A Year of Growth, Love, and Life Lessons
December 2025
As we close out 2025 and head into the new year, I’ve been spending some time reflecting on goals, life changes, gains and even losses I experienced. Let’s face it, as the kids say, “life be lifeing” but sometimes I wish things wouldn’t life so hard. You know what I mean?
In 2025, I committed to putting myself first (interestingly, I seem to make this goal every year but fail to reach it). This year, I approached things differently. I decided to engage with people who could genuinely help. I talked to my doctor and my trainer – two women who scare me and love me just as much. I shared my true feelings about my weight, which was the highest it had ever been, and my desires. They worked as a team to help me lose nearly 30 pounds this year, and I am in the best shape of my life. It felt pretty good to check that box, and I’m proud that for the first time in a long time, I put myself first.
2025 was also a year of closure. When my mom passed in 2023, I was still the same Denise on the outside, but internally, I struggled. As the newly chosen matriarch of my family, I had to help my father adjust to a new life—one that looked very different from the 60 years he had spent with my mother. My family depended on me to make decisions, and throughout 2024, I felt paralyzed. In 2025, the blinders came off, and I embraced my role with grace and love, spending time with my family, packing up childhood memories, working with a realtor to sell the house I grew up in, and taking my father’s keys to the car and other adult responsibilities my family needed me to handle. Though it was sometimes sad, it was also a lot of fun, and I cherished the love and memories that came with going through your family history.
Also in 2025, I experienced the shock of my life when love landed right on my doorstep, and I got engaged. To be honest, I never thought I would get married. It’s something I had given up on, and I was happy with my life as it was. Getting engaged at this stage of my life is quite interesting. Many younger women have been very supportive and say I am their inspiration for choosing to marry on my own terms. I’ve also heard from some more experienced women around my age, sharing their surprise that I am getting married at this point in my life. Yeah, whatever.
So let me say this to you. The year is ending, and a new one is coming. Take a moment to look at the goals you set for 2025. Celebrate your accomplishments and carry over those that are still important to you. Reflect on your life and the growth you experienced. You’re not the same person today that you were on January 1. Recognize all you survived, all that you gave, things you lost and what you gained.
March into the new year with unwavering confidence and “Let’s be in the mix in 2026.”
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Signing Off,
Denise
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