I’ve been writing yearly recaps here on my blog for nearly two decades. They’re some of my favorite posts, small markers along a life in progress. Over the years, they’ve held so much. Discovering my creative calling. Leaving my social work career to build a creative business. Becoming a mother. Making homes. Being married. Letting myself evolve in public and on the page.

This was a year that cracked my heart open and asked me to live inside the questions. To sit with uncertainty. To stay with the ache. To practice trust when answers were hard to come by.

2025 was not a year I would describe as easy. It was a year of thresholds. Of endings that mattered. Of beginnings that felt both thrilling and terrifying. A year where life kept asking us to loosen our grip, to trust the crossing, even when the bridge felt shaky beneath our feet.

I thought I’d share a little recap….

What is there to celebrate?

So much.

I celebrate a year of making a lot of new original artwork. Of painting both on the canvas, the old-fashioned way, and with Procreate, too. Painting, making, and creating is my happy place. I also celebrate all the writing I did this year, too. Art + words forever and ever, amen.

I celebrate the many ecourses I launched, offerings I am deeply proud of. Courses shaped with care, depth, and so much heart. It takes SO MUCH work to create a course, and when they’re well received, well, my heart bursts with gratitude.

I celebrate the two retreats I hosted in Greece and Portugal, and the magic that unfolded there. Sacred spaces of creativity, reflection, and connection. Psst: More retreats are coming in 2026, stay tuned!

I celebrate the deepening of friendships and the sweet creation of new ones, too. There is nothing more sustaining than being known and loved in friendship. I am lucky beyond, beyond, beyond.

I celebrate choosing love in my marriage of almost 25 years. Again and again. Especially when it would have been easier to armor up. I celebrate choosing repair. Choosing compassion. Choosing to stay present in the stretch. And choosing to allow each other to change and grow in new ways that nourish our connection.

I celebrate mothering a brilliant teen who reminds me every day how lucky I am to be his mom, and what an honor it is to watch his life unfold in such vivid, exciting ways. I never knew how FUN it is to have a teen!

And finally, I celebrate the quiet resilience that carried me through this year. The way beauty kept showing up alongside the ache. The way gratitude and grief learned how to coexist. And the way I now know, in a way I never have before, that I am, and have always been, a beautiful kind of resilient.

Where was I brave in 2025?

I was brave in letting go.

Watching my son, True, graduate from Waldorf school was both celebratory and a loss. Waldor was never just a school. It was a world that shaped not just his childhood, but our entire family culture. Watching True step out of that container and into high school required a deep kind of courage and trust that caught me off guard a little bit.

I was brave in a hard, uncertain Autumn. In living inside questions without rushing them. In staying present when clarity felt far away. In choosing tenderness over panic.

I was brave in deciding to move houses (we are in midst of packing as I write this!). In acknowledging when a chapter has completed itself. In honoring the truth that home is something we are always re-imagining.

I was brave in my work. This year asked me to make the hardest business decisions I’ve ever made. To release paths that no longer aligned. To choose integrity and sustainability. To trust that refinement, not expansion, was the invitation.

And I was brave in my marriage. In choosing love over resentment. Curiosity over fear. Presence over withdrawal. This was a year that stretched us beyond what we could have predicted, and asked us to show up with honesty, humility, and care. And we were more brave that we’ve ever been.

What is there to grieve in 2025?

There is so much here.

I grieve the loss of LuluButterButterBean, my soul dog. I’m still very much in the harsh waves of grief, feeling tender and tearful all the time, missing her endlessly.

I grieve the ending of an era as True closed his Waldorf chapter. Even beautiful endings deserve to be mourned.

I grieve the version of parenting where my child needed me in different ways.

I grieve the shifts of perimenopause. The sudden drop in estrogen this spring, the intensity of the hormonal swings, and the loss of balance I once took for granted. It has been disorienting, and it deserves to be named.

And I grieve parts of my work life I had to let go of. Dreams that once fit. Identities that needed shedding.

Gratitude

Thank you, 2025. I declare you complete. Thank you for all the learnings, and it was all learnings (and and so much love).