Peace, Love, & FAFO

To say that 2025 was a wild year is an understatement. But it’s been like that for everyone.

I did a lot of fucking around and finding out. What else can a girl ask from her 50th year on this rock? The benefit of a late December birthday is that I can look back at both my own and the calendar’s last year. Breaking and having a broken heart. Dancing with people I love and with new friends. Ending a career. Chasing a dream. Filling my plate so high that it oozes amazing projects. To say it’s been a ride doesn’t cover it.

Growing up working class and being partnered with another working class person cements a lot of anxiety about money. As a Capricorn I crave stability. As a single divorced lady without generational wealth, even with chosen family within arms reach, I really only have myself to stabilize my world. The gift and curse of how my job class was/is treated at UIC is that we get a year’s notice when our services are no longer needed. A year to seek out new opportunities. A year that ticks loudly in your body - I never had my biological clock tick so this was a new sensation. Luckily I had friends who heard this ticking and provided me opportunities to explore.

In the last year I have taken so many leaps of faith that I have realized that this is truly my natural state. That to listen to my gut and go for it, most of the time it works out. I spent way too much time of my life calculating and planning and asking others for their perspectives. Not that I still won’t survey my friends when making decisions, but in the end my gut is pretty smart.

And my gut waves a lot of red flags that I ignore. The people pleasing part of me waves them away. Telling me that if I paid attention I would be selfish. My gut screams that I need to put myself first. My heart reminds me that I am here to serve the world to be helpful. These forces are why I say yes too often. Sometimes it is obligation. Sometimes it because it seems like a fun idea!

Chasing joy has been the theme to the last half of this year and will continue into this next year.

Finding the balance between selfish and not being a doormat is hard for me. But I’m trying.

Two big jobs wrap up in early 2026 which will leave more space for me to build out one new project and open to new opportunities. I’ll be looking for part-time jobs or contracts where I can build on my project management and communication skills.

I also know that the 2027 Chicago municipal campaigns will be ramping up and I will be open to consulting in that area. Which also means I need to make a decision on what I am going to do with. my elected position. Election cycles are weird. March will essentially end one cycle and after a few weeks off the 2027 cycle will begin. Life is about cycles and we each choose which ones to pay attention to. I picked one of the weirdest and absurd cycles to live my life by.

But if you look closely and at the right people, campaign cycles are filled with hope. And yeah, honestly the same kind of hope that a lot of us fell for during the Obama years. When I work for a candidate, there is a great sense of hope. Hope that this time it will be better. Not different, just better. I believe in incrementalism because revolutions don’t happen overnight. Inch by inch.

And I need to take that same mentality to my life. I can’t pivot that quickly in any area of my life - career, health, or personal relationships. Baby steps, which are not so much small, but wobbly attempts that after a lot of practice become second nature.

Here’s to the next year and all the adventures it will bring. Some of it will take me to heights I haven’t allowed myself to imagine. Some of it will crush me, but I need to keep choosing the leap. What else am I here for?

~ Veronica