“We spend January 1st walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year … we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives … not looking for flaws, but for potential.” —Ellen Goodman.
A new year is upon us.
While any day — or any moment — can be when change begins, there’s clearly something about a new calendar and a new year that offers us a natural opportunity for reflection, change and hope.
We have several wishes and hopes for 2026, among them seeing our community prosper, celebrating milestones and focusing on the good.
We hope to see some snow to help the environment and our tourism industry.
We hope to see fewer emergency situations like fires and flooding.
We hope to see the U.S. 160 reconstruction project successfully wrapped up on time so we can enjoy the new streetscape and things can get back to normal for our downtown businesses (and traffic). We look forward to celebrating completion of that project, as well as the completion of other ongoing construction projects, such as the library expansion.
We hope to see continued community discussion on how, when and if this community can and will continue to invest in itself when it comes to things like schools and health care.
We hope for transparent, effective governance so we can tackle issues that have arisen and will continue to arise.
We hope this community will continue to give generously.
2026 is also Colorado’s 150th anniversary and the nation’s 250th, meaning there should be a lot of great activities to check out here and elsewhere to learn more about our state and nation and celebrate those milestones.
We also hope there will be a resurgence of people looking for and focusing on the good and the positive.
Thanks to doomscrolling and social media, among other issues, it’s become too easy for people to focus on the negative. It’s become too easy and common for people to say something for the sole purpose of riling someone else up, or saying something to insult and demean. It’s become too common to lead with politics to decide if one person should even speak to another.
It’s important on so many levels that we continue to look for the good, find joy, let a little more positivity in and be kind to others to balance the harsher realities this world is facing.
We know we’ll continue working on being on social media less, spending more time with family and friends, digging into our stack of books to be read and heading into the great outdoors more — and we encourage you to do join us in spending time with loved ones, focusing on hobbies that bring you joy and enjoying our fresh mountain air.
Happy new year. Let’s make it a good one.
Randi Pierce
>