It’s too soon (to me) to write a “here’s how 2025 was” post but here’s a sneak peak: It’s fucking sucked.
I don’t even remember what horrible thing I learned that Meta was up to back in February but I left Facebook and insta and Threads. And then I was more isolated than ever. I went back ONLY TO LEARN Meta has been encouraging child abuse…I absolutely should leave again but I deeply, deeply don’t want to be isolated.
If that wasn’t enough, I went at least four productions a year to one I think? Also back in February. Oh yeah, and there was the slashing of NEA funding, the constant, overwhelming attack on trans rights, being constantly worried about my family and ICE, and learning how many people are just now starting to see “how broken” the country is.
This doesn’t even start to include the fires in the LA, my dad’s SEVEN strokes, my mom losing her passport, me not having an ID for most of the year, a brutal break-up that meant losing a person to date and one of my only friends left in the godforsaken town…
Wait wait wait. I said I wasn’t going to do my 2025 wrap up just yet.
Okay here’s what I actually want to write about: I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to have hope right now. What it means to have ambition, to still want something better. While I’m not 100% happy with how work has played out this year, I am so thankful to be employed. I live indoors, I have four fantastic cats, a husband I adore, and at least one job that does feel pretty meaningful.
But all that said, I feel a bit like there’s a whole in my chest. It’s cavernous and all the other bad shit that’s happened this year has created a blockage. At times, I feel like I can’t even remember that I’m not supposed to be doing this. What does it mean to still want to work in an industry that chewed me up and spat me out? What does it mean when I have story ideas every time I take a shower but no energy to write because the weight of this year has kept its foot on my neck?
What does it mean to dream right now?
In my dream life, I still want to be back in the room, playing make believe with other brilliant writers. I still want to be on set, despite the long hours on my feet, watching how TV is made and observing all the moving parts to make a 60-min episode happen. I want to gossip with the script coordinators and learn about framing from the DP. I want to laugh with a director and avoid the very grumpy and overworked PM. I want what I had in 2022 back.
And it’s not just TV. I want playwriting back too. I want to be back in the rehearsal room watching an actor discover something brilliant I didn’t even know what in the script. I want to be back to editing like a battle rapper, in the room, seeing exactly what the script needs to say to get the actor and director to deliver a gorgeous moment that I’ll forget I even wrote. Because we all wrote it. We all made that happen.
And yes I know how incredibly lucky I am to have had it at all. And yes I know it’s an up and down journey but I feel like I’ve been in the valley for a really, really long time. How do I pull myself out of it?
How we, as a community, bounce back after the series of blows we’ve suffered? TV and film are gutted. Theatre is barely hanging on and I’m not even writing! In a typical year, I write 10 plays a year and at least a pilot and a show outline. This year, I wrote a play (just one) and a pilot.
Every moment I had a little bit of hope was hit with an immediate blow. I feel like every time I surface for air I was dragged back down. My mental health hasn’t been this bad in years and I still have bills to pay. I am, once again, thinking about getting my MBA in Finance.
But then the government decided that wasn’t a “profession.”
Fuck’s sake.
And yet, somehow, impossibly, there’s still a part of me that believes I’ll bounce back. I’ll get back in the writer’s room, in the rehearsal room, I’ll get back to the days when I looked around saying “How is this my real life?”
These days, the hope I’m hanging on to is things have to get better. We just need to look at it a different way. If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that no one’s gonna save me. I’m going to have to do it myself.
As much as I hate that. I’m going to need to make the impossible happen.
But, first, I am going to have to work on my mental and physical health. First, I’m going to have to make it through this year, scathed and all. I might be walking through the flames now but what’s a little fire to a phoenix?
(Yeah I could do better than that but I already said my mental health wasn’t great lol)
I think in the rush to “fight the world” we’ve forgotten to take care of ourselves. We’re going to bounce back. We will. But first, to the dear friends i have left, we have to survive. And I hope once we do, we’re blown away by what we’re capable of.