December 31st, 2025
2025: “A lot of s*** happened this year / but we’re still here” / 2026 Be Not Afraid
“A lot of s*** happened this year, but we’re still here”
—Sara S, 12/31/25
“You should beware, beware, beware / of a woman with a broken heart”
—Big Sean, Beware, thinking of all those Annunciation moms
“Everybody taking Ls but its never us / all we do is level up (trust)”
—La Felix, Hot
“Back in school we used to dream about this everyday / could it really happen? / or do dreams just fade away?”
—Boyz II Men, Motownphilly
“We’re still building then burning down love / burning down love / and when I go there, I go there with you / it’s all I can do”
—U2, Where The Streets Have No Name
“You thought that it would be okay / at first / he situation could be saved / of course”
—Taylor Swift, Cancelled!
“We are revolting children / living in revolting times / we sing revolting songs / using revolting rhymes / we’ll be revolting children / ’til our revolting’s done / and we’ll have the Trunchbull bolting / We’re revolting!”
—Tim Minchin, Revolting Children (Matilda)
The most important thing you need to know about this year is that a schoolful of children was shot at through a stained glass window while praying in church.
And no one did anything.
That last part isn’t true, at all. So many people did so many things. So much community and advocacy and care and warranted outrage and showing up. So much to make us proud of being Minnesotan and Minneapolitan and members of our local south and south-west-ish community, people bringing meals and organizing protests and looking out for one another. Though we’re so on the fringe of this ourselves, it’s all too close to home, and while we can be so grateful for the good and sorrowful for yet proud of those around us, the larger response amidst all that happened this year makes it clear: help is NOT on the way.
Well, help is on the way, but only in our local communities. No one is coming to save us, so we have to save each other.
Thankfully, a lot of us are pretty good at that already.
Hard to type with abandon when the AI is watching, but it’s worth noting some good stuff, some really really good stuff: Our family was lucky lucky lucky again, rich in health despite scares, plentifully blessed with interesting jobs and activities, safe in our whiteness and wealth, impressed by our growing intelligent curious and funny children, well-traveled in all kinds of meaningful ways, older and wiser, which is the best gift of all, to just be alive. I am especially proud of Jeff this year, and in ways we’ve all flourished.
I don’t need to list out the ways 2025 disappointed us all for everyone, and I won’t list out the ways we’re worried about the future. In fact, that’s where I’m headed with this: done with the doomerism. Be Not Afraid. A statement with religious origins, sure (and what kind of God would let its children be shot in a church, bffr), but apt for this time. Things aren’t going super well in the world at large, there’s no indication of a quick fix, and it’s just going to be rocky (or worse, for some), for quite some time. But what we do have is the here, the now, each other, the good things in our day to day, the hot showers and the warm hugs and the picnics and the gatherings, moving our bodies and loving our families and friends and holding wonder for the world’s true gifts. You’re having a good day? Great! You want to spend this era of late-stage capitalism getting together with friends and eating $13 omelettes? Wonderful! You got to get your whole family together and they laughed and were well, or you saw a perfect snowflake, or you drew a new picture, or you’re making measurable progress toward something you care about, anything at all? Magnificent. Glorious. Lovely. It’s probably going to get worse before it gets better, but that doesn’t mean things can’t be good, so give some credit to the now. Happy New Year. Be Not Afraid.