Beautiful Moments: 2025
It’s year six of this ritual of spending the final week of the year tunneling into my memories of the last 12 months and writing down the handful I most want to hold onto. It’s an ongoing acknowledgement that memory is fickle and slippery, but it’s also malleable: I can choose, to some extent, how I remember my life.
What I’ll most remember about 2025 is that I hated it, start to finish. I should have known I was in trouble when, by the end of January, no word had alighted upon my mind — bestowed upon me by my subconscious or God or whatever — to subtly guide me through the year. Silence.
I woke up many mornings thinking “I am miserable” and found myself a regular recipient of pitying looks and comforting words. Yet I found the year shot through with so many moments of beauty, passion, and wondrous calm and community that I also often thought to myself, “what a beautiful, perfect life I’m living.”
I floated in that tension the whole year. I sought contentment and found it.
So here are a few of my moments, as they unfolded through this year. (Should you be interested, you can find past years here.)
The year opens in doctor’s offices and consult rooms, and by the middle of January, Joey is being prepped for back surgery. We sit in a small pre-op room all day as delay after delay occurs, and at one point during the interminable wait, I climb into the bed with Joey. We arrange the IV and the blankets so I can rest my head on his chest while we watch an hour or two of whatever is on the tv. He’s in pain and miserable, but during that time we’re pressed together, he calms, and so do I.
When he’s finally in surgery, a friend brings me dinner at the hospital. She’s got too much on her plate — work and kids with afterschool activities — but she makes room for me. And as she drops a bag of Chick-fil-A into my hands, I begin to sob. (As I write this, I realize I’ve accomplished what I set out to do in 2023.)
For Christmas, Joey got me the supplies to learn watercolors, and for some reason this seems like a communal activity. I invite a few women over to learn with me, and for a few months, my Tuesday evenings are full of quiet community and encouragement. I watch them learn their way around my kitchen, notice when they begin to let themselves in without knocking, smile when I absentmindedly say, “goodbye, I love you” for the first time.
We’re not really protest people, but in February, we protest. My favorite sign, held by a friend, reads: “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” We run into friends and acquaintances, end up walking to dinner with another family. I feel myself shaking free of the weird loneliness of being a federal workforce family during the chaos of this administration, at least for an evening.
In March, I invite my friends from pottery class over for a potluck dinner. Everyone arrives carrying food made by them in a dish also made by them, which is incredible. It’s an evening that feels right out of a dream I had in 2023 — look what I made: this bowl, this cake stand, this group of friends
We go to Iceland seeking redemption for the disaster of our trip to Norway. We tour Reykjavik, we relax at the Blue Lagoon, and then we head toward the middle of nowhere, where we’ve booked a glass cabin in hopes that we will see the northern lights. As the sun fades, Joey begins to pace outside in the cold while I sit on the bed reading and watching him, silently praying that this is the night. I eventually convince him that relaxing in the hot tub with hot chocolate and our eyes on the sky is a better plan, and that’s where we are when the night sky turns bright. We run around the snow in winter coats thrown over our robes, and it’s the happiest I can remember being in a very long time.
We hike a glacier, which is more frightening than I’d like to admit: higher, slushier, more uncertain terrain. A panicky feeling in my chest, I consider backing out; the guide tells me that if I don’t continue, no one in the group can. So I do. I loathe the anxiety choking me, and I feel annoyed that I cannot override this fear. I put one foot in front of the other and try to hide the tears in my eyes, but it’s a small group and everyone can tell. While crossing one of the more rickety bridges (my hands are sweating while I type this), one of the women in the group reaches back towards me and grabs my hand. She smiles and gives me a little clap when we get to the other side. I’ve never seen a smile on my face as big as the one in the photos of me when we get back to the ground.
In April, when the garden is loveliest, a friend brings her daughters to my house to learn about flowers. I teach them about the parts of flowers and their life cycle, and then we head outside, where they sniff, pluck, and prance their way around the yard. The next few times I see them, they mention the scent of the roses and the height of the clover lawn.
One of our friends invites us to her parents’ house for Easter tea, and after so many years living away from our hometown, I am stunned by the ease of simply driving to a parent’s home on a Sunday afternoon. It’s nice to be included, to feel partially adopted into the fringes of a family. We repeat the simple intimacy throughout the year, and eventually I’m greeted by name by her parents, who seem to ask after me, to know small details of my life, to think fondly of me in my absence.
On the morning of my birthday, I am asked to stay in bed a little longer, and I emerge from our bedroom to balloon decorations and cake for breakfast — both things that I apparently desired in passing over the last year, noted by Joey. As the day goes on, it becomes clear that my friends and husband have been conspiring to bring me joy: a surprise party at my favorite restaurant, drinks and games back home, and finally…
My birthday gift: floral notecards listing 31 things they love about me, in honor of my 31st birthday. They say I make their lives more beautiful, that they love the way I tell the truth, they love to eat the food I make for them. They say I make them feel special, they love being invited into my traditions, that they see and respect my pursuit of excellence. They say it’s an honor to be in my inner circle, that they admire my sense of self and my passion for hospitality. And I ugly-cry as I read them all, because it’s a beautiful thing to be viewed generously and lovingly by people I adore, and to feel they see the best parts of me. On the hardest days of the next few months, I will pull these cards out when I’m looking for affirmation, and I’ll find exactly what I need.
I flash back to a few weeks earlier, eating tacos with a few friends on a beautiful May evening. They ask me what I want for my birthday. I quickly reply, “Compliments,” and see them all exchange smirking glances. I assume it’s because I’m being characteristically needy for affirmation, but I assume incorrectly.
Our friend group tries to be more spontaneous over the summer, and the group chat stays alive with possibilities. We stroll the farmers markets in small groups. I invite them over to try a weird TikTok recipe together. We spend time at someone’s pool throwing the kids around, bumming fries off each other, playing cards. I help a friend arrange flowers for her baby’s first birthday. We watch fireworks and go thrifting and get coffee or lunch. I like making myself available to them, prioritizing opportunities for connection over whatever the meal plan was for that day; it feels worth it every single time, like maybe these stolen hours are the whole point of life.
We plan a pool party, but just as our group settles into the almost-too-warm water, it begins to rain. We pack up all the food and run back to our hosts’ home, where we sprawl around eating lunch, damp and slightly chilly. Someone suggests a game for the kiddos, and I wrap myself in a quilt while we watch them teach the girls to play. I doze off to the sound of chatter and laughter and rain on the roof. There’s an ease to it that I’ve been chasing.
I watch my husband run off the side of a mountain, repeatedly, and every time, my heart is in my throat. But I want to be here with him, I want to see this new part of his world and watch him with other people. I want to ferry him back from the landing site. I want to spend the afternoon in a hammock on the periphery of wherever he is, forever.
We have a “grown-up sleepover.” Girlfriends descend upon someone’s home with charcuterie items and desserts, stuff our faces, play card games, catch up, watch Mean Girls, and then… we go home and sleep in our own beds
An editor from Business Insider reaches out to see if I’d be interested in writing an article on how being “the planner” has created opportunities for friendship. Of course I say yes. (You can read the piece here!) I’ve never been paid for my writing before, and I spend my earnings immediately and enthusiastically at the local art festival on a piece that reminds me of this stage of life: dogwoods, a bee amidst clover, the phases of the moon.
Over and over and over again, I take my heart from my chest, raise my cupped hands to my friends, and say, “Can you look at this with me?” Together we gaze at my pain and sign at the scars, and somehow that act alone is enough to soothe, to allow me to put it back inside my chest and move forward. A type of magic.
Joey is working on organizing his workshop, and (this is very silly) I miss him when he’s not puttering around the house with me. He sets up a hammock in the workshop so I can read and swing and generally bother him while he works. We both say we can’t wait to be retired.
On a Friday in October, I’m invited to rifle through a dead woman’s belongings. We move slowly, quietly, respectfully, carefully. We chat with her husband, who loved her dearly and champions her legacy as an artist. We each end up with a stack of books that is uniquely ours — mine is art history, world furniture, an encyclopedia of curiosities. While we weigh our new treasures to pay our host, he brings out some of Betty Jane’s poetry, written on a loose leaf of lined paper in 1967:
The old sadness is on me tonight // And I sit heavily in my corner // With silence loud in my ears // False barriers fall softly at my feet // And make believe values disappear // In a nightmare that pulls my soul // And tears my mind // The mechanical world ate me alive!!!
One evening in November, Joey makes us earl grey lattes in giant mugs, and we wander around the neighborhood sipping them and chatting while it gets dark abominably early. I know I can’t have what I want, but I wish for a thousand more years with him.
I’m wrapping up another much-loved project, and preparing for the photoshoot has me vibrating with satisfaction. I love this part: planning the shot list, thinking about accessories, sketching out the story we’ll tell about this project. Short on budget, I ask a florist friend if I can borrow a few items for styling images, and she loads me up with unused wedding blooms and anything in her studio that catches my eye. I’m no professional, but I think the arrangements I put together add something special to the images.
We spend a Saturday helping friends set up their new business. Boring stuff: unwrapping stools, assembling carts, hanging shelves, moving trash to the dumpster. But there is an intimacy to being invited into the messy parts of your friends’ lives, and it feels like an honor to be asked to help, that they knew we would try to say ‘yes’. I am reminded over and over that lasting friendship is made of a thousand “asked and answered” moments, and we’re only at the starting line.
We head downtown to tour some of the grand old homes that have been decorated for Christmas, and the path is lit, as always, by tiny paper lanterns. They’re just bags full of a little sand and a tea light, but there are thousands of them being lit as the sun sets, and I am teary-eyed at that. The world is, indeed, a museum of passion projects.
All year long, our personal traditions are humming in the background: the produce parties, the pumpkin carving and chili cook-off, the Thanksgiving feast with family followed by a leftovers party with friends, our quiet week between Christmas and New Year when we only make soup for dinner and do a puzzle together. We are creating our own rhythms of joy and rest, marking the passage of time with feasts and community. They are highlights of the year, but almost unremarkable at this point, and wow is there a special kind of beauty in that.
Just a note: I’m intentionally sharing the soft, lovely memories of 2025. The moments that glint darkly in the saddest part of my heart will stay private for now. With time, some of them will lose their edge; some will remain sharp. They matter just as much, but they aren’t for sharing.
