End of the Year Thoughts
We’re nearly a month into 2026, and I graduated from high school more than twenty years ago. I guess it is true what they say about time going faster as we get older. We also start to contemplate our mortality, as more of our loved ones leave this earth, or face health issues, or confront the problems inherent with getting older in general. Indeed, getting old isn’t for wussies. It is also true that we are all born alone, and we all die alone, for better or for worse. Philosophical musings about the human condition aside, I figured that as I get older, my memory gets worse, and it wasn’t all that great to begin with, so documenting things from time to time wouldn’t be such a terrible idea. Since lists are easy, here are a couple of mine from 2025, in no particular order!
Swimming
One of the things I am most proud of accomplishing is my goal of swimming at least 300 days in 2025. It wasn’t easy to drag myself to a body of water almost every day, especially when it was cold or I wasn’t in the mood, but I did it anyway. My favorite swims of 2025 were:
- Bras d'Or Lake, Nova Scotia
- Maho Bay, St John USVI
- Lost River State Park pool (even though it was SO cold), Mathias, WV
Reading
I read a lot. That’s probably an understatement (my wife would definitely agree). Here are some of my favorite reads this year.
- The Emperor of Gladness (Ocean Vuong)
- James (Percival Everett)
- Death of the Author (Nnedi Okorafor)
- Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books (Kirsten Miller)
- Articulate (Rachel Kolb)
- The Final Strife (Saara El-Arifi)
- Atmosphere (Taylor Jenkins Reid)
Travel
We took a couple of trips this year.
- Lost River, WV – our home away from home
- Vermont – leaf-peeping and b&bs
- St. John – glad to be back, hope to go again soon
- Nova Scotia – authorial research (and swimming in the lake)
- Caribbean cruise – wife’s first cruise, more fun than expected
Looking forward to more travel, more books, and more swimming (not 300 days though!) in 2026. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every year find you a better person.”