So many times this year, I’ve watched the sun rise & set & thought to myself how it looks just like fire.. streaks of reds, pinks, oranges, & golds.. dimming to dark, just to blaze again come morning. This time last year, I sat & thought about what I wanted my 2020 to hold.. & declared it my Year of Fire - a complete “arms wide open welcome” to new challenges, new adventures, & new hope for a chapter that was to come.. & the blazing brave it would require. It seems almost funny, looking back on it now. 2020 has been none of the things & yet still ALL of those things.. fire & blazing brave, just not the way I thought. It can kind of feel like we’re in the midnight hours, waiting for the sky to again blaze, trusting that there’s these sparks of hope, always burning & smoldering like embers, ready to reignite & burst back into flames.. painting the sky with fiery hope for this country, for the world, for myself & my friends.. & for my greatest hope, my future daughter. A year ago this month, I began an adoption process that I hoped would be finalized by October 2020. Pounds of paperwork carried from one side of the world to another, logistical notary nightmares, dear friends going above & beyond in bold & brave ways to forge a way to bring my daughter home. For a year, my closest friends have carried this secret hope with me.. encouraging initial progress quickly changed to the heartbreak of a global pandemic & a million uncertainties about the when’s, how’s, if’s, & what then’s. I’m sharing this now, not because anything is fixed or certain, more known or any more secure.. in fact, it’s probably less certain than ever before. I don’t know when or if or how my daughter will make it home, but I know how I hope. I share now because I need to remember again & again that hope still burns & dark skies light up like fire & I think we all have these sparks dancing in our souls, just waiting to burst into flame. Hold tight to the smoldering embers of your hope - however fragile they may be. I’m holding tight with you. They might burn low & dim. Like fire, we can’t predict their flame. But nudge them a little & soon enough, bright hope will blaze again 🔥✨.