the year-end roundup
I think I'm tired from the entire year, my spouse confesses after yet another nap. I feel like I lived multiple lives this year. Used up almost nine of them, I respond, looking back at him. This man does not remember the decades worth of experience we've stuffed into an entire year, and I proceed to spend the next 20 minutes reminding him.
Amongst other things, I had to remind myself of the following positive things that happened that I recall:
- Went on at least one trip per month since the end of March (at least two of those were business trips!)
- Presented at a conference, accepted as a speaker at several others before I realised I couldn't deal with the stress and lack of COVID-19 precautions
- Attended and was accepted to multiple writing workshops/conferences, made a ton of friends, and met a mentor
- Became a literary magazine reader and editor
And then the not so great...
- One of those writing workshops was a total bust and ended up re-traumatizing me :') (I wish I was being facetious, but I'm genuine and not dramatic. It was a horrible time.)
- De-escalated things with a partner after our trip together. Non-monogamy is. not for the faint of heart, and after a brutal break-up last year, I needed a lot of recalibrating
- Becoming so depressed and healing from so much bullshit that I was desperate enough to go through medical IV ketamine treatment (which helped, but HOLY SHIT was it emotionally excruciating)
- Racked up 100+ rejections from literary journals over the last year (2024-2025)
And one very important thing:
- FINALLY YEETED MY UTERUS!!!
But all of those things set me on a wonderful trajectory with my writing career, something I didn't even realise I could pursue until the end of 2024. It's exciting to see how far I've come in a year. I don't want to write too much about it since I haven't processed everything, but I did want to post how grateful I am for the experiences I had, even though some of it was... terrifying.
looking fwd to 2026
Here is what I am hoping to bring with me into the new year:
- A continued consistent writing and journalling practice
- Figuring out where I'm meant to write and what community to do that best with
- Making significant progress on multiple manuscripts
- Get published!
- Attending an artist residency in Guatemala
and more!
:') Thank you for putting up with this post. I have a lot to be grateful for. Happy to have you here with me.