Good riddance, 2025

For me, 2025 has been mostly miserable. Not entirely miserable, but far from what I would say was a good year. I won’t say it could be worse, because it can ALWAYS be worse.

I thought about not writing about it. Why would I want to share all that happened to make this such a lousy year? But with so many social media accounts showing picture perfect worlds that don’t actually exist, we need reminders that all is NOT perfect, and there’s no need to compare your life to others and feel like you’re lacking. You aren’t. The reality is that many of us are struggling – and that doesn’t play well on Facebook.

I also have realized that years ending in 5 have never been my best years.

2025 started off with watching my mother die. It was as horrible as you can imagine – but I suggest not imagining it. I cherish that I got so many great days with her before she left, but the time leading up to the end was devastating. Watching that suffering was enough to make the year terrible. The loss – and the trauma of what I saw, what I know she was experiencing – hurts every single day. Every. Single. Day. And the idea that, when 2025 ends, I will never ever live in a year when she was alive too makes me want to collapse on the spot.

An aside: please talk to your parents about whether or not they have a will, and encourage them to have one if they don’t.

My trip to Paraguay was mostly wonderful, and was the highlight of the entire year, no question, and I am so grateful to have experienced it and SO grateful to all of you who donated to Habitat for Humanity to make it possible (thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you). Had I not done that trip, this year would have been utterly useless. But the trip also showed me just how weak I am physically now, far more than I realized, a result of age and lack of exercise. It’s been jarring to discover. I am old. And I hate it.

Days before going to Paraguay, I was in the hospital emergency room with the worst abdominal pain I have ever experienced. I felt like my insides were being ripped apart. The pain went on for hours. And, of course, about 30 minutes before I finally was seen by a doctor, the pain was gone. Lots of theories offered as to why I was in such intense pain, but nothing conclusive. I’m so glad I still got to go on my trip, but whatever it was really weakened me. I had my first ever colonoscopy once I was back from my South America trip – all the innerds look dandy. But I’m worried at this happening again.

I came back from South America with a nasty, constant, violent cough that lasted more than a MONTH. And that was bad enough, in and of itself: the lack of sleep, the constant sound of me coughing… but my voice took five months to recover. FIVE MONTHS. I could not sing in a clear, unbroken voice or in any kind of reasonable range until around Halloween. I’m better, but I am not sure that I don’t have some new limits on my range. And if I do, I know that change is forever.

In June, I presented a workshop at a VERY large motorcycle gathering, one with many hundreds of people. And this is a workshop I have been wanting to present for years. I was so excited. I’m so intimidated by other motorcycle travelers, because I don’t ride anywhere as much as them, or as well as they do, and never will, but my workshop subject is something I know, inside and out, and was so ready to share it. The workshops the day before were packed with people. I was so excited! And… just one person came to my presentation. And he was the next presenter. And he mocked me and said some of the things I was saying were wrong, because he claimed he had done the very things I said were impossible. I was so thrown. I stumbled through the rest. I ended early. A week later, I found out that guy was LYING – he completely misrepresented his travel experience (yes, of course I researched it). His goal in saying what he did? To make me feel like I didn’t know what I was talking about and that he, in fact, knew more. I’m still angry about it. As for why no one showed up for my presentation: it was probably timing: it was a beautiful day, before lunch – who wants to sit in a tent when there are motorcycle demo rides and led rides happening, in a gorgeous part of the world? But there’s still a part of me that feels like a failure.

At that same motorcycle gathering came my knee injury, which has kept me off my motorcycle since JUNE. I rode once, in October, two miles to my destination and then later back to the house. And getting off the bike twice that day, at the end of each of my two mile rides, was a struggle: I could feel the strain on my left knee both times. I finally went on a longer ride on December 28, carefully getting on and off. Next day, yup, knees hurt – just a bit, but still. That’s definitely how I injured it, just getting on and off a motorcycle over and over and over wearing new boots that don’t let my ankles turn – and make my left knee turn much more. Doing no motorcycle rides or trips since June has affected my mental health in a dire way. A part of my identity completely gone. My best respite from when work gone. My respite from feeling old gone. And fighting for any treatment I could get from Kaiser, my health care provider, was exhausting. I had to call, email, complain complain complain. Not getting an MRI until FOUR months after the injury! And getting ZERO medical help for healing until December when, at last, I got a couple of cortisone shots in both knees – which I’m convinced I got only because I cried when the doctor told me the MRI showed nothing and there was nothing that could be done. The shots have helped… but is this my life now?

This year, for the second time in two years, someone said I looked like a certain actress who, while very talented, is not someone I want to look like. At all. On both occasions, the men blurted it out like it was a great discovery – no concern at all how I might react to it. Not only is she not at all an attractive woman, 15 years older than me, she’s a very big woman, and a lot of the parts she’s played are slovenly women. The comments ring in my ears every day, every time I look in the mirror. I used to be told I looked like Susan Sarandon – who is 20 years older than me, and who I would love to look like, as she looks now or any time at all. But I don’t.

It feels like everyone went to see Paul McCartney but me. And that was my last chance. I wanted to go, but not alone, and it never dawned on me to put out a call on Facebook, asking who was going and if I could tag along. Because I’ve done that a few times, most recently asking if anyone was interested in going to Disneyland, and I’ve been met with crickets. I think this time, it might have been different. But I’ll never know now.

Lesson learned, yet again: take the opportunity and go, even alone. (I haven’t gone to Disneyland alone because I’ll look like a creep alone. I had enough of that feeling volunteering with Girl Scouts without a daughter).

I had to give up two long-term volunteer passion projects, one of which I had nurtured for years and turned into an extremely popular online destination, a project that landed me two much-needed paid consulting jobs with a certain massive social media company a few years ago. I put a tremendous amount of thought and care into that project over the years, and regularly revisited the strategies I used for it, regularly adapted them. I had gotten that online destination to a point where it had never been as active with members and interactions. But the strict guidelines that made it such a worthwhile online destination also angered people who didn’t like the rules, and someone decided to create a campaign to oust me. It worked. As the online criticisms suddenly began to pile on from that small group, I suddenly realized I was too old for this, and I walked away. That project is now floundering, and it’s sad to see so many people not getting answers to their questions, seeing the misinformation, seeing the content quality plummet. I get so tired of building up things so carefully and so successfully and then watching them fall apart after I leave. The other project was related to Afghanistan – and that’s all I’m going to say about it, except that I hated leaving it behind.

I am so frustrated that I cannot help anyone in Afghanistan. No one. I’ve been trying to help three associates with ANYTHING, not just attempts to get out: with getting food, with getting a job, with pursuing education, with just making FRIENDS with people and creating mutual help networks. And it’s just fail fail fail. I’m no help at all.

The level of hostility I’ve experienced online this year has been at record levels – and I’ve been online since 1994 or so. I don’t mean all caps folks, or obvious Russian trolls, or MAGA idiots – I mean people who take time to carefully craft an insult or to try to undermine something I do online. People who do a bit of research so that they can zing me with something personal. I can’t imagine spending that much time to be negative. I also can’t believe I’m worth targeting.

My garden failed for the third year in a row. Gardening is a simple thing that I always felt like was one thing I couldn’t screw up – you get out of it as much as you put into it. And while I don’t put nearly as much into it as I wish I could – my body continually fails me – my work this year was for nothing. I have no idea what I’m doing wrong. I used to be SO GOOD AT THIS. To not be able to do this basic, fundamental thing anymore… another loss. Another change for the worse that feels permanent.

My current job has become a nightmare. The year started off almost immediately with incredibly bad vibes, prompting a long-brewing and then explosive staff rebellion. Everyone pointed to one source for all the problems, and I agreed that the primary source needed to go, but I also tried to warn everyone taht getting rid of that source wouldn’t mean automatically making things better. I tried to say, as diplomatically as possible, that removal was going to introduce new problems, and reveal some that have been hidden. Welp, that primary source is gone – and I was right. Now that there’s no one really in charge, a lot is not getting done, and when I ask questions, questions I MUST ask, per the nature of my job, those gaps in work and quality come to light. Instead of answering the questions, or saying, “we’re struggling with that – let’s brainstorm how to address this thing that isn’t getting done,” the response is “I don’t like your tone.” Instead of getting the info I need, I get, “She sends too many emails.” This is the second time for me that a job that started off really remarkablly well has gone sour. Once again, all of the things I do, all of my strategies and approaches, that a year ago I was lauded for – persistance, attention to detail, my expertise regarding nonprofit communications and volunteer engagement – now I’m derided for. Also, it never fails that people love a high performer until they realize they can’t keep up with her. Yes, that statement was arrogant, but it’s the truth. The joy is gone from my job – and it’s probably the last job I’ll ever have. But I need this job. Desperately. So, it’s stay and be humiliated and grossly underperform, or move on and miss that paycheck I really need.

I got sick AGAIN in September for most of the month, with a cold and cough that ruined many a night’s sleep. It wasn’t COVID, but it hung on like COVID and made life miserable and further hurt my voice. The medicines that helped earlier in the year didn’t this time. By the time I found what worked, I was as mentally exhausted as physically tired. I’m so tired of coughing. And it makes me think of my Mom’s struggles her last days, and that makes me further spiral.

All the illness and depression over events kept me mostly unmotivated to play piano, guitar, dulcimer and ukulele – and I’ve lost so much of the progress I made. I thought by now I’d be playing out of hymnals. Nope. I finally started practicing regularly again in October. But part of me wonders why even bother…

Another reason I hate this year: I am obese. Again. And shove your “body acceptance” speech: I’m miserable at this size. The limitations are… heart-breaking. Just trying to bend over to tie my shoe without passing out.

Throughout all of this, just as I warned for YEARS, fascism has taken over the USA. All the progressive white bros who told me I was being hysterical are suddenly singing a very different tune – or are “trying not to be so political.” I have nothing but contempt for them. I’m as angry at the progressive bros as I am at the fascists – I’m not kidding. Throughout all this, bad guys win, over and over, and millions – MILLIONS – cheer the horridness, the cruelty, even the death. There’s no light in this tunnel. None. There’s not going to be a glorious, triumphant turning point. I thought that happened on January 21, 2021. Those four years were a brief respite. We’re not going to get anything like that ever again, at least not in my lifetime. And I’m tired of the people telling us that we can’t despair. I’m not Wonder Woman. I’m human. I am despairing. Totally normal reaction. Totally justified.

We camped in the trailer just twice this year, once for a weekend, once for a week, and I’m so glad we did those trips – but we are, literally, running out of new places to go, and Stefan really enjoys camping only if it’s somewhere new. We should have camped more – but going back to places we were just a couple of years ago is about as satisfying as sitting in the back yard.

I spent November and December trying to come up with plans for my 60th in January. When 2025 started, we had planned on spending my 60th birthday in Peru or Columbia, renting and riding motorcycles, visiting ancient sites, having our usual grand time away. But the knee injury in June ended that plan, plus the political situation there has gotten dire. By the time I realized how close I was to the end of the year and that I needed to make plans, it was too late: my alternative plan, to go to a very particular language school in Mexico, fell through because the school is fully booked for January. My third option fell through: as I said, no one wants to go to Disneyland with me, and it would be creepy to go alone. The thought of making everything in Walkin’ in Memphis happen crossed my mind, and while I’d be doing that alone too, and I’d be okay with that in warm weather, not in January. Vegas? Anything I wanted to see has closed permanently, or takes off for my birthday.

So I thought, okay, let’s just go to PORTLAND for two or three nights. We have never run around Portland together at night, not late, not having great beer or something, because we have to drive back home. Welp: There’s no one at Fan Expo I want to stand in line for hours to see. The Winter Hawks (hockey) are out of town then. No Thorns or Timbers games (soccer). I hate pro basketball. No band or comedian that I have ever heard of is playing Portland that week. Most of the theaters are dark. The Portland Museum at that time has nothing to entice me, and OMSI has a entire section closed until Spring.

So my 60th birthday was going to be… at my house. And I love my house. But the idea of spending my 60th birthday here, just another day at home alone, and a rushed meal in the evening because Stefan’s tired and has to work the next day… it sent me into a tailspin. I cried. I stared into space. A friend wanted me to come to Barcelona, and I almost did – but then realized she would be working the whole time and I would be alone a LOT. And I’ve run around Barcelona by myself, it’s really nice, but I didn’t want to do that again.

60. I’m dreading it. I don’t want to turn 60. I don’t want to be in my 60s. I’ve embraced every age, no problem, but this one – I have to try to not cry when I think about it. It doesn’t help that I’m so overweight. And I kind of feel like this is my last chance for a big SOMETHING for my birthday. Who knows what my health will be like at 70. I don’t want to turn 60 – so can I at least have a really special something on that day, please?

Just so you know, I do now have plans for my birthday. I’ll tell them AFTER they happen.

And no, I didn’t know him… but the whole thing with Rob Reiner and his wife… it broke me.

So, here’s the thing: if 2025 represents the rest of my life… I’d rather not think about that.

Before I end this blog of hate and misery and disappointment: in addition to loving Paraguay, in addition to making new friends because of that trip, I did really love seeing Robbie Fulks in November (though he made some comments that make me think he’s pretty much over it – including his fans), and I loved spending time with Michelle and finally introducing her to my friend Adrian – they are the two biggest Portland foodies EVER and I can’t believe they didn’t know each other already. And enjoying Gregg’s breakfast pizza amid that meeting.

I also absolutely treasured being with my sister so much in March, even in those horrible circumstances. She’s an amazing person. I could not be more proud of her. I wish she could see herself through my eyes. I wish she wasn’t so busy and we could spend time together. And I treasure getting to know my Aunt Charla in a way I never knew before, and I treasure her support for me, my siblings, and my mother. She was losing her last sister, but it felt like she was there for us, and I hope we helped her as well. I hold dear the love and support my Kentucky hometown gave me and my family in March – and beyond. I long for it all year long.

I also am thankful every day for my beloved husband and dog. Our two camping trips were incredibly special to me.

But, really, from the bottom of my heart: good riddance, 2025.