The phrase for 2025
For the past 6 years, I’ve picked a word or a phrase to sum up my hopes for the year. Sometimes I can distill everything down to a single word. I chose “Complete” in 2022. I liked its multiple meanings: lacking nothing, entire, undivided or, as a verb, to make perfect. In 2023, when my father was dying, what I really needed was “Clarity.”
Last year, I settled on the word “Satisfied.” Usually, I am perpetually unsatisfied. There is always more I feel I should’ve done. I hold myself to the highest standard and accept only perfection, which left me unhappy in every aspect of my life: family, home, career, creativity, health… It was exhausting.
My perfect imperfect bracelet!
So last year I decided to give perfection a rest. To be honest, it was a revelation.
In fact, it was fine when my bookstore events weren’t overwhelmingly crowded like they were in the days before the pandemic. If a handful of people came and they were interested and engaged — and bought books — I felt satisfied.
If the recording of my speech for the Association for Gravestone Studies had some weird timings in it, it didn’t matter. I was passionate about the subject — and the editorial board asked to reprint the text in the AGS Quarterly newsletter. I felt satisfied.
I didn’t get Still Wish You Were Here finished last year, but between the 6 months of construction on the house and the release of 222 Cemeteries to See Before You Die — and being invited to speak on NPR, be interviewed by Dylan Thuras of Atlas Obscura, chat with Patricia of the Morbidly Curious Book Club, and have my book mentioned in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, I am satisfied.
2025’s phrase is born out of rage. After I decided to leave my primary care practitioner in November, she scheduled me for a whole lot of fear-inducing, time-consuming, and completely unnecessary medical tests. I don’t know why she thought I needed these tests — and neither do the specialists I’ve gone to see. But I let fear guide me — what if there really WAS something wrong? — and that meant I wasted time and energy and shortened my life with anxiety to rule everything out.
From this moment on, my bracelet will remind me to Ask Why. It’s applicable to all things, not just medical appointments. I think WHY is something that I don’t think enough about. Why am I making this date? Why am I accepting this invitation? What are my expectations? What do I hope to achieve? How much time and energy is this going to take to prepare for? What will I have to give up to make time or space for this? How will I know when I’ve succeeded or accomplished what I set out to do? This year, it’s time for me to be more intentional about my life and work.
Once the rain finally broke yesterday, I hauled the bracelet-making kit out to the front step and stenciled my bracelet. It’s so…well, satisfying…to whack the stencils into the washer. So what if they’re not perfect?
If you’d like to make a bracelet (or necklace) with your own word/phrase of the year, check out MyIntent.com. You can order your bracelet premade (and they do a really nice job) or get the kit and pound out your own perfectly imperfect jewelry. I’m not an affiliate and don’t make any money from the recommendation. I just like them.
While I’m at it, my goals for 2025 are:
Finish Still Wish You Were Here: More Adventures in Cemetery Travel.Run my second Kickstarter campaign.Start overhauling one of the unfinished Alondra novels, so I can send it to my agent.We’ll see how it goes. I got asked by my editor if I’d be interested in doing another book for Black Dog & Leventhal, but nothing is signed yet. If we work out the details, that book will also be due this year, too. I’m sort of limbo until I know if we’re good to go or not.
What is your intention for the year?
