On 2025
What reporting on solitary (& other tough stories) taught me about life, work, and myself...and what i hope to carry with me into 2026.
In our interview sessions, Frank shared many nuggets of wisdom. In one, he said something that now, as I reflect on the year, feels especially resonant—a quiet, gentle revelation I hope to carry with me into the New Year:
“I’ve found out very few people know anything about it. It’s an ugly truth that people don’t want to hear about. To hear about it, it means you’ve got to burden me with something else I got to deal with. I know, I get it. But it’s a truth that shows about our humanity or lack thereof. To know about it and to continue to allow it to go on endangers all of us.
Through my testimony, I hope people can feel. I think it transcends cognitive understanding. But if you can feel something through my words, then, you know, process it in your own way.
Then you’re ahead of the game of most people. And you can even speak on it some. Because I’m chomping at the bit, you know. It’s become my purpose, my life’s purpose.”
When I was young, everything moved me. As in, to tears! Old photos. Estate sales. A dog. A stranger. Airports and airplanes. The wrong time on a clock. Summer ending. Winter ending. It all felt so sad and heavy. I know there are many out there like this, those with childhoods slightly more melancholic than the average.
There are certain things one should keep hold of, others it’s best to let go. It’s up to the individual to decide which is which. But I held onto everything. Just in case.
When I was in school, I did wonder—only vaguely—if that quality would make me a good journalist or a terrible one, whether it predisposed me to the profession, or set me up for eventual failure. Because, as much as I believe in it, journalism by its nature often carries a certain heaviness. (I wrote more about this in my first post, “On Keeping a Notebook”).
And working in it, there’s a limit just beyond the margins of caring and staying informed, where it can be easy to become completely and totally lock-stock-and-barrel unraveled by it all. (I’m largely referring to those whose work revolves around advocacy, emergency healthcare, conservation, social work, human rights, etc. etc.—but this limit exists for everyone; though where it falls for each of us may be different.)
In my end of year reflecting, I've realized that, to avoid crossing my limit entirely, I entered into this kind of dance with myself. I tried, really hard, to file that part of me away, the one so easily moved by everything. She just really wasn’t making my job any easier, you know? So I tucked her away, up in a box somewhere in the cabinetry of my head. It was pretty subconscious in the beginning, I’d say.
There would be those moments, though, when something would make the box pop open—and there she was. Exposed! Even if just for a second. That was the dance—me, trying to shove weepy me back inside, only for her to forcibly squeeze her way out now and again—and it’s largely how I spent my 2025.
That in and of itself is pretty tiresome.
As a journalist, all I really want is to tell important stories, to show people, to somehow make them understand better, care more. I wrote many stories this past year, but Frank’s is one I keep coming back to for many reasons: for one, I grew to deeply understand Frank and care about him, and his pursuit of justice. It was one of those projects that lights your writer heart on fire!
Take Frank’s story. His story was that of one man, but it also illuminated something larger. It had to be shared. I just had to stay diligent so as not to become undone by doing so. To hear about a life of true injustice from a man so kind and soft-spoken could make anyone want to burrow into a ball and cry, I’d say, and I promised myself I wouldn’t.
In retrospect, I can see how that kind of inner separation did breed some really positive outcomes. In terms of work, I was on fire; in 2025, I took on new assignments, traveled for some of them, stepped into a new Editor role, and reported a crapload of stories. It really was all engines a go.
As the year went on, I was too—only slower. It felt like I was moving through something thick and viscous. And instead of learning to swim through it, so to speak, it only got better at slowing me down.
There’s a reason the solitary confinement series was the last “big” story I did last year. As much as I tried to avoid it, I finished pretty hollowed out. My work afterward felt distant, and harder than before.
So, for November and December, I took some time off. I closed my laptop and kept the news reading to a minimum. I spent more time with family and friends and almost no time in my home office. I ate good food and drank yummy drinks. To force yourself to relax is an odd thing; and it took some pretending at first, a little forcing. After all, to fall asleep one must first pretend to be asleep. This, I am learning, is how everything works.
If there’s one lesson this year left me with, it’s that the boundary line I talked about? I’m not very good at walking it, and I’d better learn if I want to keep doing this kind of work.
So, my goals for 2026:
to make friends again with the little, emotionally porous me inside. To try to carve out space for her. I’d gladly settle for peaceful coexistence—but what I’d really love? For us to team up somehow. To lean on and challenge each other, and see what we can do in this world, in this work, at this strange age of our late twenties—doing it together.
to keep seeking the things that set my heart (whether in rage or in joy) on fire, and to give to them exactly what I can—no more, no less. Sustainably galvanized. To “chomp at the bit,” as Frank said.
to post more on Substack.
Because I’ll be honest you guys, I’m nearing 28, and I can’t really see myself doing anything else. As in, like, for a job.
Of course, I’m only 28. So I guess we’ll see.
Thanks for being here, if you are here. It’s my plan and hope and goal to write more here. See you more in 2026!
