2025 Recap
The last few years have been one tripping moment after another and they have worn me down. Nothing drastic has happened - though there have been a few close calls, almost losing grandparents, getting laid off, and everything else going on in the world.
The job changes just this year (we had four) have left me feeling drained and I’m struggling with motivation and thinking about the future. As someone who has “futuristic” as my number one CliftonStrength, that’s pretty bad.
While the year was rough, there were moments where it was good, too.
Life Recap
I started the year off excited - we had finally earned some extra commission options in January. Then in mid-January, I had to take my grandmother to the hospital and there was part of me that didn’t think she would survive. She’s still alive and I’ll see her later today, but it’s a reminder that life is fleeting.
February, I’ll be honest, I don’t remember much of it but I did start this blog.
March was a busy month. I traveled to Alvin and Pearland in Southeast Texas to go see my brother play Special Olympics basketball. I’ll drive anywhere in the state to go watch him play, if I can.
It was that same week that we found out my team at work was moving to a different department, the Customer Success department and that the team would no longer earn commissions on sales. We could move with the team over to the Customer Success team or we could stay in sales and move to the onboarding team, where we would call customers who had just formed their business to go over additional services - like bookkeeping and taxes.
I made the decision to try and transition to onboarding and it was kind of a disaster. I don’t have the backbone to fight when people say “no” and just move on instead of fighting for my sale. I decided to give it a go, because I wanted to make more money, not less, and I was in the interview process for a role outside of the company. I was hoping I’d get an offer and be able to bail.
To this day, the company still hasn’t reached out to tell me they picked someone else. Whoops.
By April, the role in onboarding became unsustainable and I managed to switch back to my old role, but in the Customer Success department. I also made a second trip to Alvin, Texas. This time it was to go spend Easter Sunday with my boyfriend’s family. This was the first time I got to meet some of his cousins and we’ll see how many of them I remember next time.
I made a trip home in May and got to visit the Plot Twist Bookstore and Bar up in Denton. It was a cute little place, though packed. We did that and I spent plenty of time at the pool, and worked on edits for And She Runs.
In June, I spent a week up at home to celebrate my grandfather’s 95th birthday. I’m so grateful to have three grandparents alive, but this was the week that my parents really saw the cracks of the last few years of my life taking its toll. It was incredibly slow at work at the time and that was the first time I realized this job was unfulfilling.
In June, we also went to our first hockey game. We saw the Texas Stars (the AHL affiliate for the Dallas Stars) play a playoff game. They lost in overtime and the seats were incredibly too small, but it was a fun experience to go see the Stars play.
July had me start my last round of edits for And She Runs. The summer days were filled with editing and the pool, while still trying to find a new job. I had an interview on August 1st but was quickly informed they selected someone else who had a little more experience.
When I die, add it to my tombstone: “we liked you, but we moved forward with someone who had more experience.”
July was also when the Hill Country saw insane flooding. Most of the flooding was west of where I live, but about ten miles away, one part of the county got thirteen inches overnight. It’s hard to wrap your mind around that much water, and knowing how close it was.
August really shook me as my company laid off 20% of the company, including a teammate that had been my teammate through two employers and for seven years, and my manager. It’s weird to be left still there when all your friends are kicked out.
I finished my last round of edits/rewrites and sent the book off to some friends to read and give feedback on in August, too. Besides editing and layoffs, I also started having some digestive issues. Mostly from a not-so-great diet but I think anxiety and stress around the layoffs were messing with me, too.
Digestive issues still plague me to this day if I’m not paying attention to what I eat.
September was about trying to continue to look for a new job and take a moment to relax while others read my books. Got covid during Labor Day weekend, too. Or flu. Or both.
And that lead to some chest pains and anxiety that landed me in the ER in October. They think it was either some kind of long-Covid thing or really bad anxiety. Bad enough that I got my first anxiety prescription ever. In between all that, I started final, final edits for And She Runs and continued to look for new jobs.
It’s funny - the day I finally got on anxiety medication, Halloween, was the day that I found out my company was moving me from working in chat all day to the phones all day. I really hate talking to people, strangers, all day. There’s a level of masking that is involved that just wears me out after a few hours.
So to do it perpetually until I find a new job? That’s daunting.
November had the release of And She Runs and a lot of work training. It was also my birthday, plus Thanksgiving so there were wonderful moments - like seeing Wicked: For Good for my birthday and spending Thanksgiving with my family.
I had planned to start the sequel to And She Runs in November and didn’t. I spent time trying to plot the book and figure out what would happen, but I instead spent most of the month grinding through Stardew Valley. The depression really took hold in November after the book came out.
December saw me start my new role and then two weeks later, I found out I’m moving to a different, even less up my alley role. They told me two days before Chirstmas, but not before they accidentally released the schedule ahead of telling me and I found out from a spreadsheet. That new role starts next week and I am dreading it. At some point, I might write about the details but I want a new job before that.
This year was a year of mental surivival, trying to figure out where I belong and what I want out of life, only to continue to get knocked down again. I hope 2026 allows me to just stand tall in what I want, but we still have work to do.