2025 Year in Review

I usually prefer to use a light-hearted, humorous tone in my writing, but 2025 was anything but light-hearted and humorous. I find myself unable unwilling to rework this post to make you chuckle. Instead, I'm leaning into honesty and vulnerability.

If 2025 were a weather report, it'd be 50℉ under a thick blanket of grey clouds with frequent mist and occasional downpours. Thankfully, therapy and the Scandinavians have influenced me enough that I don't fear that kind of weather report anymore. Instead, I light candles, don wool socks and slippers, heat water for multiple hot drinks, and make sure fluffy pillows and soft blankets are always within reach. I listen to soothing music; lean into cozy hobbies like crochet, puzzling, and coloring; and keep a continuous stream of books and audiobooks coming in from the library. I buy the tissues with lotion AND aloe and prioritize therapy and circles of safe people. I make Grammy's homemade bread and granola and breathe in the smell of my morning coffee which reminds me of Gramps. I go to sleep early, journal when I think of it, and move my body as I'm able.

Without knowing it, 2025 has made me a master of hygge. 

In this way, I got through the first half of 2025 and the massive grief* that came with it. Slowly, slowly, the sun started to break through. Most days are still quite grey, but sometimes it's a little warmer, or a bird sings a little louder, or the sun pokes through for a little moment. There was exactly one day that was so joyful, it was like I had a rainbow over my head all day. It was a random Tuesday and it didn't last. But I remember it.

If I look back to January 2025, I almost don't recognize it. So much has changed. 
And yet, some things are the same.

Steven is still working at Katapult (though his role has recently changed) and volunteering with the kids' program at church. He is probably the most steady of the 6 of us and we are both grateful for and frustrated by that.

2025 marked the end of our homeschool era! Our kids now attend Threefold Schoolhouse: an Acton Academy. It has been a perfect fit for all of us except our sweet Lucy who is a complete homebody and would prefer to never leave the house if possible (she's the actual hygge expert in the family). The quiet house is exactly what I didn't know my nervous system needed in this season. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to share the quiet house with Lucy sometime in the future. Read more about the first week of school here.

Our international adventure for the year was brought to us by Aunt Lynda and Uncle Rodney and featured 3 cities in Italy: Florence, Siena, and Pisa. My favorite part was chasing Grammy as we recreated pictures she had taken 30 years earlier. I even wore one of the shirts she had worn! Margherita pizza, raspberry gelato, really old buildings, a futbol game, e-bikes through the Tuscan countryside, and pulling out water colors to paint whatever scene was in front of me were also highlights. The kids were great travelers but admitted that they prefer traveling to visit people we know abroad rather than being tourists. Noted! They will also tell you the Little Caesar's pizza is better than the pizza in Italy. Love that for them. 🙃

As we were walking down this street one day, Steven said, "I recognize this street from Grammy's album. If you cross the street, I'll take your picture for a 2025 remake."

He was right :O

hotel Minerva where Grammy stayed in Siena in 1997

Found it in Siena 2025

Grammy buying "name trains" for Jonathan in 1997

Rachel buying "name trains" for Jonathan's kids in 2025

Grammy eating gelato in her iconic shirt

Rachie eating gelato in Grammy's iconic shirt

when in Pisa...

painting in the shade with fresh strawberries and a big, old, beautiful building to inspire

Summer was a turning point in the year. The leadership council of our home congregation had been deliberating for months about how to respond to the concerns I brought up about my dad being a pastor. More on that story here. In June, he was asked to resign. In July, the denomination began their own investigation. In October, the denomination agreed that my dad would need to take "certain steps" before being re-credentialed as a BIC pastor and that he should not attend my church for the foreseeable future.
    Those significant affirmations of my experience were 3 years in the making and they felt simultaneously momentous and ordinary. I had fought so hard to protect myself and to get people in authority to protect me. I was tired. I was empty. It was time to rest, but it didn't feel like rest so much as collapse. I noticed a shift. I was able to stop questioning whether I was crazy or unloving or overly critical; other people investigated and came to the same conclusion I did. Now the journey to trusting myself without external validation began.

With the kids off to school, the house is quiet for a few hours. I attempt to prioritize activities that nourish my nervous system, which has been stuck in fight or flight for most of my life, and help me get to know and trust myself. Growing up with unsafe caregivers who gaslit me into believing I was safe left me with next to no self-formed identity and little self-trust. Life has a way of making competing demands, but even so, the past 4 months have been a sabbath I didn't know I needed until it was here.         Alongside learning about myself, I'm unlearning and relearning about the God I thought I knew. It turns out, They're not angry and manipulative. It turns out there's a lot of hidden agendas in the translation, interpretation, and widespread teachings of the Bible. It turns out God is trauma-informed, loves us gently (rather than scares us) into healing, and doesn't require immediate compliance. It turns out eternal conscious torment is probably a man-made concept. My mind is more at peace with this God but my heart and body are still tense and skeptical.

Other noteworthy mentions from the year: 

- We were sick from end of January until March (Covid, double ear infection with rupture, strep x2, a broken toe, flu x6, persistent ear infection, scarlet fever from untreated strep, drug or allergic reaction to antibiotics, sinus infection). We started taking zinc supplements and had a much healthier rest of the year!

- Steven and Eliana went to their first and last Daddy-Daughter dance in the spring. It's an elementary school thing but as of September, Eliana is in middle school! 🤯 She loves youth group and singing with various music teams at church.

- Lucy worked hard to prove herself responsible in the hopes of getting a turtle, but was overjoyed to take in 4 parakeets instead (sadly, we discovered I'm allergic so they'll have to be rehomed).

- AppleButter on the family farm in OH was magical. 

- The boys' new love of Pokémon cards has opened up new friendships and provided hours of quiet, indoor activities (sorting, drawing, playing, trading, sorting again, etc). 

- Both girls continue to LOVE any minute they can spend with a Little (infants preferred). They will never forgive me for not having more kids.

We have so much to be grateful for. 2025 was hard and hurtful but sweet and deeply good too. It was a year of deconstructing and rebuilding, but show me the year that isn't.

*some of the things grieved this year:

- that the thought of seeing or being seen by my mom induces a panic attack
- my childhood was spent in fear
- I was not protected as a baby or child or teen or young adult
- I've never had and will likely never have a loving, comforting, warm relationship with my mom
- I can't go to the same church as my parents
- I can't tolerate my kids interacting with my parents so they are minus a set of grandparents
- the warmth and love and safety of a relationship with Grammy and Gramps (who are no longer living).
- my siblings and I were pitted against each other and our relationships still suffer from it to this day
- my kids don't have a healthier mom/I didn't start this healing work before I had them
- my husband can't relate to being abused and has been slow to learn how to be supportive of PTSD
- what I learned about Love was a lie - it's not transactional
- I can't call my mom up to chat
- a lot of my childhood stories are riddled with painful memories
- sometimes it's hard to see anything in my life that isn't touched by abuse and it's exhausting to be the one always sharing the sob story
- I learned not to trust myself or advocate for myself
- safety meant abandoning myself and my needs
- my old coping mechanisms are limiting my current relationships
- I've been missing out on God's love because I was sure They were mad at me like my parents are
- I can't call up my parents and ask them to take the kids
- I don't want my mom to reach out on my birthday AND I will always wish I had a mom who I look forward to hearing from 
- my emotional growth and awareness feels out of balance with my husband's now
- I just want to feel safe and loved and protected and I'm not sure I will ever be able to hold those feelings for more than a moment
- I miss joy.
- people still don't know the whole story because the church was more afraid of potential lawsuits than allowing sin to remain hidden
- the pastor still doesn't understand how deeply he hurt me multiple times in this process
- the responsibility for exposing the perpetrator falls on the victim
- stating my needs makes me feel like I'm going to pass out. or vomit. or both.
- people care so much about the perpetrator's redemption that they forget to care for the victim