It’s the end of the year! You know what that means… a sappy post reflecting on the past year and over ambitious talk of what is to come next year. I promise I won’t disappoint!

I first want to say, while 2025 royally sucked, the sense of community I have seen strengthen, in person and online, has given me a sense of hope that wasn’t there when this year started. I want to make sure to bring that into 2026, as I know to get through these hard times, it will take work, but with a strong community, it will be easier. Build your community, help out when you can, accept help when you need it. And remember, support trans rights, fuck ICE, ditch AI, and free Palestine. 

Some of my favorite accomplishments of 2025 would be; putting myself out there more with my art. I didn’t let fear hold me back from trying, something I had become quite good at… And I got the absolute honor of creating a mural for my local community. There is a post about it, you can read all about it there. I created four different pieces in one month, based on folklore prompts from Performing Magic in the North. I am also SO SUPER PROUD of our podcast, Odd Anthropology! We will finish the year with 13 episodes and over 5K listens! I learned so much about the process of podcasting, and really hope I can devote more time to contributing more and building more of a community with our listeners.

While I found some stability in my “day job” this year (full time and benefits!), I feel like I am ending the year at a crossroads. However, not in a way where I don’t know what direction to go, but where I am at a convergence of many opportunities, and I kinda want to hang out and see how they all meet. I’ve had “Art. Anthropology. Folklore.” as a tagline for this website and my socials for a while now, and I never intended for anything to come from it. I just liked the way it sounded. But I think I am starting to see the sprout of that seed I unintentionally planted. There were a couple of times this year I thought I was going to change directions career-wise. There was a job I interviewed for, but didn’t get (although I am glad it didn’t work out), I started applying to grad schools (without knowing how I was going to pay for it), and I did have a thing called a Loosening of the Bonds – an astrological term for a complete change in direction in one’s life – happen back in early December. While it wasn’t the dramatic shift seen in the example I was given, George Lucas wanting to be a racecar driver then getting into a car accident and instead deciding to focus on making films, I think there was an internal shift in my mind that I can see my passions/desires more clearly. Which is where that tagline comes back into play. Art, anthropology, and folklore are all things I love and have deep interests in. This year was a year of all three: reconnecting with my art, starting an anthropology podcast, really beginning to dive into folklore. And I think next year will be time spent at the crossroads of that liminal meeting space. Following the connecting threads, and documenting them to share. I have no idea where this is going, or if there is an end goal, but I am going with the flow of it. I envision this involving more writing here and for Odd Anthropology, being more experimental in my art, and reading. A lot. I also hope that could involve some travel too! I don’t know what I am doing, but I feel like I have discovered a path that feels true to me. And I am excited to see what that will bring. 

So thank you for being here and taking the time to read my thoughts. I plan to have more for you in 2026! I feel like I need some sort of heartfelt sign off to end this with but all I have is “Lang may your lum reek!”