It is Martin Luther King Day.
I remember when this day was in the process of becoming a National Holiday. So much conflict and divide over a holiday designed to promote racial unity — a holiday to honor a man who gave his life for the betterment of the lives of his children.
Such a basic yet profound reality: parents wanting life to be better for their children.
January is not a reset for me
I have a hard time with January.
It is a constant reminder of how little I have progressed in twelve months’ time, and how much grief, stress, and unresolved emotion I carry from one year into the next.
I can rattle off a list of my failures — each one carrying its own quiet pressure, feeding the anxiety and fatigue that settle into my mental health this time of year.
I am heavier than I was last year at this time.
I am less physically fit.
I am financially worse than I was a year ago.
My podcast and this blog are at a stalemate.
The MollyB Foundation has a zero balance in the bank.
And don’t get me started on my house.
It is a mess of clutter and stuff.
It has also become home to my mother.
Gracie leaves for Paris in less than two weeks and her room is a disaster. The debacle that is my kitchen/bathroom renovation will get much-needed updates starting soon (sort of like re-doing my driveway), and in the midst of this I am now forced to navigate creating “private living space” for my mother.
I don’t even have private living space in my own home, so yeah… this is tricky.
This is where grief feels heavier in January — not because something new has happened, but because nothing has changed.
When responsibility becomes the system
Since I have somehow become the person to care for my mother, I haven’t written one new blog. I have lost any semblance of a schedule. No one I live with has one, or even feels the need to have one.
My sleep, my rhythm, my entire nervous system feel off. The system I live inside requires me to be available at all times, and that constant availability takes a toll on my mind and body.
School board is an emotional rollercoaster that pulls light and love from my life. I wanted to buy Brian’s house, but I am not sure I should — and that uncertainty eats at me.
So, what do I do?
Standard Barb will keep trying to reinvent schedules and plans to meet her goals while still navigating the chaos.
In between making sure my mother doesn’t feel that sleeping in the room she is in is somehow killing her because it is so small (it is not that small), and cleaning up all of the clutter left by Jack, Gracie, and Kenny — performing basic family management, I guess — navigating landlord duties for Coach’s House, and overseeing kitchen fixes, I will somehow put myself first.
Maybe a new planner (check).
Or perhaps the app “Better Me” (check).
Or maybe if I put it into my calendar as a task (check), I will finally check it off (not check).
Being told my reaction is the problem
I think I have avoided writing because I feel like I am complaining all the time. Kenny told me that my anger and constant stress are the problem — that everyone walks around on eggshells.
This reminds me of a second-year school board member telling me that my reaction to some grossly inappropriate behavior by board members was a “trauma response,” and how sorry she was that I was “so triggered.”
It’s amazing how quickly lived experience gets reframed as psychology, how quickly feelings get dismissed instead of understood.
This, too, is part of why the new year feels so heavy — when the weight you are carrying is treated as a personal flaw instead of a reasonable response to sustained overload.
Motivation is not the problem
Oh, and fitness? Tap dancing? CrossFit? Coaching?
I have lost all desire or motivation to even continue. I wanted to start running more (no check). I am likely going to give up one night of tap. I need to move my body, but I cannot manage to stick to any sort of training plan, even when I pay for it.
This isn’t laziness. It’s a health response. My body is tired. My mind is tired. My capacity is spent.
The defeatist voice in my head says, “Why bother?”
And then there is the money. I am just spending it, or giving it away, but mostly wasting it. A big part of me feels like I should get a job — not that anyone would hire me. I need structure and do not create it well for myself.
“Time to make the donuts.”
January as a reckoning, not a reset
Welcome to 2026.
I am quite sure it will be another twelve months of living. (Well, given that we are in year ten of Molly not living, I guess that statement isn’t entirely true.)
But the sentiment stands. It will be another year.
Perhaps the solution is not to set goals or make resolutions at all. No one in my house sets goals or makes resolutions. Somehow, it is my job to make all of this work anyway.
This is why the new year feels so heavy — because it arrives with expectation, while offering no relief.
January doesn’t reset anything for me. It exposes what is still broken.
Motherland
My mother’s belongings are in my garage, barn, and at Coach’s House.
In really talking to her, she wants her own personal space — her furniture, her knick-knacks, her sense of home. She is within her rights to want that. But I did not sign on for this. My house is too big a piece of my story to simply hand over.
Two of my three siblings sit around and wait for a task to be assigned — much like during my father’s funeral — to which they can, and often do, decline.
My sister, like me, seldom says no. Laundry, takeout meals, managing money — when Kenny cannot provide, she becomes the default.
Motherland, as a description of where many women like my sister and me live, feels accurate.
Is it because we are the daughters that we are now supposed to become the mothers? Why do the sons not become the fathers? Why does running a home or managing a family still fall to the same people, generation after generation?
I am not angry at my siblings. I am trying to step out of the chaos and observe it with as much compassion as I can manage.
Grief has a memory
January carries echoes — of funeral days, of the funeral home, of cremation, of the quiet ritual of lighting a candle and pretending that time will soften what it never really does.
This is where grief feels heavier in January. It sits in the body. It lives in memory. It deepens the sadness and the loneliness. It strips away false hope and leaves only honesty.
I am not asking for answers or grief support. I am asking for space. For an open acknowledgment of this experience. For permission to name the feelings without being told to fix them.
The ugly side of multi-generational living
It is almost 10:00 a.m. on January 19th, 2026. I am still in my pajamas. I do not believe Jack is awake. I do not believe anyone has done anything to start the day in any meaningful way.
I am a staff member in an assisted living facility because none of the people I live with can — or do — really take care of themselves.
There it is.
The ugly side of multi-generational living.
Enjoy the rest of January 2026, y’all.
I have yet to decide how I feel about it.
