How can one find a breath to reflect on the previous year in the middle of the holidays? Travel, family time, visiting friends, celebrating, sleeping. My mantra, “January doesn’t count,” holds. A friend of mine even declared the new year didn’t start until Chinese New Year, which is mid-February. I second this. It’s ridiculous to expect to get one’s shit together right from the jump on January one. The space between Western and Eastern calendars is the perfect time to pause. Evaluate plans, processes, regrets, routines, and remember the previous year.

I used YearCompass to guide my introspection and journaling. But for this blog, I scrolled back through the yammering I spewed on the internet throughout 2025 via the lovely PI.FYI, and let the posting guide me.

values instead of goals

I’ve been following this advice myself for a few years when it comes to preparing for the new year. I was never one for resolutions. Occasionally, I’d set goals. But with both, you might break or not reach them, which is demoralizing. So I think of how I want to live, instead. A value will inform your approach to a myriad of challenges in life. Resolutions and goals are just narrow targets too often missed.

Whimsy feels like a value that’s become vital over the years. Things are too serious. We should take things seriously. But not at the expense of silliness. More things need to be done just for the sake of it. Productivity, ROIs should not be a factor. Reject capitalistic values.

My grudges against Microsoft, the Qdoba in Junction City, Kansas, and the state of Pennsylvania are as real as they are ridiculous. They are important to me. I keep them as a reminder of how I want to treat people. I’m allowed to hate things that do not have personhood. Humans must remain human in my heart. I have no enemies.

Related recommendations: knowing when to shut up and knowing when to ask if you should even start speaking. I am too quick to explain things to people who likely already know them. Often, I’m just excited to share in something I’m passionate about. But also, I’m guilty of knowing things and vainly desiring people know that I know things. I should ask for consent before inflating my ego…

CINEMA

…and subject strangers on the internet instead where they can simply click away. I enjoyed writing this film format explainer, but not long after I posted, Ryan Coogler delivered the same information in a video with much more charm. So maybe just watch that instead.

While I enjoyed Sinners, Coogler’s film wasn’t close to any of my personal movie highlights of the year. My local indie theatre put on a retrospective of the late David Lynch’s work and I watched every movie I hadn’t already seen, as evidenced by my Letterboxd stats. (Akira Kurosawa was a close second due to a slew of remasters being released). Many of Lynch’s films, I do not understand. Some I actively dislike. Twin Peaks I respect in its entirety, but don’t love. I began to understand what Lynch was doing with Blue Velvet, which is essentially a pilot for Twin Peaks. And I saw the light with Mulholland Drive. My god. However, his movie I loved the most I almost didn’t see. The Straight Story. G-rated. Distributed by Disney. Yet, undeniably Lynch. I worried how he would end the journey as the movie drew to a close. I could see an ending overdone and unraveling everything that came before. But he finished it with a single line which obliterated me. Rest in peace, David Lynch. Thank you for all the art you gave us.

Other highlights of the year include watching Charlie’s Angels at the theatre for the first time. This was a family staple growing up and it was a delight to see on the big screen. Incredibly stupid, silly, sexy, with a side of a few unfortunately racist elements. Angel’s Egg was an extra special viewing since it has never been played in theaters in the U.S. Sorry, Baby stood out as the best written movie of the year. Yi Yi was a rich experience. The Taste of Things, savory and bittersweet. But the movie that electrified all my senses was Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

I knew its reputation. But this movie’s quiet intensity still took me unawares. I’ve never felt my heart soar so high nor fall so low with a film. Or wept tears of grief and joy at the same time. “Do not regret. Remember.”

EXPRESION

My first serious attempt at journaling took multiple years to fill a book. Now the time between journals grows shorter and shorter. This is thanks to deciding I would have one Everything Journal. I used to designate separate notebooks for different purposes: introspection, creative writing, planning, etc. Tidy. The issue was I never had the right notebook on me when I needed it. I ended up not writing in any of them. So I consolidated everything into one. The Everything Journal is my daily log, my diary, my scrapbook, and is filled with first drafts and detritus of other creative projects. It’s fun! And messy. And it’s easy to always have it with me.

2025 was a creatively satisfying year. I got to collaborate with several artist friends through photography and videography. Which gave me so much life. I wrote alongside other writers all year. And I got to travel a surprising amount. Wage work sent me to Kansas City and San Antonio, both a delight to explore, providing inspiration through food, drink, architecture. A gift in space to write and go on photowalks.

My family’s trip back to Thailand was the highlight, though. Our last visit had been 8 years ago. It was so special to soak in the culture of my childhood once again. Hear and speak the language. See the valleys and mountains. And eat the food. Eat and eat and eat. It was bittersweet.

The experience led to the creative work I’m most proud of in 2025: Travelogue. I have never considered myself a nonfiction writer. But crafting this was so satisfying. And vulnerable. I was stunned by how many people chose to follow along. And I received encouragement from artists I respect that I need to be careful not to forget. This not only provoked me to share more of myself through creative nonfiction but also served as an indispensable tool for important internal work.

EMOTION

Last year marked a serious foray into mental health for me. I’d developed my own tools and practices over the years, through trial and error. Journaling had become indispensable. And while I was functioning normally, allegedly, it felt prudent to seek guidance and insight from others. I started with a program modeled after Twelve-steps. It provided a structured for introspection with a group in a space cultivated for vulnerability--a sanctuary to speak your inner thoughts out loud. This was a revelation to me. And encouraged me to engage with my emotions, which I ignore usually because they are foreign to me.

Art had long been a safe arena for me to experience emotion. I treasure moments when a novel or film evokes tears. But this was vulnerability sheltered under fiction. Powerful, valid, and a wonderful way to learn. But I leaned on this to the exclusion of reality. Emotions packed up in a box that I could open and experience at my leisure. And put away when I’d had enough foolishness.

I was referred to a therapist by someone I trust. I didn’t know what to expect or even talk about. But we discovered in our first session my therapist and I process the world similarly and their mantra for me became, “Honor your emotions.”

What that grew to mean for me, one who often doesn’t know what I’m feeling in the moment, was to develop a curiosity for my feelings. What am I feeling right now? Why am I feeling this way? And, crucially, not to judge or rationalize the feeling immediately. Not try to pack it away in the back of a closet. To let it say its piece.

This advice came right on time. I let myself be vulnerable with close friends this last year and made emotional risks I’d never would have before. And I learned this “stability” I’d experienced till now was manufactured. I didn’t disturb the waters of my emotions. I locked them up in a cistern so none could drink from them and only the greatest earthquakes could cause a ripple. I kept it closed because I didn’t believe anyone would want what was inside. But I opened this cistern last year. A crack. And learned emotions flow as they will and cannot be constrained by logic or reason. Something I knew, but didn’t know. It was difficult for me. 2025 was a hard year. A good hard year. And it was beautiful. Even with the unpleasantness. Because with it, I gained much. I learned valuable lessons. I became known in ways I’d longed for. I found the people who would listen to my woes with grace and walk with me. I could stand the flood. I can live with the cistern open.

In the midst of this internal tumult, I wondered to a friend if it was worth the cost--this trade of evenness for these new highs and lows. Life was simpler with my stagnant, closed emotions. They said simply, earnestly, “You can’t go back.” And I knew they were right because the flowing waters taste too sweet.

EPILOGUE

It was hilarious to me when I received an anemia diagnosis at the end of last year. I spent all of 2025 being more mindful of what I ate and taking a prescription statin to lower sky-high cholesterol levels. My diligence paid off. But the all-clear also came with, “you have an ailment of a Victorian child.” I now take iron supplements. Even so, I’ve never felt healthier. In both mind and body. I’m thankful.

One of the final exercises in the YearCompass was to pick a word for the new year. I found this dumb. How do you pick one for a year you haven’t even experienced yet. But the word “flow” popped into my head immediately. It reminded me of the excellent movie and fit with my normal annual theme of being flexible, holding loose expectations, and taking the year as it comes. But it also reminds me to be wary of the mental and emotional stagnation I experienced in the previous year--getting trapped in eddies, swirling round and round, and never flowing on.

I have begrudgingly accepted this word for the year as a guiding value. And some supporting values: be proactive, ask for help, take chances, and don’t forget to take care of yourself. Each year brings its challenges. But I hope the challenges we face net out as good, and we can be proud of how we faced them.