually selling it felt like closing a chapter I never expected to end in that way—but endings rarely arrive neatly.

By late afternoon, the fog rolled in—thick, cold, and the kind that feels respect-worthy. I called my dad and brother to let them know I wasn't driving back that night.

The Moment

The next morning, I showed up early with my dad's coffee—our quiet ritual. We visited for a few hours, just being together. Simple, familiar, grounding.

Right as I was getting ready to leave, Dad made a comment—a simple one, the kind you could easily brush past on a different day.

It wasn't harsh. It wasn't meant to hurt. But it carried the weight of years.

It touched the old guilt. The feeling that I hadn't done enough. That I hadn't shown up enough. That somehow, despite everything, I'd failed them.

Never mind the hotels, the Airbnbs, the friends' homes. Never mind the falling out or the reasons I couldn't stay in the trailer. Never mind that I was there—just differently than they expected.

The comment landed where it always used to land: on the bruise of "not enough."

Years of caregiving.
Years of strain.
Years of misunderstandings and stretched-thin emotions.
Years of all of us trying to love my mom through the hardest chapter of her life.

After more than 60 years of marriage, my dad had lived with a kind of constant vigilance—one long, unbroken thread of devotion and survival mode. And I had lived my own version of that, just from a different angle.

Back then, comments like his hit places I didn't know were still bruised. They touched old roles, old stories, old responsibilities I used to shoulder without language for them.

They touched the old guilt of "not enough"—not there enough, not doing enough, not being enough.

It didn't matter that I was doing everything I could. It didn't matter that I was showing up in the only ways available to me. The comment still landed like a judgment.

We didn't know, at the time, that what we were navigating had a name: anticipatory grief.

We just knew everything felt fragile.

What I See More Clearly Now

These days, I can see how much my dad carried.

He was a young medic in the military—trained to stay steady, to push through, to handle what needed handling. He lost his mom when he was a teenager. His brothers have both passed. He has loved my mom for 65+ years, and love like that leaves an imprint.

None of us were doing it perfectly. We were doing it honestly—with whatever capacity we had.

So when he said what he said that morning, it wasn't about me. It was part memory, part ache, part longing, part habit. It landed on history—not intent.

What Changed This Year

But this year, I didn't react from the old place.

I felt the familiar tightening rise—the urge to explain myself, to make everything okay, to shrink whatever disappointment I imagined he felt.

Then I paused.

I took a breath.

And I answered from where I am now—not where I was then.

I said something simple, but true:

"I'm really glad we had the time we did. Quality, not quantity."

He nodded.

And this time, it settled gently between us.

This Is What We Can Do Now

Sometimes healing isn't about repairing the past.

Sometimes it's about being honest in the present.

Given the history...
Given the grief...
Given the falling out...
Given the trailer story...
Given everything we each carried in our own ways...

Sometimes the truth is simply:

This was good.
This was enough.
This is what we can do.

Two people missing the same person in different ways.
Two people trying to show up with what they have—no more, no less.

It wasn't dramatic.
It wasn't heavy.
It was honest.

This Is What Real Healing Looks Like

A moment where I didn't abandon myself to keep the peace.

A moment where he didn't have to hide his tenderness in stoicism.

A moment where we met each other with truth instead of old patterns.

Healing isn't always some big revelation.

Sometimes it's a quiet shift—the moment you realize an old wound didn't swallow you the way it used to.

That's Living Real Aloha:

• presence over performance
• compassion over correction
• truth over old narratives
• in the small, complicated spaces of real life

This is where freedom lives.

Quality, Not Quantity

That's what my dad said, in his own way, that morning.

"I'm glad we had the time we did."

Not "I wish we'd had more time."
Not "We should have done it differently."

Quality, not quantity.

And maybe that's the whole lesson I'm learning.

Not how much I accomplish.
Not how much I grow.
Not how much I build.

But the quality of how I show up.

With my husband—choosing presence over performance.
With my dad—choosing honesty over old patterns.
With my work—choosing meaning over metrics.
With myself—choosing peace over proving.

For Anyone Who Needs This

If you're reading this and you're exhausted from performing...
If you're carrying grief nobody sees...
If you're holding so much while slowly letting go...
If you're navigating the impossible in-between of loving and leaving...

You're allowed to stop performing.
You're allowed to answer from where you are now—not where you were then.
You're allowed to choose quality over quantity.

The moment that used to break you? When it doesn't break you anymore?

That's not because you got stronger.

It's because you finally loosened your grip.

Next week: What I'm carrying into 2026 (and what I'm leaving behind)