A Stressful Christmas, Thinking about 2025, and the Year Ahead

Christmas Moon

Post-Christmas Roundup

Hope you all had a peaceful and healthy holiday. Our Christmas Eve involved Glenn having to go for a stat DVT ultrasound after his year-end physical, an emergency cat vet visit for Sylvia, and me worrying about how my disability keeps me from being a good caretaker for anyone, including myself, my husband, and my cat. Good times! Glenn is fine (but needs more tests) and so is Sylvia after being pumped with antibiotics. We managed to celebrate Christmas day with my little brother without too much trauma, but everything just left me exhausted. I had a MRI for my brain on the 22nd, and I have to meet with my neurologist tomorrow, but by the report it didn’t look like too much bad news, at least on the brain lesion front. Note to self for next year: do NOT leave it ’til the end of the year to do all your family medical stuff because of the resetting deductible. Learn from my mistakes!

Lest I sound too gloom-and-doom, I received, among other great presents, a lovely Dewi Plass print on a metal core called “Onward,” I had a post-Christmas coffee with new-to-Seattle scientist/poet Genevieve Pfeiffer, and I was able to visit with my little brother. And as you can see from the photo, Sylvia is back to her inquisitive normal self. And my hair is back to my more-normal-for-me pink! Red hair is a LOT of maintenance.

: Brother Mike and me on Christmas

: Me with fave Xmas present, a Dewi Plass print, “Onward”

: With new-to-Seattle poet Genevieve Pfeiffer post-Christmas)

Thinking about 2025 and the Year Ahead

I know you’re supposed to size up the previous year and set goals for the next, but I feel like 2025 was somehow rougher than it could have been—the bathroom renovation was a too-long-and-too-expensive nightmare (I’m glad to have the disability-friendly bathroom, but it took a LOT of time and money and took a toll on both my health and Glenn’s)—rejection on the writing front, an increase in MS symptoms for the last six months (hence the brain MRI), and the political nightmare that is America right now—I want to be grateful and count my blessings, but for now, I just feel like shutting the door on the last few years and hoping for some more normalcy—for myself and my country—in 2026. Just wishing doesn’t make it so, of course. I know a lot of people who had a difficult holiday season—health emergencies, layoffs, losing parents and loved ones, divorces, or learning to care for parents who are getting older. I am sending good thoughts to all who are struggling right now.

If I have some positive hopes for the new year, it’s maybe a trip to Europe and a residency in spring on San Juan Island, maybe to find a good publisher for my seventh book, maybe a part-time regular job I could count on instead of scrambling for freelance stuff all the time, better health for me and my family? Less drama, more fun. Less spending, more appreciating the things I have. More time for friendship, adventure, inspiration? At my age and with so many things out of my control, I don’t do “goal setting” per se like I used to for each new year, but I do try to envision something positive—small joys, the chance to reset, a chance to embrace something new.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year! Here’s to a better 2026 for all of us!