Reflecting Back on 2025
Disability and Determination is a weekly newsletter about my experience navigating life with a rare disability. If you like this post, feel free to give a click on the ❤️ symbol below. This will help me get discovered by others on Substack. To be notified of future posts, drop your email in the field at the bottom and click the Subscribe button. If you’d like to further contribute, I also offer a paid subscription option (that includes extra monthly content), or you can Buy Me a Coffee ☕ I’m glad you’re here ☺️
At the beginning of this year, I was inspired by something Amy - The Tonic does every year: writing good things that happened on little Post-it notes, folding them up, and putting them in a jar.
I admittedly fell off from doing this around summertime when I got my dog, but it was still a fantastic exercise to dump them all out this month to review all the good things that had happened in 2025—no matter how big or small. The early part of the year feels so far away anyway, I didn’t remember the things I had written down until I started to read them.
I won’t give you the exhaustive list, but the running theme through all of them was spending time with friends and family, and the small joys we can all find in the everyday. I literally had “Getting a free Frostee at Wendy’s” on there. It goes back to what I wrote in my last post about the quality of life—we get to decide what brings us joy, no one else. It doesn’t have to be some huge, life changing thing. It can literally be as simple as getting a free dessert.
I had a lot of really crap medical memories from the year too, but the things I wrote down were someone holding the door for me, the lady at check-in giving me one of her masks after I complimented hers, the kind nurse who gave me my COVID vaccine when I’m not sure she was supposed to the day before my birthday.
The biggest joy for me was one I didn’t get a chance to write down: rescuing Rogy, my pug. It’s been one of the biggest challenges of my life, but one of the most rewarding too. He’s sleeping on the couch right next to me as I write this and I can’t tell you the kind of warmth that comes over me when I look at that little face of his. He might not have been the dog that checked all my tick marks when I first started looking, but he’s undoubtedly the dog I needed. I’m happy to report I’ve somehow managed to get him to sleep until almost 9 on some more mornings now. So my holiday vacation ended up being so much more restful than I thought, which I really needed.
I closed out 2025 with a great visit to my office too that was filled with lots of joy and laughter.
You can’t mention 2025 without mentioning the sheer horror that encapsulated most of the year. I won’t rehash all of that either as I think we’re all more than familiar with just how much terribleness, loss of life, and general hate there was.
That’s all the more reason that exercises like Amy’s are so crucial. It can be extra hard to find the joys and positive moments when everything is going to complete sh*t. I am certainly guilty of only remembering the bad and often forgetting the good, so writing down the positive things that happened, shifts my brain’s focus. I like that you don’t have to do it on a schedule either. I really fall off doing things when you’re supposed to do it daily, weekly, monthly, etc. I respond much better to a “do it when you think of it” kind of approach, especially with everything I have to remember already and my never-ending to-do list.
Last, but certainly not least, I want to send the biggest thank you to everyone who subscribed and/or financially supported this newsletter this year. Your support, your honest feedback, your comments, and just the fact you’ve read what I’ve written here, means so much. Meeting, talking to, and connecting with you all has been one of my greatest highlights. I hope in 2026 you find many joys—great or small.
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Happy New Year, Jackie! It’s been so wonderful reading your work throughout the year.
I used to love to dip french fries in my frosty at Wendy's. (Weird, I know). Haven't had one in years. But a free one would've brought me joy, too!