Dear 2025

I have seen more midnights this year than ever before.

...An expected outcome when your work shift ends at 12am.

And even if they shifted our hours today so we weren't driving home at midnight, I welcome 2025 into being without a countdown or specific celebration (besides writing this post that is).

In early November (before election day), my word for 2025 was going to be Joy. It probably still will be if I'm honest.

For 9 months I spent 3 to 6 hours a week in group therapy. I went for the last time in mid-November, knowing one of the next steps in my healing will be practicing letting myself be happy, letting myself experience joy.

Following a year that contained life shattering grief - a loss that came a month after I started group therapy mind you - joy is a nebulous and ethereal goal. It is lacking from this NYE at home alone, after having sent my mom home a couple days ago, with my body still recovering from bronchitis. All the more reason to focus on finding, creating, and experiencing joy in the days ahead.

Even if tonight is less than festive, I come to this threshold moment a different person than I was a year ago.

I am now someone who has done the work of 9 months of group therapy. It wasn't anything like I imagined. I found myself in the space I needed when I needed it. Working through pain and trauma and then new grief on top of all that. Having gifts acknowledged and skills honed. Experiencing the pride of doing something that felt impossible. The pride of getting to the other side and being able to tell someone else, "it is possible."

I am someone who has begun the work of EMDR therapy. And already seeing the difference, even as I lament the moments my body still reacts out of deep subconscious fear.

I am someone who has lost their dad. Who struggles with the both/and of grief. Giving thanks for 22 years post cancer diagnosis, almost 16 years post stem cell transplant. Wishing for more time. Grateful for the Dad and Papa he got to be. Knowing his daily life was not what he wanted for himself, that he was weary and tired.

I am someone who gives thanks for being away from congregation leadership so I could spend Holy Week with my family grieving, be sick on Easter and Christmas Eve, and devote the time I needed to my mental health and wellness.

I am someone who said yes to opportunities to do ministry in 2025 in other ways. Serving as a member of my congregation's Finance Committee. Saying yes to serving on the Board of Stewards of the Center for Faith and Giving. Pursuing and receiving the scholarships necessary to get credentials in religious fundraising (classes start in a couple weeks!). 2025 will have a ministry theme it seems...

I am someone who got a promotion. Moving from a position that let me just be a cog in a machine to one where I have more responsibility, more leadership, more opportunities to be creative. While I needed time to just be, absent the responsibility of being in charge of anything, when the opportunity came to move beyond, I was in a place to say yes to that too. Even though I wish to be in congregational ministry, I am working on being proud of the work I am doing at my "pay the bills" job in the meantime.

New Years Eve and New Years Day are just a couple of days. What is to come will be wide and varied. With lonely days and fulfilling nights. With joy filled mornings and sorrowful afternoons. With old struggles and new responses. With growth and setbacks. With opportunities and rejection.

I am anxious about what is to come in the world this year. I fear the continued genocide in Palestine. What is to come in Ukraine. I worry for what will be rebuilt in Syria. And the conflicts that do not make our headlines in Sudan, the Congo, Myanmar, Lebanon, and more. I am fearful of more and more legislation that will harm my trans friends. Of rhetoric that continues to dehumanize, objectify, and demonize God's beloved children.

As I take the next steps in my personal healing - letting go of the fear and anxiety that keeps me from joy, I am also hoping to build the perseverance, the persistence, the righteous anger that will give me the strength to advocate for faithful justice and to speak against hatred and oppression.

In 2025, may I let go of the fear that restrains my celebrations and silences my voice. May I embrace and pursue what energizes me in this good and holy work.

May it be so.