My 2025, wrapped

A year in highlights, lowlights, data, and pebbles

For most of my life, my late mom wrote annual letters to friends and family scattered across the world (well, mostly U.S. and Canada).

Once a year, she’d send out a TL;DR of our little family’s little life, usually a few pages long. I don’t know how much anyone cared to receive them, read them, or respond to them. I do know she took the endeavour seriously. She’d spend days cross-referencing calendars, photos, pseudo-diaries (aka the backs of envelopes), and other sources I never bothered asking about.

Intentional or not, the letters doubled as invitations to reconnect. January and February would fill up with long email threads and even longer phone calls. My mom relished that they sparked conversations with long-time friends.

I read a handful of them in my elder teenagehood and young adulthood, when she showed them to me, but there was no way for me to hit “subscribe.” Who received her annual letters was entirely her decision, and I never made the cut.

Until the year she got sick.

The one and only year I was on her subscriber list.

She wrote “2009” in the subject line instead of 2019. She had brain cancer and had just finished treatment. She may have been confused.

In the letter, she wrote about the changes that year, made a few typos, and prayed that we would “seek God’s wisdom.”

I remember rolling my eyes and crying within moments of each other.

My mom never wrote another annual letter.

I suppose this is, at least in part, loosely inspired by that.

—

In 2024, I gave myself a free license to go on one “side quest” a month. Well, not a free license. I actually gave myself a budget. I let myself try whatever I wanted throughout the year: things I’d always been curious about, or return to things I’d once enjoyed.

At the start of 2025, I wrote a reflection post, ending on a note about what I wanted to pivot toward this year.

More focus, I said.

I want to ”invest my energy into fewer, deeper, and more meaningful things”, I said.

Well, here we are, at the end of 2025.

Did I win?

Let’s take a look.

—

Highlights and Lowlights

My friends have all heard me ask this question when we catch up (to the point of annoyance, I’m absolutely sure):

What were some highlights, and at least one lowlight, since we last talked?

As someone who values efficiency, I like that this question gets the person across from me to skip the small talk and catch me up on what they’ve been up to in the last [insert duration].

Get to the point already! (Lovingly.)

But actually, what I truly love is that this question explicitly invites both. The positives and the negatives. Both are accepted. I wanna hear both. Not just the polished, Instagram highlight reel. Give me what’s real, whatever real looks like.

So, here are mine this year.

If you’re reading this, you’re welcome. We no longer need to catch up.

(No, please, let’s catch up. I want to hear yours.)

Highlights

• I leaned into my fitness era more this year: getting on a snowboard for the first time, running my first 5k and 10k races, trying spin, more swimming, and completing a 100-day squats challenge, which is exactly as thrilling as it sounds.

  

• I felt more connected to friends than ever before in my adult life, through walks, whitewater rafting, bowling, karaoke, spa days, silly games, concerts, Halloween drag, what I lovingly dubbed The Great Friendship Tour™️ of 2025, and quiet conversations during difficult moments. Maybe I spent more time with friends. Or maybe I just put my phone down more.

• A friend somehow convinced me to livestream product building—a sentence that still feels strange to type. We started Product like it’s Friday back in April, and have semi-consistently shown up Friday after Friday. We’ve finished two projects and are onto the third.

• After nearly three years, I changed jobs in May. I took 17 days off between roles—longer than all my previous in-between breaks combined—and did whatever the fuck I wanted. I’m enjoying a rare season of growth without burnout. I’m also learning not to overthink the past or future.

• I visited New York City for the first time in June for work and was immediately charmed by its rhythm. My favourite places were the parks. On my second visit In August with my partner and friends, we had fun being tourists: exploring Brooklyn, checking out the city from the Empire State Building, shopping for enamel pins, and eating good food. I wanted to go to a jazz bar on both visits but was too tired both times. Next time.

  

• Concerts, concerts concerts! When I was younger I frequently went to live gigs, and it’s been energizing to get back to that in recent years. Music was loud and cathartic, and what a joy it is to share these experiences with our newly formed little group.

  • Sum 41 in January: probably my favourite bigger Canadian band

  • Linkin Park in August: front-of-line pit tickets; Emily Armstrong was unforgettably magnetic

    

  • G-Dragon in August: my childhood celebrity crush, still the King of K-Pop

  • Falling in Reverse in September: Ronnie Radke is a popular monster, alright

  • grandson in December: absolutely loved the intimacy of a smaller venue and the raw emotion in the air

• I became a first-time aunt in December. My favourite sister has a baby now, and I still do a mental double-take sometimes because it’s just so wild to me. I’ll do my best to be a fun aunt. It’s been a privilege to see her grow already, and I look forward to the journey ahead.

  

• This year, my partner and I celebrated 8 years together with snowshoeing under the stars, a fall ATV tour, comedy nights, ramen dates, artisan workshops in the middle of nowhere, and…

• Our biggest and most expensive home renovation yet. After months of planning and noise, our master bathroom has completely transformed. It is now my “happy place,” and I’m grateful for my partner’s uncompromising persistence in pursuing our vision.

  

Lowlights

• It was worth it in the end, but the bathroom renovation nearly broke me while it was happening.

• In February, I stepped away from a creative writing group at my local library.

• I quit Duolingo, where I had been trying to learn French for nearly a year. I still haven’t posted my rant about Duolingo yet, but I might in the new year.

• I got braces in July, and yes, I hate it.

• We lost one of our guinea pigs, Pumpkin, during the season of Pumpkin. We have one little piggy left.

• Since November, we’ve been navigating some ongoing health issues in the family.

—

Mary, Wrapped (aka: the data I couldn’t resist)

To be honest, I’m a little tired of every tech company and their mother publishing a “Wrapped” at this time of year. But here I am, making my own.

The difference—at least what I tell myself—is that:

(1) I am in control of my own story, and

(2) I can aggregate across “domains” for a more holistic view of my year.

So, here, I’ve painstakingly curated some data from the calendars, spreadsheets, and myriad apps that somehow make up my life in 2025:

• I spent 30 days out of town, which was similar (-3.2%) to last year’s 31. But unlike last year—when I spent nearly 3 weeks solo traveling far from home—this year was made up of a series of small, local, and relationship-first trips.

• I wrote and published 14 posts on this Substack (including this one you’re reading), a +27.3% increase from last year’s 11, and infinitely more than 2023, when I wrote nothing at all.

• I finished 28 books, a steep -45.1% decrease from last year’s 51 books. In fact, this is the least I’ve read since 2020. I’d been reading 45-55 books a year. I also have 9 books I’ve been “currently reading” for… a very long time.

• I ran 719km over 77 hours, a +182.0% increase from last year’s 255km. I did my first two half-marathons (for funsies) in August and October.

• I connected with 138 new people on LinkedIn, an increase of +273.0% from last year’s 37. Make of that what you will. I wouldn’t look into it too much. I also wrote 22 posts, mostly during my break.

• Between Spotify and Apple Music, I listened to music for the equivalent of 33 days (47,911 minutes, to be exact), across 435 genres. My top artist is, of course, Linkin Park. I no longer use Spotify.

• I attended 8* ukulele classes, 28 swimming classes, and 19* coding classes. I’ll admit that I’m not the best instruction listener or absorber. This was a year of trying to learn hard(-ish) things.

• I donated 1,470 mL of blood. I donated blood for the first time in April, and when I returned in September and December I recruited my partner to donate too.

• Lastly, I placed 10 Amazon orders—the fewest I ever have. Apparently, restraint is learnable.

*My counts may be slightly off, since I’m going off my calendar and may not have attended all of them.

—

Lil’ pebbles (aka: small things I’m grateful for)

As an aging millennial, I think it’s such a wonderful thing to be able to experience little bits of meaning sprinkled across my boring little life.

Paying attention to them feels like a quiet form of focus. Like micro-meditations.

Here are some little gems pebbles (gems are too shiny) I’ve found joy in and am grateful for this year:

• Finding the best bubble tea I’ve had in Ottawa.

• Discovering pistachio cream, and yes, I’m obsessed and want it on everything.

• Being forced pushed by my partner to try mountain biking. And ugh, he was right, I did enjoy it.

• Moving my office out of the basement. My mental health has improved by at least 20%.

• Finding a Korean hairdresser operating out of her basement near me.

• Starting my iron-on patch collection.

• Sitting in my hammock. This will never get old.

• Cat sitting.

  

• Discovering Lebanese breakfast. Fatteh, in particular, is one of my favourites.

• Convincing my partner, my sister, and her partner to dress up as Teletubbies for Halloween. Surprisingly, no one resisted.

• Convincing my friends to write Halloween haikus. Again surprisingly, no one resisted.

• Having my friends from different “domains” meet each other, both on The Great Friendship Tour™️ of 2025, at my Halloween / birthday party, and elsewhere.

  

• Realizing that I no longer hate carrot juice or kombucha. A delightful sign of aging?

• Buying a pair of red cowboy boots I will absolutely wear everywhere in 2026. It just arrived this week.

• Having a dumb crush on a tiny Toronto-based alternative rock band that opened for grandson. My partner got me their first vinyl record for Christmas.

• Adding to an ongoing shared quote board with my partner of ridiculous things we say. I say a lot of weird-ass things in private—half of them NSFW (unintentionally, I swear!). Here are my favourites this year:

  • “You need to jog my memory harder.”

  • “I’m also a victim of myself.”

  • “I can’t be funny in public.”

—

My 2026 new year resolutions

At the start of this year, I wanted more focus, fewer things.

I don’t think I quite succeeded in that regard. But I think that’s okay. Everything I poured myself into meant something to me. Lower-case something. None of them were The Thing, but they all brought me little bits of joy, reflection, connection, and / or silliness.

So did I win? Yes, because I said so.

But if I must be resolute about something, I suppose here they are:

1. Care less about what I already don’t care about.

2. Fold my laundry within a day of it being dried. A bold goal, I know.

3. Keep doing things that scare me a little. Like snowboarding. And coding. And swimming. And being seen. And let’s see if anything else bubbles up.

Let’s see how I do next year.

Happy New Year! Until next time :)