Closure

Closure: A Reflection on My 2024 Word of the Year

Every January, I choose a word of the year—a guidepost for growth, focus, and intention. But this year, January came and went without one. Nothing felt quite right. Words floated by: strength, resilience, hope—all worthy, but none of them truly fit. Perhaps I wasn’t ready to name it because I hadn’t yet understood it.

It’s only now, in these final days of 2024, that I can clearly say: my word is closure.

This year has been a crescendo—a culmination of chapters long and heavy, some triumphant, others aching. In many ways, it was the year that life paused just long enough to allow me to breathe, to reflect, and to close the doors I’d been holding open far too long.

Closure came in many forms. It arrived in the quiet relief of seeing a years-long court case reach its end—a story I guard carefully, but one that shaped me as both a mother and a survivor. It came in the pride and humility of receiving the EVAWI Teal Heart Award, a recognition of advocacy that grew from pain into purpose. Closure looked like finally naming my experience of intimate partner violence, giving my voice the space it needed to break silence and, in doing so, reclaim power.

It came with the exhale of donning a cap and gown—over a decade late, but precisely when it was meant to happen. It came in consulting with SAVA, where my work feels not just fulfilling, but deeply aligned with who I am.

Closure isn’t an end; it’s a transition. It’s the grace to look back without being pulled back. It’s honoring where I’ve been while walking toward where I want to go.

As I reflect on 2024, I do so with immense gratitude for the people, places, and moments that carried me here. Closure doesn’t erase the past; it integrates it. Every wound, every triumph, every breathless pause between is woven into who I am today.

And with those chapters closed, I’m ready to write new ones. 2025 isn’t quite here yet, but I already feel it brimming with possibility.

To anyone reading this who is still waiting for closure—whether it’s from grief, unanswered questions, or the chapters that refuse to end—I see you. I know that closure isn’t guaranteed, and not every story wraps up with a neat bow.

I am profoundly lucky to have found it this year in ways I never expected. But even when closure feels out of reach, I believe you can still claim something just as powerful. Sometimes, it’s about learning to stand steady in the unknown, to live fully even when you don’t have all the answers.

If you’re in that place, I hope you find moments of peace that feel like quiet victories. You deserve them.