What Was That 2025?

This year broke me. In so many ways. I was lost in a cloud. Bumping up against unknown obstacles. All I could see was my next step. And I so lived, day to day, for months. I’m ending 2025 feeling a mix of calm and courage. But it took a lot to get here. And it will take even longer to understand how this year has changed me.

The broad brushstrokes are that I moved from Melbourne to Adelaide in April. After my mother died in September 2022, I commuted regularly between the two cities. I would spend at least a full week of each month in Adelaide. And often more. There were several times during the ski season when I would fly back from Japan, spend a night or two in Melbourne unpacking and washing clothes, then hop on a flight to Adelaide, returning to Melbourne for a night to pack before the next trip to Japan.

In 2025, my wife’s work responsibilities changed, and she needed to spend more time in the northern hemisphere. Melbourne isn’t the right location for that kind of role. Normally, I would follow her and add another city to the list of places I’ve lived. But as so many of us have said this year, these are not normal times.

For reasons I don’t want to go into right now, my parents never signed up for the government services that are available for elderly people. They were “fiercely independent.” A quality I’ve never admired. But one I’ve tried to respect.

What that meant after my mother passed was that on those visits to Adelaide I would cook meals, usually twice a day, and clean the kitchen, vacuum the floors, clean the bathrooms and toilets, garden, and supervise visits from tradespeople who came to clean gutters and do other home maintenance and repairs. I didn’t feel like I could move halfway across the world, given the situation.

For more than a decade and a half before the pandemic I would regularly visit Adelaide on holiday. So I had a little place, a small cottage, which was neat and clean and a nice place to sleep. It worked well as a space for family holidays. For 7 to 12 weeks a year I would stay there. Visiting my parents every day.

But as a place to live it is small. And when I moved my things over from Melbourne, it felt even smaller. It would be months before I made any progress on unpacking. And I still have boxes to deal with.

In April, my father was unwell. And he got worse. He had a nasty infection. Maybe he’d been unwell for some time. I’m not a professional. In May, he started getting treatment at home. For two weeks it was nurses’ visits three times a day. Then twice a day for a few weeks. Then gradually down to three times a week. Thankfully, he was mobile and able to sleep. I was doing around 13 hours a day of care for him. Helping him with all his meals. And handling all the admin and calls that go with that kind of care.

The admin and calls that go with caring for an elderly parent are really their own kind of line item in this story. And I know people who have way more dramatic responsibilities than I do. But it is worth saying that the work that goes with making sure the care services are in place takes a lot of time. The people who work in these services are lovely professionals. But what we have in Australia is less like government services and more like a government-supervised service marketplace. Just understanding how it works and finding out which companies can provide which services is its own kind of challenge.

My father started recovering, although these kinds of things are never a linear progression. Thankfully, my father did see that outside help was a good idea. He agreed to sign up for government aged care services. But it would be a long wait before that led to any major changes. Still, by mid-June, I was able to get a break for two weeks and a chance to travel to Japan. I returned to more than four months of daily care responsibilities with no break. Two meals a day. Doing chores and errands. Five to six hours a day.

Inside of every day, things were okay and getting better. My father and I were frequently having good conversations. The kind you want to have with a parent as they get older. His mindset was improving – something that had concerned me earlier in the year and always worries kids as they see their parents age.

But I was increasingly weighed down by the thought that this was going to be my reality for the next few years with no break. I was heartbroken by the idea of missing Christmas with my wife and daughter. Christmas is my favourite season of the year. I love the short days, the winter lights, the music, and the decorations. And New Year’s is my second favourite. Apart from the pandemic interruption, we’d celebrated every New Year since 2013 in the Japanese Alps.

And I also felt stuck because normally I would plan the coming year. Part of being an adult is that you are busy and have a lot of commitments. And so does everyone around you. My wife has her career, and now my daughter does too. They have commitments through to 2027. That’s true for my friends as well. If I can’t plan, then I risk having to react at the last minute to everything. To being perpetually tired and stressed out. And to being the kind of person who is always asking people to accommodate them and make exceptions for them.

And I risk also being a bad husband and a bad parent. The whole snow, ski, winter-in-the-mountains thing is fun. But it works for us because I agree to shoulder lots of responsibilities. And if I don’t turn up, to clear some snow, cook some meals, be on call in case the heating or lights stop working, then I’m making the lives of the people I most love even harder.

Through August and September this distress started to sink me. I went more than seven weeks without a good night’s sleep. My heart rate variability hadn’t been great all year, and it bottomed right out. I was increasingly tired. Perpetually lonely. Making a lot of mistakes throughout the day. Not exercising. And worst of all, starting to blame others (and the algal bloom) for my plight.

When I woke up in the middle of the night with blood streaming out of my mouth, I knew I was in trouble.

I’ve always tended to grind my teeth when stressed out. But now that was amplified by having overlooked getting my teeth professionally cleaned. Sitting in the dentist’s chair, I had an epiphany. Or maybe I was just desperate to divert my attention away from the dental hygienist’s grinding and scraping inside my mouth.

I needed more people cheering me on.

There are times in life when you really notice who steps up and who doesn’t. I’ve had two years in the past where life really went off the rails. The last time, in 2004, soon after I moved to India, I deleted everyone from my contacts list. I remember feeling like people would need to earn their place back in my life after I quit my PhD, got sick, and sat there in Delhi, wondering why people were not replying to my emails and messages and attempts to call, and pleading requests that they consider coming to visit since I had so much room for guests.

This year was less dramatic. Even when I felt like I had no time, I still made time for my wife and daughter. They brought light into my days. My friends stepped up, checked in, listened, and shared their love. But some people in the extended circle, so to speak, went silent. And it was noticeable how little effort they put in if I wasn’t doing the work of keeping the connection open.

In that dentist chair I hatched a plan. I looked at my health plan and checked the services I had available. I was already seeing a therapist, but I didn’t have a GP referral. I got one, which cut the cost dramatically for six sessions, then used that to double how often I could see the therapist. Physiotherapy? Yes, I feel stiff and have strange pains. I’ll get some of that. Podiatry. Okay. My right foot has always been weird, and now it feels weirder than ever. Acupuncture? Sure, let’s try. Unexpectedly, this had the biggest effect of all.

I’d done an intervention on myself.

Instead of wondering if the universe had forgotten me, I was starting to feel like the universe was smiling again. A cynic might say that money and health insurance was really doing the talking. Perhaps. But I prefer to move through life trying to surround myself with people who are trying to help. Who through their actions are saying “you’ve made a good choice trusting me, and I’m going to repay you by making your life a bit better.”

Towards the end of the year, the elderly health care marketplace also started to speak up. In late October, my father started to get meals delivered, which took a huge and daily burden off my shoulders. Other services started to fall into place, giving me a glimmer of hope that I might be able to plan the coming year and not feel trapped.

And for the first time in ages I was sleeping through the night again.

Amazingly, throughout 2025 I still managed to write. My mornings became a haven of productivity. Although I couldn’t remember from one day to the next what I worked on. But I did fully restructure the memoir, adding several fresh chapters. I sent queries to agents and pitched in person to commissioning editors. I sent 9 new essays out on submission. 85 submissions in total. I have 57 unfinished essays right now. Some of those will never go anywhere. But at least a dozen will be ready in the first quarter of 2026, either for publication here or to be sent to a journal somewhere. I also attended 10 writing workshops (36 individual sessions) this year and kept in close monthly contact with my memoir writing group, who proved to be a lighthouse that helped me avoid sailing to the rocks during the year’s many storms.

I’m calling an end to my 2025 here, December 7th, the second Sunday of Advent. I still have some words to write, some chores to do, some visits with my “team” to enjoy. But I’m done with whatever this year was.

My theme for 2025 was “Golden.” In a way it was a special year. The time with my father has been special. We’ve had priceless conversations. I know far more about him and his life now. And there is more honesty and emotional vulnerability between us than ever before. The time with my wife and daughter has been special, and we’ve churned lifelong memories together this year. All my close friendships feel closer and more open. I have a circle of care around me. And people I can talk to about art and the emotional rawness required to create.

I don’t yet have a theme for 2026. But I have the contours for how I hope the year will feel. I will clear out a lot of my contacts list. Same for watch-lists and someday/maybe dreams. This is not the time to cling to the past. I’m already online way less than I used to be, and that trend feels permanent. I don’t want to be tired when I travel. I want to move through the world gracefully. Which means never doing things at the last minute. I want kind and emotionally open conversations. I want to be rid of unnecessary ambiguity so I have some capacity to respond when life does throw genuinely unexpected things my way.

And with that, I’m saying goodbye to 2025. We all have different gods and we worship in different ways. But the year draws to a close for all of us, and I hope that however you mark them you find peace and joy.