Epiphany, as it were, and as it is, for some folks. The Christmas tree comes down tonight, and the new year starts in earnest. I’ve been reflecting on 2025 and what a wild ride it was. The year didn’t end the way it started, certainly, and that’s for the best. It was a year of disruption and frustration, and also one of liberating myself from old ideas about who I am, and about what I should want versus what actually fuels and excites me. I went on some excellent tree-scented walks, enjoyed some breathtaking sunrise swims, and published some work that I’m proud of (a poem in a beautiful art book called Buoys and Markers, an article in The Independent, a poem in the most recent series from Opaat Press, a nonfiction piece in Best Canadian Essays 2026, and a poem in the extraordinary project that is Dear Mr. Smallwood). I pulled off some amazing workplace feats before my job at Memorial ended, I completed the Foundational Certificate in Narrative-Based Medicine through U of T’s Narrative-Based Medicine Lab, I served as an examiner for two beautiful MA theses, I traveled to Halifax to read at the Opaat Press Second Anniversary Bash (thanks to support from The Writers’ Union of Canada and ArtsNL), and I did some solid work on my book manuscript during AcWriMo.
There were plenty — plenty — of fails, too, and they were big ones, but what’s the fun in dwelling on those? And even those fails were wins, really, on the “honing my application-writing and bureaucracy-navigation skills” front.
All in all, 2025 confirmed for me that life is uncertain and unpredictable, and that “financial security” is a middle-class delusion, so I might as well just do what I want to do and hope for the best. Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee, a writer’s life for me, etc.
2026 is already looking like a big year for creative work and collaboration, and I’m really excited to see what happens next.
Andreae Callanan 