January 3, 2025

Hopes for 2025

The date changes, so I might as well take stock

2025 sounds like a fake year. I remember seeing in the year 2000 in Germany, calling my family at midnight to boast that we'd already got the new millennium, and now you want to tell me the shiny new century is a quarter done? I'm not buying it.

It doesn't help that for the latter half of 2024, I was half convinced I wouldn't see another year. Not from any deliberate action of mine, but so many other things had gone wrong that it was surely only a matter of time. Then the last week of the year brought a sudden infusion of hope, so now I'm looking towards this fake year suddenly made real.

I'm not good with new year's resolutions. I've tried ambitious and supposedly inspirational ones, understated ones that ought to be easy to stick to, even satirical ones like drinking more wine and sleeping with more low-quality dick, and the only one I've ever successfully stuck to was resolving to be alive when the year ended. But there's something about the calendar rolling over that compels me to take stock, and to try to formulate some hopes for the coming year.

I'm not talking about the two things I most want, which I will superstitiously not name here. One is not achievable by any efforts of mine, and while I tell myself I can nudge the odds on the other, that might just be more superstition. I'll wrap them carefully in dreams and try to make peace with the uncertainty. Other things, while still subject to the whims of fate, are a little more within my control.

This time last year, I made a plan to walk the Thames Path, but I ended up bogged down in all the logistics of camping until it was too late in the year to fit everything in. But after a handful of late summer camping trips, I think I have a fairly good handle on that side of things now, so if I spend the next four months training with my pack, I think I should be able to make it this year.

I want to keep up with my writing, both fiction and non-fiction. I thought I was establishing a good routine for posting on Substack, which felt like the necessary groundwork for turning on paid subs, but then life happened and I barely contemplated writing anything for several months. My best plan for preventing a repeat of that is to try really hard and hope nothing else goes wrong, which seems rather thin but will have to be enough. I'm having fun writing fanfic, so hopefully I will also be able to continue with that.

I want to make progress on some of my DIY and home organisation projects. My new and painful budget might make it difficult to get hold of the tools and materials I need, but I'm hoping I can borrow and salvage what I need for at least a few of the things I've started. And if I can work out how to market myself on Etsy, I might be able to cover some of my costs.

I also want to make a better go of my guerrilla garden than I did last year. I chose a spot that was screened from prying eyes by a large tree, and didn't realise until too late that it was also screening out all the sunlight and most of the rain. I then compounded the error by forgetting to check on it, so it all came to nothing. This year, I'm preparing what I hope is a better site, and if I remember to go out there several times a week, there's a good chance I'll have at least something to harvest from it.

One thing I did stick to last year was volunteering. It was only four hours most weeks1, but that was one afternoon when I was out of the house and spending time with other humans. I'm learning a lot, and I think they're pleased with my contribution. I want to build on it, perhaps work more hours or learn more skills, but I don't want to set myself up for failure by overcommitting, so I'm just going to hope this is the year I keep up the good work.

I know this year is going to bring challenges. I'm having to learn to live on an extremely tight budget, the wider political situation is not friendly, and the hope I've discovered this last week might be nothing more than an opportunity to grieve more slowly. But I'm putting these wishes out there anyway, because I might make good on them.