Happy uncertain New Year!

The start of every new year comes with a certain amount of uncertainty and with it a certain amount of effort to control those unknowns.

Eat better and we’ll stave off disease.

Save money and our loved ones will be protected.

Be more patient and gracious and karma will behave like it should.

But this year, the uncertain state of America has added another layer — or 47 of them — of unpredictability, with the destabilizing return of Donald Trump to Washington, the site of the deadly 2021 insurrection that he and his groveling groupies have since tried to convince us wasn’t an insurrection at all.

It absolutely was — and no amount of revolting revision will change that.

The truth often hurts, but we can in no way prepare for the future if we don’t acknowledge and address the painful truths of the present.

Three years ago, my husband was diagnosed with cancer. He underwent surgery, and we went about making other plans.

But then it recently returned, and this time the treatment is seven weeks of daily radiation — except weekends and major holidays, when cancer apparently takes a siesta. (You’ll forgive me, but humor, however dark, has proven to be the best medicine these days.)

And so it is that I’ve found myself spending nearly every morning inside a Fox Chase Cancer Center waiting room — a place filled with people living with uncertainty.

There’s the woman who writhes in pain she tries to hide from a daughter I imagine she’s promised to be strong for; the elderly gentleman waiting on his wife in the same way I imagine he did when he vowed long ago to do so “in sickness and in health”; the couple who share a kiss that I hope they’re each imagining they will one day soon share somewhere with a better view.

I imagine a lot in that waiting room. But there are things I don’t have to, and that speak to living with an uncertain future, both political and personal.

How, in the face of the most daunting situations, the thing that matters most is showing up — offering support, a shoulder, a sounding board for navigating the path ahead.

For many Americans, the deep disappointment that settled over us in November was only replaced by a growing, sometimes debilitating, dread.

Every day since has felt like a fragile, fraught slog of calm before the storm as many of us wrestle with just how to live with a future so full of unknowns and perils. This has been especially true for people Trump has targeted: immigrants, transgender people, and anyone who still values truth and decency. (Fact-check: That does not include billionaire tech bros.)

The more unnerving the future, the most we can do some days is to hang on and hang in — because while there is no guarantee of a happy ending, neither is there the absolute promise of a tragic end.

We can close our eyes, the way so many of us in that waiting room do (in silent prayer, or maybe just exhaustion). But then we must open them and stay laser-focused on the task ahead, even if that task is no more than putting one foot in front of another.

Is one step at a time enough to fight such a thing as the broligarchy (a term coined by Carole Cadwalladr of the Guardian)? It’s certainly one lesson among 20 she gives to resist giving into fear — which is what those wreaking havoc want us to feel.

But also, we must fight back against misinformation and normalizing lies.

And form alliances to push back against authoritarianism.

And never, ever give into despair — because we are not powerless. Not even close.

Yes, uncertainty is scary, and yes, things can — and likely will — get scarier. But with uncertainty also comes the possibility of growth and connection.

Speaking of prayers, consider this a prayer, or plea, or maybe just a reminder, as much to you as to myself.

As I struggle with how best to fulfill my obligation as a journalist to hold the powerful to account in an era when the most powerful are determined to destroy the people and institutions dedicated to that endeavor, I’ve been thinking a lot about the hundreds of thousands of words written and uttered by those of us sounding the clarion call.

To what end, I wonder, is it all for, as just days before he is sworn in as the nation’s 47th president, Trump will appear before a judge to be sentenced on his 34 felony counts.

Merriam-Webster declared 2024’s word of the year to be polarization, which tracks. What might 2025’s word of the year end up being?

My hope: courage.

May we all have it as we walk toward an uncertain future, with an unwavering commitment and belief that something better can be on the other side.