Examining 2025 in the Mirror

It's yet another season that begins far too early: reflecting on the past year. I've been seeing "best of" lists and "year in review" posts since at least Black Friday. It seems strange to start looking back on a year when there's a month or more left of it. But Thanksgiving does seem to kick off that sense of winding down one year and gearing up for better things to come in the next.

All of that is to say that I'm finally ready for my own reflections on 2025 now that the year can be easily counted in remaining hours.

As an artist, writer, and clinical research consultant, I have many different professional vectors for a review. They overlap a fair bit on the personal front as well, as I keep working toward a balance that allows the art and writing to dominate while the clinical research provides a steady income as needed for the family. Otherwise on the personal front, my family (immediate and extended) and my health are large areas ripe for reflection as well. These are the themes and categories that are likely to emerge. And I'll be leaning heavily on Elementary gifs as I'm in the middle of a rewatch (I'm somewhere in the double-digits).

Fun Things I've Consumed

Well, first I'll start with something completely different, a bit of "My Best of" hits from the year.

Of course, I say that but it's hard for me to put together a list of my favorite movies or music or shows or books. I'm just neurospicy enough that I can get lost in countless rewatches (as indicated by these gifs) and have several go-to bits of media that keep me engaged on a task or help serve up a particular mood I'm craving. I've added some new items to that list this year: K-Pop Demon Hunters (both movie and soundtrack), Wake Up Dead Man (great to have three Benoit Blanc movies to go to), Sleep Token (Even in Arcadia got me through the hell of travel to my grandmother's hospice bed), No Hard Feelings by The Beaches, Flux by Alison Goldfrapp. The New Zealand band LEISURE gives rather perfect chill jazzy vibes for a lot of intense focus on work things. I suspect that the Murderbot show will be added to my hoard of go-to repeats, but I've been leaning harder on Kaos and Black Doves as the year winds down on that front.

Book-wise, I've read 28 books or novellas this year, still not back to my pre-pandemic trends in the 50s and 60s. I gobbled up the Witch Roads duology by Kate Elliott. I have been a fan of hers for a long time and will happily pre-order anything she releases or chase whatever corner of her backlist I haven't read yet. I was incredibly late to the Between Earth and Sky series by Rebecca Roanhorse. I had picked up the first book right when it came out and then moodily bounced off it (I think I was deep in a historical mystery kick then and fantasy clashed with the vibe I wanted). I decided to go back to it during some travel this fall and devoured the whole series.

I have been getting a lot of narrative needs from videogames since the pandemic. This year, I got lost in Blue Prince, Clair Obscure Expedition 33, Hades II, and the various Dreamlight Valley expansions (although this year in particular I found myself in a real see-saw relationship with this game; sometimes I really need the ongoing dopamine spam of daily digital chores and sometimes it's the very last thing I want in my life). I did dive deep into Assassins Creed Shadows because I am a sucker for a rich and sprawling open universe with stealth gameplay, but it didn't scratch the same itch as Odyssey (and I will be doing yet another replay of that in the near future).

I look forward to seeing what new bits of media will be added to my pile of neurodivergent hyperfocus aides in 2026.

Writing

I've been working toward a professional writing sale for about twenty years, and I've been collecting rejections for that long as well. Nearly a decade ago, I decided to shift into short fiction as novel-length was grinding all writing to a halt. I had some personal success there, creating a good stable of stories to shop around...so I could collect yet more rejections more quickly. But this is the space in which I've been getting rejections with feedback several times. Alas, I did not garner one of those this year just yet. I have one more piece out that could change that narrative, but I think I'm more likely to receive a response in the new year.

However, I have been flexing my writing skills quite a bit this year to develop my Artist Statement and other art show and open call submission responses. I have received feedback that these skills have not gone unnoticed in those submissions, especially as I might be a standard deviation apart/statistically significant from my peers in this regard. This encouraged me to consider non-fiction in the arts and culture spaces. I have a possible opportunity coming there; we'll see what develops in the early days of 2026 on that front. Stay tuned.

But in summary: I subbed my short fiction to 6 markets and have received 5 form rejections. I applied to a writing residency (and I loved that submission; I was so very excited about it) and received a form rejection. I pitched a non-fiction arts & culture article that is still live on the table, waiting for a final decision in an unanticipated direction. It seems like a lot, but all of those fiction submissions are from pieces created prior to 2025. I may have revised them here and there, but I have no new fiction generated this year. That does sting a bit, and informs some 2026 goals.

Clinical Research

Family finances required a steady, reliable income from me this year. I'm fortunate that I have maintained good connections from my previous run of full-time, career-focused gigs, so I was able to find a part-time opportunity at a very good hourly rate. I will continue this on through much of 2026. This is the departure from the original 2025 plan. We had originally expected the contract would be only 6 months, and then I could chase some other opportunities that would keep my weekly hours more in the 10-15 per week range rather than 20-25 range. The goal was to generate some family income to deal with lingering expenses from the first mold remediation and then get back to writing and art full-time.

This plan changed when the child moved out of the house and we discovered more problems lingering in the previously inaccessible corners of his room and closet. We're waiting on insurance to see if we've got any financial support coming our way there, but we know it won't cover everything. So. More time with steady, reliable income from me is needed.

Art

I think this might be the most successful lens through which to view 2025. Not in the sense that my art business is booming and I'm in the black and trying to figure out how best to manage my many profits. Those Official Business milestones have not been met, but my original plan was to get into the black by year 3, so I'm still on track in that sense.

2025 began with a lot of daily art from various BlueSky art challenges, especially through most of February before the part-time job kicked off. I missed a lot of booth and show opportunities early in the year due to breaking my foot (more to come on that front) in the last days of 2024. I also had to figure out how to have a work-life balance again after nearly two years away from the work force. Add to that the second round of home insanity, and my art took a hit in terms of a regular practice or business management.

Much like my writing, I was still always on the lookout for opportunities for my work even if I wasn't creating as much as I wanted. In this space, I had a lot of success. One of my pieces was included in an exhibit in the Steinfeld Warehouse Gallery in town. I was accepted as a vendor for my first booth experience. I have two other successes from 2025 submissions, but they are for 2026 events for which links and additional information will be forthcoming (stay tuned). In total, I completed 24 submissions for various art ventures (art vendor applications, open calls for gallery exhibits, featured artist/artwork for various orgs, artisan memberships, grants). Four of those are still in progress with responses expected early next year, and seven subs garnered some form of acceptance. Which is great! What is less great is that pretty much all of these submission types come with an entry fee, so that does chip away at the business banking balance.

However, I'm very much in the eager-sponge-absorbing-all-the-knowledge-and-experience stage of things. So nothing feels "wrong" in that summary. Over the two booth experiences I had, I learned all about how I wanted everything arranged and what I can and can't discern from folks who wandered by. Yes, I would have liked more sales, but I truly appreciated every moment of connection I found with those who took a closer look at my art.

I still feel a sense of ignorance on how this whole Art Business is supposed to work, though. As I shift into 2026 goals, I've been trying to approach a lot of these submissions with a little more intentionality, a little more discernment. So that way I feel a little less like I'm throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.

Health

My physical well-being is always an interesting angle for an annual reflection exercise. My particular flavor of neurospicy lends itself toward seemingly random injury. Yes, I'm the kind of person who has no idea where that bruise came from or how this scrape happened. Sometimes I have a vague sense of not rounding a corner well enough, or misjudging where the chair leg is sticking out in my peripheral vision. But most times, it's a mystery.

Also, if there's a wobbly stair, a jagged sidewalk edge, or some other moderately hidden hazard, I seem to be magnetically attracted to them. This is how I broke my foot in the last few days of 2024. I mangled it well enough that it took an MRI early in 2025 to confirm just how bad it was and off I was on a few months of physical therapy with the lingering threat of surgery if the PT proved too painful or otherwise unsuccessful. As I was wrapping up that PT, my wrist decided it was very unhappy. I was working through the pain with two or three different braces or wraps on it. I found I could type this way fairly well, but hand writing was a problem, and painting was not easy either. I got surgery at the end of May to address that and had to suffer through two additional weeks of the most ungainly splint I have every experienced.

I thought I was done with 2025 health drama until I got a zit that refused to go away this summer. I've got a familial history of skin cancers, and I spent my early clinical research days extracting data from cancer patient charts: I don't mess around with something that could possibly be malignant. It took two months, a biopsy, and a separate full excision before we fully resolved this thing as a completely benign fibroma (which are most typically found in the lower extremities, so why it decided to show up on my jawline made all the docs scratch their heads).

I think I'm done on this score for 2025, but it only takes a few seconds for a random injury, and there are a lot of minutes left on the year to really consider myself in the clear.

Family

I've mentioned elsewhere that my grandmother passed away this summer. I'll have far more to say about that in a separate post. But that event did mean I was able to connect with a lot of cousins and relatives I haven't seen in ages, and that I very much appreciated.

The other big family event of the year was that my kid moved out to rent a place with some friends closer to campus. I've meant to dive into that whole life change a bit more in this space, but see above how his moving out kicked off a whole bunch of house drama. In short, it has been such a privilege to watch my kid grow up and into a deeper understanding of himself. I'm honored that he enjoys our relationship enough that he shares that journey with me freely. Yes, I do miss having him at the house all the time, but he visits every weekend and often stays overnight for some home cooking or extra hang time. I love watching him develop into this fully adult human. I have always been excited for each step of his journey, even as those steps necessarily carry him away from me. I might feel a little more conflicted about this if he went to college out of town or state. Instead, I am fortunate to be close enough for regular visits so I can hear all about this class or that activity.

My brother had a lot on his plate this year, dealing with the end of his marriage. He lives on the east coast, and it's hard to be so far away when that kind of stress is unfolding. When our parents got divorced, I was far away in college, and his high school self blamed me for "abandoning" him to the day-to-day stress and chaos of that process. There was a fairly big part of me that wanted to hang out with him through his own divorce so I could make up for that ancient wound somehow. Nevertheless, he's now on the other side of it and is looking forward to re-shaping his life around the change.

We are pretty far from just about all of our family. This is how I grew up though: miles or oceans away from extended family, just our little immediate family unit and our community to figure things out. There are downsides to this, sure, but my little unit of three now transitioning to an empty nest has managed it well.

Looking Ahead

The first quarter of 2026 is largely mapped out already: I have booths at shows at the end of January and the end of Feburary; I have a piece in an exhibit that kicks off in mid-January; I will be attending a big local business conference at the end of March (and I've been wait-listed to an art fair around that time as well); I have my first professional non-fiction piece to write (pending confirmation); I've got three subs waiting on responses and two more markets to finish up pieces for submission in January.

My big goal for 2026 is intentionality: I want to submit to markets with a bit more of a unified purpose or end goal; I want to target my booths with specific art pieces to see how my engagement changes with the crowd; I want to make some adjustments to my website now that I have a better sense of myself as an artist and the patrons and community I want to find.

So I'm calling 2025 pretty darn successful, even if mostly in knowledge and vibes. And 2026 looks very interesting and full of more fun.