What changes? And what remains?
In the last week of the year, I had a meeting with dear friends. One of those meetings that only happen at this time, when we haven't seen each other for a long time. A friend welcomed us to her new house, telling us about the move and presenting us with a table full of delicacies to enjoy. The view was breathtaking: a landscape known to all of us. We grew up in that country town, we looked at those places countless times and, still, from up there, it was a beautiful surprise.
Among news, conversations about daughters, relationships, plans for next year, challenges and surprises experienced over the past year, a friend brought an idea that made me reflect. She spontaneously commented on how things in life change quickly. From one moment to the next, everything can change and life can become different.
My reaction at that moment was strange. I asked them: “Do you really have the feeling that everything is changing so quickly?”. I shared how I noticed that several thoughts and themes in my life were repeating themselves. My goals for 2026? Very similar to what I wanted in 2025. And there, at that moment, we were playing with these ideas: things that remain similar and things that have changed compared to our adolescence — which was more than 17 years ago. It gave us a good laugh and that feeling of connection that long-time friendships give us.
Also inspired by the cycle that begins with the new year, these ideas about change keep buzzing in my mind. I started thinking about how permanence and transformation coexist at all times. Not as opposites, but walking together, in a continuous movement.
I see many changes throughout my life: in the people I live with, in the places I go, in my tastes. Some changes are small, the kind that settle into routine. For many years, I hated the thought of drinking a cup of milk. It was something he didn't like, something he didn't want. In 2025, without planning or conscious decision, I felt the desire to drink milk and started drinking it every day. Always in the afternoon, almost like a ritual. A simple, repeated gesture, which became a mid-afternoon break, a moment of presence. It wasn't the milk that changed — it was me. And perhaps this is one of the most subtle ways of realizing that something in us is changing.
Other changes arrive in a much less discreet way. They go through life with intensity and reorganize us inside. Last year, my father passed away. I still don't know how to measure the impact of this loss, nor do I know if this is something that will ever be measured. I just know that many moments started to have a different weight without your presence. Some everyday scenes were silenced, others required adaptation. Life goes on, but it goes on in a different way. And learning to recognize this “other way” is also part of the change process.
And, at the same time, there is that which remains. The desire to move my body has been with me for a long time. He started in childhood, with ballet, went through phases of bodybuilding, running and dancing. There are old photos of me doing squats on the beach, almost as if the body already knew, long before I did, what would continue to be important. Today, I surprise myself by enjoying doing CrossFit. The contexts change, the forms change, but the value remains: the care and connection with myself through movement.
The desire to be with the people I love also remains. One of my favorite moments in life: sitting at the table, talking without rushing, laughing at the stories we remember and what happens there, in those moments. The desire to nurture bonds even when time passes and when life changes.
Life does not ask me to choose between accepting what is or seeking change. It invites me to support both things, one alongside the other. Feel the discomforts and continue doing what matters. Being open to new things without losing your focus. We can change behaviors, routes and rhythms and, paradoxically, increasingly recognize ourselves as who we are.
How good it is to change.
How good it is to stay.