Ten Quiet Fires for 2026: A Vision Board Written in Starlight

I do not pin glossy pictures
onto cork today.
No scissors, no glue,
no borrowed dreams smiling from stock photos.

My vision board is quieter.
It breathes.
It hums softly like the earth
before dawn.

I close my eyes
and see it forming—
not on a wall,
but behind my ribs,
where intentions take longer to harden
and therefore last.

This is not a list.
It is a constellation.
Ten stars I keep returning to,
each one burning
for a different reason.

---

1. I want to wake up without running

In 2026,
I want mornings that do not chase me.

I want to wake
as light enters a room—
unannounced,
unhurried,
certain of its place.

No alarms that fracture dreams mid-sentence.
No panic scrolling
before my feet touch the floor.

I want to sit with tea
and hear the day arrive—
a bird negotiating with the sky,
a distant train carrying other lives forward,
my own breath remembering its shape.

This is not laziness.
This is reclamation.

I have spent years sprinting
toward invisible finish lines,
only to discover
they move when approached.

In 2026,
I want my mornings to say:
You are not late for your own life.

---

2. I want to write until my voice forgets fear

I want to write
not to be seen,
but to see.

To place words down
like stones across a river
and trust they will hold
even when my foot slips.

I want to write on days
when nothing clever arrives.
I want to write when my voice trembles,
when doubt sits beside me
like an uninvited editor.

I want my writing
to be less polished mirror
and more open window—
letting weather in,
letting mess arrive,
letting silence speak too.

By the end of 2026,
I want my voice to feel
like a body I live in comfortably,
not a costume I keep adjusting
for approval.

---

3. I want to treat my body like an ally, not an obstacle

This body has carried me
through years I never thanked it for.

It has absorbed stress
into shoulders,
stored grief in the hips,
learned survival
in small, quiet ways.

In 2026,
I want to listen before correcting it.

To rest without justification.
To move not to punish,
but to remember joy—
the way a stretch feels
like opening a long-closed book,
the way walking can become
a conversation with the ground.

I want nourishment
that feels like care,
not negotiation.

I want to stop speaking to myself
in the language of urgency
and start using the dialect of patience.

This body is not a project.
It is a companion.

---

4. I want to earn in ways that don’t erode me

I want money that arrives
without taking parts of me hostage.

Work that does not require
a shrinking of ethics,
a muting of empathy,
a constant performance of certainty.

In 2026,
I want to build value
slowly,
honestly,
with hands that still recognize themselves
at the end of the day.

I want abundance
that doesn’t demand exhaustion as proof.

Let my livelihood
feel like a river that supports the bridge,
not one that erodes its foundations
over time.

---

5. I want deeper conversations than updates

I am tired of asking,
“How are you?”
and receiving weather reports.

In 2026,
I want conversations
that pause,
that wander,
that are not afraid of quiet.

I want to ask and be asked
questions without immediate answers.

What are you unlearning?
What keeps you awake kindly?
What feels unresolved but alive?

I want friendships
that do not require constant maintenance,
only mutual presence—
like stars that remain in relation
even when clouds pass between them.

---

6. I want to forgive without erasing memory

Forgiveness is not amnesia.
It is a reorientation.

In 2026,
I want to release resentment
not because others deserve it,
but because I deserve peace
that isn’t crowded by old echoes.

I want to remember clearly
without bleeding repeatedly.

Some lessons arrive
as storms.
Some people are teachers
only because they showed me
what I refuse to become.

I want to bow to the learning
and loosen my grip on the wound.

---

7. I want to spend more time with the sky

Not metaphorically.
Literally.

I want to look up more often.

At dusk,
when the sky practices letting go
of one color at a time.

At night,
when stars remind me
that distance does not equal absence.

In 2026,
I want awe to interrupt me.

To feel small
without feeling insignificant.

To remember
that my worries are brief weather patterns
on a planet
that has been spinning
long before my name was spoken.

---

8. I want to create without immediately monetizing

I want to make things
that do not ask,
“What will this become?”

To draw,
to write,
to imagine
without converting wonder
into strategy.

In 2026,
I want at least some creation
to remain wild,
unclaimed,
useless in the most sacred way.

Because not everything beautiful
needs a shelf,
a price,
or an audience.

Some things exist
only to remind me
that I am still capable
of play.

---

9. I want to be brave in quiet ways

Not the bravery of speeches.
Not the bravery of applause.

The kind that shows up
when no one is watching.

The bravery of saying no
without explaining my entire history.

The bravery of changing direction
after admitting
I chose wrong earlier.

The bravery of rest
in a culture addicted to speed.

In 2026,
I want my courage
to be steady,
unspectacular,
and deeply mine.

---

10. I want to end the year knowing I was present

At the end of 2026,
I do not want to say
“Where did the year go?”

I want to remember moments
not because they were extraordinary,
but because I was there for them.

The taste of fruit eaten slowly.
The exact weight of a book
in my hands.
The way laughter arrived
unexpected
and stayed longer than planned.

I want to feel
that I lived inside the days,
not beside them.

---

These are my ten.
Not resolutions.
Coordinates.

They do not shout.
They glow.

If I forget them at times,
they will wait—
patient as constellations,
visible again
the moment I look up.

This is my vision board for 2026.
It does not hang on a wall.

It orbits quietly within me,
reminding me
that becoming
is not about adding more light,

but about removing
what blocks the stars
that were already there.