By the end of 2025, I felt like I could barely stand on my own two feet.

That's not a metaphor. That's just where I was.

Well hello, my Medium friends. It's been a minute.

I can't believe my last post here was in May of last year, but at the same time… it tracks.

Like many people, 2025 brought some hard knocks. It took everything in me just to maintain my writing community, to hold onto my close friendships, and to end most days with some small sense of peace. And I know I wasn't alone in that.

It's always interesting to see what people post on social media around New Year's. This year, I noticed something different. There were fewer posts about big goals and shiny dreams, and more that simply said, "Congratulations. We made it."

Less wishing. Less dreaming. More surviving.

Maybe it's me. Maybe it's the fact that I turn 45 this year. But the older I get, the more it seems like time is marked less by milestones and more by who we've lost along the way.

In September, my dad died. His heart just gave out. He was here and supposedly healthy one day, and then he was gone the next.

I had never lost a parent before. I learned very quickly that grief is not tidy. It is complicated and messy, and it feels like riding the entire wheel of emotions all at once. Sometimes in the same hour.

Not long after that, my husband's cousin passed away. He was only 41. He found out he had cancer in the ER, and six months later, he was gone.

There were other losses too. Some too personal to share publicly, but they mattered just as much. It was a lot. It all felt surreal, like the year was asking more than I had left to give.

In November, my husband and I took the vacation of our dreams. We wandered through castles in Scotland and the UK. We visited Christmas markets in Copenhagen and Manchester. We ate truly amazing food and experienced cultures we had never seen firsthand before.

For a brief moment, it felt like the heavy energy of the year was finally shifting.

Then we came home and both got very, very sick. Whatever hit us, hit us harder than COVID ever did. My husband ran a fever for five days and could barely get out of bed. I took care of him and thought I had escaped it. A few days later, I was down too, with a fever that just would not quit.

And all of this was happening with a countdown in the background.

A dear friend had asked me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding. I had been looking forward to it all year. I had the dress. I had finally reached a weight where I could look in the mirror and actually like the person looking back at me. I couldn't wait to celebrate her special day.

But because we'd been so sick, I was fighting tooth and nail just to be well enough to stand there on her wedding day. Two days before the wedding, I had no voice at all.

Somehow, we rallied. Like we usually do.

And the wedding was beautiful. Truly beautiful. She was radiant. Their friends and family gathered around them, and for a few hours, everything felt light again. I danced until the DJ started packing up. It felt like oxygen.

Then, two days later, a friend got some unexpected and scary health news, and it knocked the breath right out of me all over again.

Christmas is our favorite holiday. We usually go all out. We decorate everything. We put snowmen everywhere. We drive around Richmond looking at tacky light houses. But this year, we were exhausted. We were grieving. We were running on fumes.

Like I said, I didn't just lose people in 2025.

I lost my momentum. I lost hope. I burned myself out.

So at the beginning of this year, I made a choice. I decided I couldn't live like that anymore. Something had to change. I needed to rethink some things. I needed to adjust my expectations of myself and of others.

Every year, a friend and I do something we call a "Plancation." We hole up at her house for three days and plan the year ahead.

We reflect. We celebrate our wins. We acknowledge our losses. We ask the honest questions. What went right? What could have gone better? What goals did I reach? Which ones need to change?

This time gave me space to really look at 2025. To see the patterns. To see the burnout. And then to build a plan that actually fits the life I want to live, not just the life I keep trying to survive.

I like to choose the word rhythm for my word of the year.

Instead of white-knuckling everything and pushing through, I want to change the tempo. I want to live in a way that breathes.

So… hello again, Medium. I hope you survived 2025 okay. And if you didn't, you are not alone.

If you're still reading this, welcome to my little corner of the internet. My hope here is to share more of myself.

Hello again, my old friend. I'm going to try to do better at staying in touch this year.