“You Matter.” Words I'm Bringing Into 2026 and Why Kaa the Snake is Now a Permanent Fixture in Our Home

“Well, Miss Rachel, you seem to have made quite an impression here. I’m going to keep you in mind as I start my career! I’ll have to keep in touch”.

A new hire at Hospital Orientation gave me a warm smile, one of dozens I had received throughout the week as I reentered the nursing profession at my previous employer. The statement brightened my day and the words stayed with me for weeks, enveloping my head and heart and whispering in my ear, “You matter. You matter. You matter.”

It was the kind of validation I had been searching for as I reflected back on the chaotic time of motherhood, international moves, and personal turmoil from the past four years. And, though my departure from the organization was planned, I left with a sour taste in my mouth following unexpected friction with my bosses.

I hadn’t known how healing it would be to be welcomed back with such warmth and kindness.

Old colleagues, friends and even acquaintances greeted me with genuine delight as I walked through the halls. I had lunch in my mentor’s office, whom I hadn’t seen in years; she had inspired me to get my master’s and doctoral degree. At one point she introduced me to a new colleague. “Ohhh, YOU’RE the one they talk about!” she responded, smiling.

I was taken aback by the consistency of this comment throughout the week, with new faces finding familiarity in my name even though we had never met.

As I crossed a hallway, a Nurse Practitioner recognized me. “Rachel?!?!” she said. “Are you working here again??!?” She told me how much she adored my French content when I had been living abroad, how she threatened to leave her Trump-supporting husband and eventually gushed that she missed me living in France. I said, “Me too, I miss it too!” and wished her luck in her personal life, tickled that she had shared such a personal detail with me.

Later that same day, I ran into a few colleagues whom I had worked with more than five years ago. We had designed discharge folders and implemented evidence-based practices to improve patient experiences. It was soul-satisfying work that invigorated me and helped prevent burnout in such a demanding profession.

“Rachel! Oh my gosh, we’re so glad you’re back. We were just talking about you the other day. We need you for this purposeful rounding project we’re starting. How was France?!?”

By the end of the week, I felt like I was enveloped in a warm hug by the hospital system. It was incredibly fun to be recognized and extraordinarily comforting to be wanted. The sincere welcome helped validate my decision to return to the bedside – a seemingly strange decision to a few family members (“Well when are you going to start using your doctorate degree? Wouldn’t you make more money that way??”).

This decision was strategic; I wanted the flexibility of being home with my children, more current hands-on experience while I taught nursing students, and I wanted to continue chipping away at retirement. This position would allow me to make my own schedule, and as long as I worked a few days a month I could continue collecting service credit.

Even though it was logical, the career choice felt like a bold one; I made the choice for myself first, then brought it to my nuclear family once I knew how I felt about it. I had considered what Future Rachel needed and how to best set her up for success. I placed my happiness and my needs as a priority. This alone felt like a courageous move, one that came at the end of one of the hardest years of my life.

2025 was jarring. It included the death of my grandfather and the deep pain and shock of the unexpected death of my infant niece. It included multiple new jobs and a new home, the worst year of my marriage and many, many days solo parenting a one and two-year-old. Beyond my own personal bubble of trials were political and humanitarian crises, environmental disasters and more. It was an intense, heavy year.

This year was etched in my heart not as the light-hearted shared tattoo of two best friends, but akin to a slow-moving iceberg. It carved deep wounds which would take years of care and reflection to realize its comprehensive damage, and even more years after that to repair and recover.

The year was also marked by immense growth and strength. I confided in therapists and my pastor, sometimes seeing two different therapists in a week. I tiptoed into self-care, first starting with a weekly Zumba class and eventually joining a gym. I started making boundaries for the first time in my life and watched my self-value soar higher than it had in a decade. I made incredible friendships which allowed me to be vulnerable and honest about where I was mentally (thank God for women friendships).

I chose happy over practical, silly over serious, whimsical over rational. This started with wearing overalls and dancing to music in my kitchen and eventually evolved to toting my toddlers around in a cargo-bike and wearing lipstick (it makes me feel fancy and giddy at the same time).

And right now, it means working part time as a nurse to take care of people who are homeless, sick, and without insurance instead of using my advanced degrees to work full time and make more money.

One of our Christmas gifts for our toddlers (along with many books and a new dollhouse), was a bright-green, twenty-foot stuffed animal snake with yellow eyes and a red fabric tongue. It may have been an unusual gift choice for us as parents, but our two and three year old adore The Jungle Book and all the animals involved, including Kaa.

We first saw the snake at a local toy store during our annual “Christmas Walk” where we pop in and out of local shops. The kids couldn’t put it down; they marched it all around the store until we gently coaxed them away. I ran back the next day and bought it as a surprise.

We wrapped it around the staircase for them to see first-thing Christmas morning – their eyes widened in delight. It’s ridiculously long and literally snakes through the first floor. We have a video of the four of us marching around, each holding part of the snake. Later our toddlers wrapped it around my husband's head like a scarf. They have named it Kaa, of course.

I hadn’t known it at the time, but I was welcoming into our home a representation of the past year in the form of a stuffed animal.

A dear friend sent me this message the first morning of 2026, “I read that 2025 was the year of the snake- we all shed our skin and transformed. It symbolized wisdom, transformation, intuition, and rebirth, representing a time for deep reflection, and shedding old habits.”

Maybe welcoming Kaa into our home the last week of 2025 was a way of permanently marking the changes we'd made. We had done all we could in 2025 to shed avoidant and anxious attachments, shake off thinking styles that didn't serve us well, rid us off old habits.

This snake can’t shed; maybe the boundaries we’ve set, the priorities we’ve established and the bars we’ve set will remain.

My hope is that 2026 will allow us to approach conflict with curiosity, be generous with our money and time, take care of our bodies and parent with gentleness and patience. And, as I’ve just learned via a quick google search, the Year of the Snake is technically here until mid-February, when the Year of the Horse begins (in accordance to the Chinese New Year).

So, if we all need a little grace time to finish shedding old habits and transforming – well, we’ve still got time.

In the meantime, if you need to borrow the paraphrased words that have brought me so much comfort from a new-hire acquaintance: “You matter. You matter. You matter.”

Happy 2026.