There are years that ask, years that answer, and years where everything changes...
A very honest take on 2025, big shifts, and self-trust
Before I begin, I want to acknowledge that this year has been horrible on a global level, and simply by nature of being a white woman in America who lives comfortably, I recognize that this is a highly privileged take that does not encompass my political beliefs. I am not a “head in the sand” person, but I am also not a “write political hot takes” person.
We’re in that strange week where time feels suspended—neither here nor there. My Instagram feed swings between “Refuse to do anything this week. Become a couch!” and “100 journal prompts to help you reflect before 2026.” Because I am who I am, I’ve been reflecting on my year (Virgo rising), becoming part couch (Taurus sun), and quietly making plans for 2026 (Enneagram 3).
It’s rare—at least for me—to experience a year where nearly every part of my life changes. The only other time I can recall is my early twenties, when everything felt fragile, and the smallest shift could send the few stable things I had into a new orbit. I tend to cling to certainty. I don’t love change. And yet, this year, almost everything changed.
I began the year in a fog of grief. My dear mother-in-law died in November 2024, and there’s no clean language for the way losing someone so essential to your spouse rearranges your inner world. I had been fortunate not to experience death so intimately before, and something about watching a vibrant, deeply loved person die—slowly, then suddenly—changes you. It does the predictable things: sharpens your sense of what matters (very little, beyond the people we love) and creates a cavernous sadness that doesn’t go away completely. It also does quieter, harder things. Watching your partner grieve so deeply, knowing there’s nothing to fix—only to witness, to stay, to make room for pain that softens but never disappears—alters you, too. We were apart for nearly four months, save for brief visits, and that, too, was a painful shift. Thankfully, despite it being a truly horrid experience, it’s made us tender and more gentle with one another.
What steadied me early in the year was movement. I needed to move to stay present with my grief, to feel anchored in my body. In February, I decided to start lifting weights again and began taking strength classes at Orangetheory, fully convinced I’d be a Strength50-only girlie. I did not expect to become obsessed.
My third class was coached by a woman who truly saw me—challenged me with heavier weights, corrected my form, pushed me. It was a stark contrast to male coaches who had often ignored me. Her confidence and encouragement nudged me into trying a “regular” class—strength, treadmill, rowing—once a week, which somehow turned into five days a week and an experience my body craves. I am now someone who uses Orangetheory as a verb and books classes with religious devotion.
That single choice reshaped so much. My relationship with my body is entirely different. This year, I hit 100 pounds lost. As someone who has cycled through weight loss and gain and struggled with disordered eating, it’s hard to articulate how different this feels. I’ve shared bits and pieces, but I’ve been using a GLP-1. At first, I carried a lot of shame. As someone shaped by body-positive and fat-acceptance spaces, I knew my choice would be judged. Eventually, I realized I cared more about my health—which had reached genuinely frightening metrics—than about adhering to rules that no longer felt true to me.
For me, this was a radical act. I’ve spent much of my life afraid to trust myself. Choosing a GLP-1 felt aligned with what I wanted for my body and my life, and for the first time, I valued that alignment more than the loud voices insisting I was morally failing. Pairing that decision with a consistent, challenging, joyful exercise practice has rebuilt my self-trust. I often think of a phrase from recovery spaces: Esteemable acts build esteem. Showing up for myself, watching my body grow stronger, feeling more capable—in the gym and in daily life—has shifted how I see myself. I trust myself now, all the way down to my bones.
Another unexpected gift of Orangetheory was Kass, the coach I loved so much, who quickly became one of my closest friends. I’ve always valued friendship and community, but it had been years since I’d experienced the immediate recognition of a new, deeply meaningful friendship. There is something magical about forming new friendships as an adult, and something instructive, too.
Most of my friendships are long-standing, built over years of shared history. And yet, I’ve also had many seasons of loneliness—of pulling away because I felt unlovable, convinced others merely tolerated me. With therapy, self-compassion, the love of old friends, a patient spouse, and the realization that I am still capable of forming new, close bonds, something shifted. I see now how essential friendship is. I frequently seek out the wisdom of older women, and one truth appears again and again: as we age, our friendships matter more, not less. This year, I chose to invest in my community—to show up, to reconnect, to say the loving things out loud. It healed a part of me that once believed closeness was dangerous. Love, in all its forms, transforms us.
A job change is always seismic, and stepping into my role as a middle school vice principal after twenty years as an English teacher has been monumental. The simplest truth is that I love my new job. I love my school, the students and families, the staff, the principal I work with, and the work itself. I made this change at the right time.
It hasn’t been seamless. I didn’t anticipate how humbling it would feel to be new again, to learn a role I’m not yet fluent in after years of confidence in my job performance. Being the only vice principal can be lonely. Much of what administrators carry can’t be shared, and I miss the easy processing that comes with teaching alongside peers. I’m learning a new culture, a new way of doing things. I’m deeply grateful for a kind staff, a principal I admire, and mentors who remind me that I’ve been doing this for five months—not five years—and that “pretty okay” is more than enough for now. This job requires an entirely new level of self-trust: I make decisions alone. Unlike the classroom, nearly every choice I make is visible to many others (staff, students, families, teachers), which makes everything feel high-stakes in a way I couldn’t have understood before taking this job. This means that not only do I have to believe in my own decisions, but others have to believe in them, too.
This summer, I graduated with my MFA in Writing—fiction and nonfiction—a milestone that felt both thrilling and strangely anticlimactic. Hundreds of pages written. Endless reading. Residencies. Meetings. And then, suddenly, it was over. I was ready to be done with deadlines, but I didn’t expect how their absence would disrupt my writing. People often say an MFA teaches you how to maintain a writing practice. For me, the combination of finishing the program and stepping into a demanding new job has made a consistent writing practice feel elusive.
I know I’ll find my way back. When I finished my BA in English, I didn’t read a book for six months—I was simply spent. Eventually, reading returned. I believe writing will, too—with intention and effort, yes, but also patience.
This, too, is self-trust.
The year also held so much joy: a trip to Edinburgh, watching our best friends become parents to the sweetest little nugget, hosting and visiting friends, time with family, long stretches of laughter, and the small, silly moments that never quite fit inside a Substack post.
These are the highlights—the big, shareable things.
The lowlights are harder to write about, mostly because so few of the hardest moments belong only to me. Change, even good change, carries pain. As someone deeply dependent on routine and stability, this much movement brought mental health challenges and some dark stretches. There were heavy moments in my family. Some friendships deepened; others quietly loosened their grip. Many people I love experienced profound pain and loss, the kind that resists tidy language.
I often joke with my therapist—who has given me an endless archive of wise, grounding truths—that the thing she’s said to me most often, and that I return to most, is this: “You’re not an asshole. You won’t make asshole decisions.” It began as a lighthearted response to my fear that I am, at my core, someone untrustworthy. Over time, it stopped being a joke and became a kind of anchor.
This year asked me to live inside uncertainty without collapsing into self-doubt. To hold change and joy and grief at the same time. To stop demanding certainty before allowing myself to move forward. I keep thinking about the words from Paramore’s song, “Last Hope” —“And the salt in my wounds
Isn't burning any more than it used to/It’s not that I don’t feel the pain / It’s just I’m not afraid of hurting anymore.” That feels true now. The pain didn’t disappear. I just stopped running from it. This year stripped away the illusion that control would keep me safe. What replaced it was quieter and sturdier: self-trust.
I learned that I can survive change. That I can make decisions without having perfect clarity. That I can hold both the good and the hard without needing to resolve them into a single, neat narrative. I don’t know what 2026 will hold. While I’m personally hoping for a more stable, certain year that’s a little more boring, I know I can’t guarantee it.
It feels like trust.
A few good things to share:
My beloved EBY is currently offering 30% off of EVERYTHING, including their Relief Bra (my favorite bra of all time — no wires, tons of support, looks great under a t-shirt!) and their Seamless Briefs. Don’t sleep on this deal!
I’m settling on some goals to host more next year, and I loved this update from Amanda Litman on her Saturday dinners. In a similar vein, I loved this piece on deep casual hosting. I’ve spent a lot of time with my friends this year in very chill settings: dinners at home, spontaneous couch hangs, pool days, etc. More of this, please!
The Internet has latched on to the idea of analog living, and while I’m already sick of the term, I did love this piece about analog living for normal people.
Lululemon is having a bonkers sale right now, and I highly recommend this sweatshirt, these leggings, and this long-sleeve.
To end the year, here are my 2025 favorites AND my all-time favorite reflection/anti-resolution thing to do: make a “Things I Know About Myself” list for gentler, more realistic goal-setting that’s true to you.
Loved this. Wishing you a peaceful and happy 2026, Amy 💞
this was a lovely read. so glad i discovered you via joy’s sunday posts this year. cheers to a calmer 2026! 💗