2025: The Year That Took No Prisoners 🥂🖕🏻
2025 is coming to an end and honestly?
I don’t know whether to light a candle, flip a table, or sit quietly and just breathe.
This year didn’t whisper.
It kicked the damn door in.
I built businesses.
I burned old versions of myself.
I questioned everything — politics, systems, people, loyalty, truth.
I watched finches build their tiny chaotic little empire outside my sewing room (Carl & Karen, if you know, you know).
I launched The 509 Unfiltered.
I dragged my whole life into a 28-foot trailer with two dogs and hit the road because sometimes you don’t “find yourself” — you leave everything that isn’t you.
And I laughed.
Hard.
The kind of laughter that fixes cracks you didn’t know were breaking.
Because this was also the year of Penny.
The day trips.
The late nights.
The inside jokes that will never make sense to anyone else.
The spontaneous plans, the music too loud, the conversations that went deep and sideways and everywhere in between.
The moments where the world felt lighter just because she was in it.
Those were the good days.
The ones you don’t realize are saving you until later.
The Ones Who Left Too Soon
This year took my friends:
Robin Clark. Dave Emerick. Clay Monson.
This year also took my family:
It took my Godmother Anne — the kind of woman who shaped your spine without ever raising her voice.
It took my stepdad Audie — steady, solid, there even when life wasn’t.
It took my Uncle Craig — my heart still expects a text of wisdom.
Grief doesn’t knock.
It doesn’t schedule itself politely.
It shows up in grocery store aisles and quiet mornings and random Tuesdays when you swear you were “doing fine.”
There are versions of me that existed before those losses —
and they don’t exist anymore.
Everything Else That Changed Me
This was also the year I finally admitted out loud:
I don’t recognize the political party I spent decades defending.
I don’t recognize the narratives.
I don’t recognize the noise.
So I continued to NOT following the masses.
I doubled down on thinking for myself.
I wrote my exit.
I told the truth — even when it was messy and lonely and uncomfortable.
This was the year of:
Witty Revolt evolving into a full-blown creative rebellion
Bougie shower caps, scorched-brim hats, laser projects, DIY kits, sass on everything
The launch of The 509 Unfiltered. A raw, unscripted YouTube channel spotlighting the most interesting sh*t happening in the 509 — the people, the places, the problems, the progress, and the stories you won’t hear anywhere else.
Learning that peace is expensive, but worth every penny
I learned that being “strong” is overrated.
Being real is better.
What 2025 Taught Me
2025 taught me:
You outgrow people.
You outlive chapters.
You survive things you were never supposed to survive.
You keep going anyway.
That grief and gratitude can exist in the same damn breath.
That you don’t heal by becoming softer —
you heal by becoming truer.
That the road, the dogs, the crafts, the hats, the writing, the chaos, the podcasts, the birds, the grief, the laughter —
it all belongs to the same story.
And that some of the brightest light of the whole damn year
came from a girl named Penny
and a thousand moments I’ll carry forever.
Closing the Book (Without Slamming It)
So here’s to you, 2025.
You were brutal.
You were beautiful.
You were a teacher with sharp edges.
I am not the same woman who entered you.
And I am deeply grateful for that.
To Robin.
To Dave.
To Clay.
To Anne.
To Audie.
To Uncle Craig.
And to Penny —
thank you for the laughter when the world was heavy
and the memories that made it lighter.
You are all carried forward in every step I take,
in every risk I choose,
in every truth I refuse to silence.
2026…
you better stretch.
Because I’m not arriving broken.
I’m arriving awake.
🩷, Jess
