Out with the old, in with the new

The last day of the year is coming to a close. As I begin drafting this post, four more hours remain until the year of our lord twenty twenty five is but a memory.

I didn't plan on writing a "year in review" for this particular year. Don't get me wrong, I love it when those posts pop up in my feed reader and I wish more people would write them. This year was just a particularly ordinary year on my end. There isn't all that much to report.

But with the four year old in bed and asleep, and the seven year old upstairs playing Minecraft with his mother in an attempt to stay awake until the new year rolls around, I'm suddenly sat in the living room. Alone and with time to spare. So I thought I'd give myself a little challenge. Write and publish a post, right here, right now, before the year ends. I don't know what it will become. Call it a "word vomit" inspired by Meadow and let's see what comes out.

It was a another year

There was absolutely nothing of particular note to report from my 2025. It was a year without big stories, inspirational turnarounds, remarkable comings of age and uncomfortable upheavals. In most respects, that is a good thing.

Kids

Both children continued to prosper and grow. At seven and four, we're now reaching that phase of their lives where they might begin to encounter problems outside the little bubble of the world that their mother and I can influence. Parental duties so far have been challenging, yes, but rewarding. When their challenges are "small"¹ and manageable, you come a long way by just showing up being there. At the same time, I know that as they continue to expand their contact surface with the world, they will begin to face challenges beyond our immediate control.

I can't help but feel woefully unequipped to guide them through these situations.

Watching my kids apply themselves to an activity is my favourite thing. Both are active and participate in several activities. The boy plays football and handball, while the girl (despite my continued lobbying that she should start playing football) loves dancing. To see them practice with passion and make headway gives me great joy. I have no aspirations on their behalves, I'm just there for the ups and downs and all that'll teach them.

Loss

After battling cancer for more than a year, my grandmother passed this fall. It was sad and I miss her. Given that she'd been living with cancer for so long, I thought that it would lessen the impact of her parting. It didn't. Her passing also the oldest kid's first real experience with mortality. He was absolutely devastated at her funeral.

It was a hard day.

Savne deg, mor.

Reading

As shown in my reading log for 2025, I read 18 books this year.² Eight of them I read aloud to one of my children. Of those, the Narnia books (which I had been wanting to read for many years) were my favourites. I wrote a post with my thoughts on the series.

Of the books I read on my own, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was a particular highlight. In a post about the book I shared some of my thoughts and my favourite excerpts.

What I did not write about was the Liveship Traders books. Late last year, I read Ship of Magic before setting aside the trilogy for Wind and Truth (which left me a bit disappointed). I though Ship of Magic was OK, but it really set the scene for the rest of the story. And what a story it was! The Mad Ship was excellent before the trilogy concluded with the even better Ship of Destiny. I think these three books combined is perhaps my favourite work of fantasy writing. If you haven't read them yet, you should! Although they work fine as a stand-alone trilogy, they are part of Robin Hobb's Elderling universe. You'll probably appreciate them even more if you begin with Hobb's Farseer trilogy.

I only managed to finish two non-fiction books this year. Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing (thoughts) and Ceasar by Adrian Goldsworthy. I want to double that next year.

Physical activity

Going through my workout log for 2025 I was surprised to find that this was the year with most active days since I began tracking my workouts in 2017. 312 active days is nine up from the previous high in 2021. My sessions are shorter on average than back then, and total active time of 323 hours is not near the 379 hours of my peak years of 2023 and 2018.

Although it was a good year of physical activity, I am not quite satisfied. I "only" managed 55 hours of strength training. Now in my forties, I think working a wide range of muscles to reduce age-induced decay will only become more important. An hour a week is a little less than where I want to be.

I caught the running bug again earlier this year. It should therefore come as no surprise that running made up the bulk of my active time. Going out for a run in quiet surroundings, on a back country road or the trails, gives me great joy. I'm also acutely aware of the fact that window of opportunity for bettering my personal bests is closing quickly. Realistically, I have three to five years to do it.

That in mind, I am gearing up for giving it one last go at improving my personal bests. This year was all about getting back to it. I got back to regular workouts, and increased my volume significantly compared to 2024. However, I'm still around 1500 kilometres behind for the year compared to where I realistically need to be to get close to my PBs. 2026 will be all about getting back to that training volume and positioning myself to run a (hopefully) fast marathon in 2027.

Work

Back in 2024, I transitioned to a new role internally. This year was all about fully settling and coming to grips with the expectations and deliverables of this role. It's taken longer than I'd expected, but after a year and a half, I think I'm starting to get there. The role is quite different to what I'd expected. And, to be frank, it doesn't exactly play to my strengths. The responsibilities are less direct deliverables, and more mediation, meeting room influencing and stakeholder management than I'm comfortable with

There's a lot to learn and plenty of room to grow in a situation like this. The upside is that the team around me is great. My colleagues keep inspiring me to do my best and evolve my skills to better handle the role. That said, I find it hard to see myself in this role in the long term. If an opportunity that better matches my skill set presents itself, I will consider it. That might happen in 2026, or beyond.

We'll see.

The end

The new year is still two hours away. But I'm ready to go to bed. What next year brings will have to wait until tomorrow.

Happy new year!