2025
2025 was a year of imperfect resilience. The year threw some mean punches both societal and personal, but the lessons I learned the hard way from the last few helped me stay upright. In the face of many horrors, I rolled up my sleeves to put in work where I felt called, but was also quicker to recognize my limits and not push myself to burnout (too much); I tried and mostly did not succeed at not feeling too guilty about this, but at least I tried. I poked at my narrative of self, pruned some things that were no longer necessary, and trusted that the integral parts would grow back stronger. I took the work of being a person and being in relationship with other people more seriously; I took my power more seriously. To survive it all, I made space and allowed myself some softness to indulge in deep joy and pleasure in between the hard stuff.
The challenges of this year could easily have defined it the way they did the last few, but instead I look back and see:
- Playing NYC-specific Geoguessr at Boshi's Place with Discord friends
- Almost learning how to skate backwards with Q and the characters of Xanadu
- Launching Unbreaking with Erin, Mandy, Liz, Sydette, Yvonne and running a dozen orientations for new people eager to join the work
- Taking over my favorite restaurant in Sunset Park for my birthday
- Sha, giddy with delight, inflating two wacky wavers for Aike's birthday (and the 5 years olds immediately going feral and attacking them)
- The week I saw Beyoncé and met Ellie the Elephant
- Eating homemade scallion-ginger noodles at the Grace Jones concert in the park
- Turning my phone on to literally 100 text messages on primary night
- Watching a hundred different DIY fireworks shows from the roof of the Cleveland Clinic
- The day I stumbled across 4 different dance parties in Prospect Park
- Floating on a creek during damselfly mating season, holding hands like otters
- Dividing irises and talking about life with Jess
- Sara shucking oysters for me by the cove in the summer and again in the fall!
- Getting my phone stolen at the club but still staying and dancing for DJ Travella
- Birdwatching on easy mode with Ed
- The most beautiful Onam yet
- Becoming tabla-pilled at Ragas Live
- Returning to Maine at exactly the right time to catch the fall foliage and having such a nice time I felt like some kind of billionaire but for seratonin
- Harvesting a wheelbarrow full of pumpkins with Sandy
- The beautifully unhinged slide deck about Curtis Sliwa I helped Hanna ready for publication
- Going to the Ruth Asawa show and then cooking Job Cod ™ with Sarah and Hanna
- The post-Christmas dinner snowball fight
- Gawking at the enormous wonderful team I've somehow managed to build at work and shipping useful things with them all year
- All the transcendent musical experiences
- All the things I fed my friends, and all the things they fed me
- All the chunky babies I held
- All the time I spent 😍 looking 😍 at the sunsets, the moon, and the clouds from one roof or another