2025: The Year Of Clarity

I knitted this in 2024!

Happy very first day of a fresh year! A big hello in the direction of the dozens of you who have subscribed in the last several days. I feel like this must somehow be a glitch and not an actual influx of free-willed humans who want to read Yes, I’m A Hungry Woman. (However, if you are actual new readers I’m delighted to welcome you.)

I don’t know why, exactly, but the whole “end of year re-cap/new year goals” is more or less a giant case of the Sunday Scaries and should be scrapped. I like a fresh start as much as the next person, but having to account for the whole prior year - after a week of holiday lie-ins no less! - can be gutting. Sometimes even a cursory glimpse at the past twelve months leaves me feeling hard-up for accomplishments.

May I admit something to you? 2024 wasn’t the sweeping success with milestone accomplishments I felt it would be when I came out of my cold plunge last New Years Day. I had visions of long-awaited answers to persistent questions, and even indulged in hopes of the bodily transformation that would take place once I started eating enough protein. I think the frigid water made me giddy.

Last week I reluctantly began to tally up What I Did This Year and if we’re being succinct, I have very little to show in the way of visible progress. If we want to break it down everything I did not do, it would be simpler:

• I failed at stocking away any real amount of money

• I did not find a meaningful, professional vocation

• We did not firmly stick to a budget

• I did not eat noticeably less refined sugar

• I did not become a mother

• I did not learning any new, extremely hirable skill like coding or Mandarin.

• I did not learn how to invest, open a new HYSA, or otherwise become a financial girl-boss.

• I did not get any writing published, and barely wrote at all.

“I’m not proud of where I am or what I’m doing in life,” I tearfully told Andrew a few weeks ago, the panic beginning to set in that I will be trapped here forever.

Rather than agree with me that yes, I belong in the grubbier alleys of Dickensian London, Andrew reminded me that what I’m doing is much less important than who I am, and how I’m handling what comes my way. Both categories, it was implied, in which I was fairly excelling.

went in hard for the small things like this perfect butter curl

As I re-read the newsletter I wrote a year ago leading in 2024, I notice that I somewhat prophetically called 2024 “The Year Of Catching Light.” I wrote that “I have individual goals and intentions but they all center around this: that I don’t pass by this present tenderness.” And I’ve got to tell you, if “not passing by the tenderness” was actually my goal…I think I did that pretty well.

2024 felt nothing but tender, and I’m proud of how I stayed soft even though that’s such an exposed feeling. I started seeing a counselor for the first time ever, early in the year. I faced my fear of working out as a plus size woman in a busy gym setting, and consistently put in strength training workouts for the first time ever. I advocated for myself in difficult medical settings even when given scary and untrue ultimatums, and found the type of care I deserve even when I felt like “too much” for asking for it.

I lived more open-handed with money than ever before, practicing generosity though we needed every penny, and trusting that God would provide the replacement (He always did. Ask me about it). I set aside time to do things that interest me, took up a few new hobbies (knitting, papier-mache, and selling clothing on Poshmark among them), and opened myself in emotionally expensive ways. I walked a lot. I adopted a rescue-kitten and watched her grow into our best girl Flo. I downloaded TikTok and scrolled a little too much, but also found an casual type of delight in making silly, pretty videos - what Caroline Lunne calls “internet art.”

made a papier-mache barn-owl mask for Halloween

One thing I’m really really proud about is the way I lived frugally this year, and even though we did not end up coming to the end of the year with much saved (certainly not like we hoped), I spent the last twelve months practicing a really reigned-in view of spending that serves my family, our income level, and the environment better. I learned how to do my own pedicures, brows, skincare, and didn’t get my nails done even once. The very few clothing items I bought were majority second-hand from thrift shops and otherwise thoughtfully curated - but mostly I wore what I already owned. I turned thirty-two in July and fell asleep on the beach at dusk surrounded by people who love me.

With my snuggle-addicted kitty, Flo.

I watched a small pod of dolphins on a chartered cruise, and dozens of dolphins by lucky accident on our family’s pontoon boat. I loved my home better this year, meaning I was way more on top of deeps-cleans, decluttering, laundry, and frequent, fresh bedlinens. I bought way fewer coffees and drank much less caffeine in general (I’m down to maybe two cups of coffee per week?). We went to visit, and were visited by, some of our best friends. I planned a really lovely New England road-trip for us which included lots of hikes and incredible moules frites. I fell off - then back onto - my supplement regime. I bobbed my hair, switched to shampoo/conditioner bars to save plastic, grew serrano peppers, and attempted to grow some tomatoes that unfortunately died. I joined a book club full of people I didn’t know and ate the best apple of my life (Esopus Spitzenberg). I used clean beauty products, found a non-toxic perfume I adore, and remembered SPF basically every day. I painted one of my favorite illustrations I’ve ever done on a whim one afternoon, and creating it felt like magic. I started annotating books as I read them, and slowed way down in my reading pace: one book at a time is my new rule.

my favorite illustration this year <3

I cried with some brokenhearted people, and my heart experienced some breakage too. I felt joy welling up in the cracks between the bits. I showed up to farmers markets and seasonal festivals and beach sunsets. We watched some good films, and some boring ones. I ate oysters and attended weddings and Facetimed my sisters more times than I can count. We experienced loss, and cried over my broken body and this broken world. We made it through our third full year of infertility, yet somehow grew in our capacity to hope. We used the good candles. We grew in grace. We laughed a lot. So many forehead kisses, and cuddles, and organizational projects; so much laughter, and music, and sex; so many cups of cold water in the night, which is the meaning of love. A couple trifling illnesses, but mostly excellent health.

this picture is funny to me because the lobsters look like boxing gloves

Recounting all of that, it’s funny how none of those things can easily be checked off a list; I don’t think of any of them when it’s time to tally up What I Accomplished. Maybe because they aren’t things I achieved at all - every bit of it is a gift and has nothing to do with me. In last year’s newsletter I also said of 2024: “It’s a year of making room for the wonderful, not wondering if I’ll ever break into the rooms I feel locked out of.”

And the insane thing - the absolutely insane thing to me! - is that this is exactly what 2024 became. I feel like there was so much room for the wonderful. How is it that a year with every door kept locked could turn out to be a year I loved? I guess what I mean is, I’m learning we can throw parties in the hallway…that maybe there’s nothing inherently disgraceful about being in a hallway season. Like, maybe being let into the rooms is the conventional way to do it, but maybe you can also have an excellent and fruitful time when you feel kept out.

highly recommend going on a friend-date to the zoo

Of course I would not be the dreamer I am if I didn’t have some hopes for this coming twelve months. So in 2025 - even though it’s scary to admit - here are some things I’m hoping to crack into:

• intellectually-stimulating, meaningful work (with the opportunity for creativity) - bonus points if it comes with fertility benefits

• more financial breathing room and literacy (this could be through a new job, a side hustle, improved economy, better budgeting, learning about investing, or a combination of all the above)

• fertility treatments and progress toward motherhood

• annnnnd for the heck of it even though moving isn’t anywhere on 2025’s bingo card: a bigger standalone house (large enough for hosting and a couple kids) with a sprawling yard, so we can have some quietude, nature, privacy, and plant a few fruit trees. A place to settle down for the long haul.

  

  found new nature spots this year!

My other plans for 2025 are a vaguer, more liquid: I want to continue with the deep-running peace and richness that I fought for this year; the true sense of unhurriedness that I now live my life by. I’d like to learn to blow-out my shorter hair and to learn a little more about how to “do” makeup. I’m planning on employing a bit less strong language because it only makes me angrier at whatever I’m upset by (other cars especially). More knowledge of gym equipment/workout plans and less fear surrounding what people think of a body like mine in the fitness space. Less refined sugar because it makes it harder for my insulin-resistant body to thrive, more varied proteins and new cuts of meat that I’m less familiar cooking. More art-making and hours outside, less time spent with streaming services and scrolling. Really good financial choices. I’d like to set up creative meet-ups of some sort and connect with a local community of makers (if this is you, let’s talk!). More in-person important conversations, and more showing up to hug friends vs. comforting from afar. I’d really really like to try pottery at some point this year, though I’m not sure lessons and materials will make it in this year’s budget.

I’d like to leave behind once and for all the feeling infertility has planted in me that I’m a naïve fool who has fallen behind in some irreparable way. This year I suppose I just want to make the most of the life I have, not the one I keep wishing I have.

Practically speaking, we have set off into January with a no-spend month which I feel excited about. No spending except bills (with the exception of emergencies or a couple pre-planned expenses). We want to start the year a bit frugal so we become accustomed to the art of moderate consumption. It feels so good to not be behind, and that’s a feeling Andrew and I are focused on pursuing in 2025. At the same time I also know that money comes and goes and is legendarily unpredictable. 2024 taught me to trust that we will have what we need even if we can’t see where it’s coming from. So I’m planning to move into fertility treatments, job shifting, creative endeavors, and everything we do in 2025 with a loose grip on the financial outcomes. Sometimes it doesn’t all tote up in the books and that’s okay. We work hard, we try our best, we trust that all will be well (if not tidy). I’ve grown to find lot of joy in a simple life, rich in small pleasures and big vision, and it’s enough for me.

on a dolphin-boat!

I suppose the thing I’m hoping for the most this year is, as Andrew suggested last night, clarity. I’d love to feel a little less like I’ve lost the plot. If I could write to you in another twelve months and tell you I’ve figured some things out, that would be an incredible feeling. Then again, the futile-feeling years often come with a strange sense of vitality beneath it all, as if I’m expanding in some beautiful, internal way. Like a tree adding rings, maybe, which will support its bulk in the future.

In any case, I’m holding down the hallway party and admiring everything we presently do have. A lot of it is hard-won, and I’m proud of where we’ve landed after those battles. If 2025 is anything like 2024 in the way it allows me to grow in compassion, empathy, gravity, love, and delight...I’m willing to meet her. May I be a good steward of whatever comes my way this year, and may I be a better woman in all the meaningful ways. To another year of trying hard and staying openhanded. May clarity settle over you too.

Love,

Rachel