Best of 2025

I'm looking for ways of talking about this year without saying my immediate feelings about it. My inclination is to say the year was shitty. Beyond shitty. But that's a sort of surface layer feeling disguising something deeper. To be sure, there is a top layer of muck and grime that covered so much of how this year went. In last year's post, I gave some vague description about last Christmas Day. As we come up on this year's Christmas Day, it's not my first choice to relive those moments or the ones following.

But the truth is the things that happened last December have continued to have lasting impact on our family. Our daily life got turned upside-down, as we reckconed with the problem of Elaine's chronic migraines. They are debilitating, and while there have been moments, days, sometimes weeks of respite, the migraines always seem to be on the peripheral — an wanted house guest that has decided to make its way into our daily rhythms.

In many ways, life is "the same." I still work for Green Line, the girls still go to school, I still coach. Much of life now, however, is tinged with a melancholy that is hard to describe to people who do not have a similar experience. We are constantly trying to find new ways of fighting the migraines, constantly looking for the potential solution to the problem, and always wavering between a hope that things will get better and an acceptance that we are living in some kind of new normal.

The truth is also that our lives are strangely, severely cut through with new glimpses of the beauty surrounding us. In January and February, we were completely surrounded by the love and support of family and church community folks. I learned all year long that I have far more energy to give to my family than I ever thought possible before. We have all come to a deeper appreciation of our faith; I'm even praying and reading scripture regularly again, and often find myself wondering if pastoral work may be in my (distant, distant future).

It's true what they say. It is often the experiences in life you would never choose, the ones you avoid at all costs, that help tranform you into the person you ought to be. I can tell you that I will never, ever look at 2025 with any kind of simple fondness. But I may look at it as the year that changed me, that changed our family, that helped us to become strong and courageous and to learn to have faith again.

Music

Favorite Songs

As always, I've tried to keep track of my favorite songs of the year. The ones I returned to over and over again:

Spotify Wrapped didn't capture much of this because I used Apple Music as a test from August to October.

Favorite Albums

Not as big of a hip-hop year for me, especially in terms of new releases. Many of these albums are older, because I was heavily influenced by the Last Song Standing series this year on the best albums of the 21st century. My biggest, favorite albums this year:

Movies

Lots of new movies were "meh" this year. Mid as the kids say.

TV

Books

Everything Else

Tagged: yearly review, music, reading, movies,

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