101 Things I’m Doing in 2025
This past year was one of the hardest of my life, rivaling even the great horrific chasm that was 2016. It seems I am not alone in this. So many folks I know experienced big losses, tremendous grief, and unexpected heartache in 2024—lost pets, lovers, parents, friends, and for many, the idea of hope.
As I went through my list from last year, I initially felt defeated. Only twenty-one things checked off. “My worst year yet,” I thought. But after a few days of reflecting, I think I might declare it my best.
In May 2024, I had an early pregnancy loss. This isn’t something I’ve shared widely. I really, deeply loved and wanted the baby that I felt burst into being from what seemed like sheer wishing. Shortly after losing that dream, I experienced a tremendous heartbreak. In July, I spent three nights and four days in a mental health hospital when I was unable to find a psychiatric nurse practitioner for debilitating panic attacks, and the experience broke and forever reshaped me.
My son lost (and swallowed) his first tooth the day I went to the hospital. I wasn’t there for it, one of many things I missed. Loving him kept me from succumbing to the abyss of fear and grief inside me that has spent thirty-three years screaming unloveable, unloveable with varying degrees of intensity.
Only a month after surviving, so fresh in my skin that I felt reborn myself, I had to say goodbye to two of my beloved animal companions, souls who had been living alongside mine for twelve and fifteen years respectively, loving me. Mugs and Jane passed on to the realm of spirits and magic within 49 days of each other. Losing them has felt like floating on my back out at sea, adrift after a shipwreck. The sky is endless.
This past month, my son had surgery to remove his tonsils and adenoids, a relatively simple procedure, but for me, it drudged up all the awful hospital trauma of birthing him into this world. I held my panic in my hands yet again; the weight of loving him, the weight of loving me. How lonely and hard it can feel.
And, throughout all of that, I managed to paint the entirety of my living room pink. I road tripped to the redwoods and San Francisco and out to Lake Tahoe and back through the hot springs of Eastern Oregon with the two guys I love most in this world. I hiked and camped. I planted flowers. I opened my heart to a new dog, which wasn’t even on the list. I spent time with parent friends and explored communal childrearing. I submitted work. I read at open mic nights and spent time with my writing group, probing at our wounds and our words.
My word for 2025 came to me loudly and clearly, without any sign of hesitation: write. And so I will, as my primary focus this year. I will write and submit and publish and workshop and spend time with other writers. I will continue my practice of morning pages. I will dust off old projects and start new ones and tinker at them at my sweet little desk, purchased from the pawn shop in White Cloud, Michigan for $40 when I was just ten-years-old. Because even then, I knew that’s where my healing could be found.
For the first time in fifteen years, I am also giving myself some extra words to bolster my main one. Those words are: joy, community, rest, and healing.
I know after the unfolding and wrecking and breaking of 2024, I can’t write without these supports. So you’ll see those themes reflected throughout my list this year; a list that feels ambitious simply in its writing. I feel very proud that after fifteen years of making these lists (and for many years before that), my heart has always been stubborn and sure that I deserve my wildest dreams.
Without further ado…
101 Things for 2025
Visit Michigan.
Spend more time with Marissa and Kristin.
Spend more time in-person with Olivia. Hold her baby. Hold her, too.
Have more phone calls and texts with Jane.
Spend time with Ashly and Dimi.
Have pen pals again.
Attend an event at Croft Farm, make friends.
Host a mother artist/writer retreat at the coast or Soapstone.
Continue building relationships with neighbors.
Go on a girl’s trip. Invite all the women I know. See what happens. [2024]
Finish trauma workbook.
Complete Walking in This World.
Post new work on website.
Take a solo hiking and camping trip.
Apply to grad school. [2023]
Do a writer’s residency.
Take a writing workshop.
Listen more deeply, interrupt less.
Continue relationship with my mom.
See my brother again.
Follow cycles of the moon more closely; do rituals every full moon.
Spend time meditating in silence.
Continue to do alter work, commune with Jane and Mugs and ancestors.
Learn more about ancestry.
Learn about and tend to chakras.
Plan and execute a big garden.
Print photo of Little Danielle. Indulge her.
Finish basement and rent ethically.
Build savings account back up.
Create a budgeting system that actually works for me.
Be more active in Buy Nothing & neighborhood free groups.
Reduce expenses.
Try alternate grocery stores, CSAs, and farmer’s markets.
Review retirement account. Know what’s in there.
Create passive sources of income so that I can work less.
Ask for a raise.
Study ways to disrupt capitalism. Practice them.
Go on more dates.
Take more long hikes together.
Camp at least twice [2024].
Obtain kayaks and use them.
Find more ways to play with Ori.
Finish two crochet/knit/needlework projects.
Clean and reorganize studio shelves.
Host a dinner party.
Host a game night.
Travel internationally.
Submit work every single month.
Do personal development work to dismantle biases, racism, ableism, white saviorism, etc.
Give freely and wildly, knowing the universe is abundant and loving.
Have HVAC, furnace, and A/C cleaned.
Paint every room in the house.
Obtain more art, especially from friends.
Obtain a great living room lamp.
Host more play dates.
Tile bathroom floor.
Take a boxing class.
Take a yoga class.
Get a tow-along bike for Ori.
Ride bike more often.
Ride on an ATV or snowmobile. [2024]
Get a piano. Learn to play it.
Get the biggest, coziest sectional couch. [2024]
Host a backyard dinner party. [2024]
Create a rain barrel system. [2024]
Find the perfect weird mailbox. [2024]
Build a Little Free library. With a poem box. [2023]
Get a pair of nice hiking boots. [2023]
Update resume.
Add cold plunge, shower, and sauna to sunroom.
Take a second pass at Soft Spot. [2021]
Volunteer to teach an elective at Ori’s school.
Track fertility closely as an indicator of overall health.
Sleep deeply and take naps as often as possible; make a priority over other things.
Create rituals to release anger and heal hurt.
Ask 10 people to get coffee or lunch.
Go to Rebuilding Center and ReStore and buy what speaks to me for my home.
Host a grief ceremony with friends and neighbors.
Read at more open mics.
Have PMI removed from mortgage.
Move emergency fund into a higher interest account.
Switch from a bank to a credit union.
Visit Terry in Mexico.
Obtain an acoustic guitar. Learn how to play it.
Make a print of something, letterpress or riso.
Obtain the best pair of cowboy boots.
Organize neighborhood block party & potluck.
Organize 4th Annual Neighborhood Yard Sale.
Learn to quilt or obtain more quilts.
Replace all white trim in house with pine or maple.
Finish one collage every month.
Sing on a stage.
Finish writing The Printmaker.
Go to the art museums in every city I visit this year.
Walk my own path; don’t stand waiting at the trailhead. Remember that I know how to hike alone.
Remember that the paths will converge again. How could they not?
Obtain a leaf blower and weed whacker.
Annual collecting through all old notebooks—make a retreat of it.
Turn phone and computer totally off more often.
Make a list each month of things that might bring me joy. Do them.
Finish this list.
What is 101 Things all about?
It’s year 15 of 101 Things! If you’re brand new in my life, I close out each year dreaming up 101 things I’d like to do in the next year.
101 Things is a way to uncover and create your most wildly beautiful life. There aren’t any rules. The things can be big or small, wild or mundane. The beauty happens in the list-making. Every year I surprise myself by writing something like “go kayaking” or “get pregnant,” because I’m pushing myself to really think about what I’d like to do.
I also notice what I want to keep on the list and which things I haven’t gotten done. I mark the year they first appeared on the list in brackets (e.g. [2009] means it’s been on the list since 2009). In 2023, I finally crossed off going to the opera, which had been on my list since 2016. It’s also fun to see what things I thought I’d do last year that didn’t come into fruition and now aren’t important to me (a lot of organizing tasks were on my list for 2023 and none of them are coming with me into 2024).
If you make a list, I’d love to see it! Send me a note here, on Instagram, or use #101Thingsfor2025.