We’re getting close to the end of the year, and inevitably most of us will start taking a look back at 2025 to see how we did on various fronts. Then, we’ll look ahead at 2026 — plotting, hoping, wishing, maybe even vision board-ing.

I will go ahead and say that in the grand scheme of things — some intense emotional wreckage aside — I could pay my bills and travel, so my year was more than okay. At the same time, I’ve been having to tell the part of myself that always wants to overachieve, wants more, wants the best… to just shut up.

Because she can make me incredibly, deeply miserable. She is liable to compare me with the people in her personal circle and people she doesn’t even know personally — yay, social media — and point out all the things I lack.

“Look, this is what you don’t have yet!” “Thanks…”

Oh man, can she be such a bitch. Envy is known as a deadly sin for a reason.

When that part of me offers the slightest opening during her tantrums — why can’t you have what they have, what are you not doing enough of, how did you get here — I remind her about some moments from this past year. Fair warning: here we verge on stream-of-consciousness.

Enduring cohabitating for a month and a half with an ex-partner post painful breakup, digging into the Lady M cake that a bestie DoorDash-ed me on Valentine’s Day while I lived with said ex, moving multiple times, helping my mom buy a home to call her own after living with relatives for years, traipsing through Paris with another bestie a.k.a. the best tour guide, choosing to live alone for the first time and all the adjustments that requires, holding down a job and shrinking my ambitions from getting a raise to just not getting laid off in this economy, getting to the “oh, I’m so glad it happened” stage after the breakup, enduring speed dating events, receiving distressing health news and immediately taking action, making great new friends in a city that does not make it easy to do so, crying about then feeling relieved about being single approximately fifteen times in a single day, losing out on a big job after clearing all the interviews, finally finishing writing a short story I’ve struggled with for over a year but unsure if I can get it published anywhere…

When I cleared out of the place I used to live in with my ex. I never ended up needing to provide this picture to the property managers or whatever, but just for my own records in case.
The old adage is true: Paris is always a good idea. First-timer and I spoke some passable French…until I admitted needing to switch to English halfway through conversations LOL

And that grasping part of me always asks, “But where are we headed?” Marriage, baby, dream job, artistic breakthrough, Barbie Dreamhouse?

At this point, I become stumped. I want to say that someday we’re going to have a “the dots will connect looking backwards” moment per Steve Jobs, but I can’t promise that.

Right after I got rejected from a job I wanted

So this year I’ve really had to learn to sit with that part of me that wants an answer. I’ve learned to wait for the kicking and screaming subside until we both realize that those were just manifestations of grief and maybe also fear.

Grief from feeling like I wasn’t enough for what I (think I) want. Fear that I may be behind.

Lying on the floor of my Las Vegas hotel room for work because post-breakup emotions, as it turns out, cannot be turned off at will!!

This is where well-meaning people in my life will say, “everyone has their own timeline.” And this is where — despite everything I want to say back — I’ve learned to just nod and not bother debating with them, because I understand their intent was to try to make me feel better. But being thirty-something and a woman especially, would it kill the timeline to hurry up a bit?

Writers, particularly novel and screenwriters, often struggle with the “messy middle” of creating their works. The initial burst of excitement gives way to the inevitable slog of having to figure things out so that they can create the conclusion and effect they want. Is the story of my life in fact in a “messy middle” right now? There’s definitely a sense of unsettledness, if not outright messiness.

A writing session. Also my bleached and dyed hair was on its final legs here lmao.

There’s a plethora of advice out there for getting through this stage, ranging from taking a break from the page to seeking out inspiration to revisiting what’s already there and seeing if there’s a different thread to tug on. In a sense, I’m trying all of it.

Maybe that’s the test, the challenge, the call, what have you — to be okay with muddling through, being surprised, staying open. Always trying. Staying grateful for each time I get to say “so good to hear from you!”, each bag of groceries I take home, each morning I get to wake up. And understanding that settledness itself might be a myth. I always felt I knew this from a logical standpoint, but to be actually living it? Man. (Note that I said a messy middle up there, not the messy middle… because in life, you can bet there’s probably not just one, woohoo!)

My expression through much of this year; interpret as you will. My apologies to the taxidermied raccoon.

In any case, I think this may be the year I finally assemble a vision board and see what that exercise does for me.

If I don’t post again before 2026, I wish you a happy season of celebrating, and may the best be yet to come to you and yours.

Taken by an incredibly kind new girlfriend of mine!! Thank you, N 🙂