Columnists
December 2025
Hello December! If I’m allowed to make a wish for the month it is “Please be kinder to us than the other eleven months of this year have been!”
Is it just me or do some of you feel as if 2025 has been a bit of a disaster? I believe one could go so far as to call it a disappointment. Don’t get me wrong, 2025 did have its moments. The delightful people who installed our new furnace made the whole process seem almost painless and, as a bonus, LOML and I are warm. The new kitchen stove only took three weeks to be delivered, but we knew it wasn’t in stock when we picked it. The salesperson was wonderful, direct and understood my dislike of digital gadgets. The people who delivered the new stove, balanced it on our 150-year-old kitchen floors and took the old stove away. The new water heater was installed less than a week after we ordered it. Can’t complain about that! Right? And, if a person likes hubs-of-hell weather, well, didn’t we get a whole pile of hot, hot, hot. This summer was so hot we only had to mow the green part of the yard three times. It was far too hot to do much, but I guess that’s why we call ‘em the “lazy, hazy days of summer”. Just when I thought the year couldn’t deliver any more goodness, we find out one of the Durning siblings has Alzheimer’s and could no longer manage on their own. I volunteered to be her Substitute Decision Maker and, with the help of Ontario Health at Home, found long-term care. Like a lot of all y’all we secretly hope Alzheimer’s doesn’t run in our family.
And then? Well, and then I decided I could enjoy the parts of 2025 that were hiding in plain sight. Just to be clear, the new furnace is very quiet and we don’t have to worry about it giving up on the coldest days of winter—which are just around the corner. I like that! And, I can’t complain about having a new stove. Heck, if the oven temperature indicator shows 350° it’s actually 350°. And, I don’t have to wonder if a stove top element is going to heat up. They just do. Imagine that! I enjoy not getting an icy jet of cold water when I climb into the shower. Brisk and bracing have their place, just not during my shower in the morning. As far as one of our siblings having Alzheimer’s goes, I wouldn’t wish the disease on anyone, but at this point in time it’s their short term memory that is affected. When we chat on the phone we can still reminisce about our childhood shenanigans and all of the laughs we had growing up in a crowded house full of creative, loud, opinionated people. Our sibling is being well cared for the Long Term setting and is in good physical health. LOML and I managed to squeeze in a trip to Labra-ca-da-bra-dor and Newfoundland. It was a trip which we had put on our places-to-visit list years ago. In June and July, we finally did it. We ate a lot of cod. Heard a lot of great music. We saw Humpback Whales while bobbing around in a small fishing boat. We saw a lot of rocks and more lupins than we’ve ever seen in our lives. On top of that we met a lot of very nice people! And, it was during the heat of the summer of 2025 I met a person who refers to her intuition as her “guardian angel”. As crazy as 2025 has been, I thought the craziest thing I did was listen to her talk about paying attention to the guardian angel she believes she has in her life. But I listened to her, anyway. She appealed to my sense of discovery. Believe it or not, I actually understood what she was on about. I’m not sure my intuition is as heavenly as a Guardian Angel might be, but I am open to discovering my intuitive side and learning to understand instinctively without conscious reasoning. I’m learning to quiet my mind, spend more time alone and clear my head all of the mental noise. I’m learning to pay attention to situations, patterns, impressions and processes.
In all, I still have a bit of hope for December 2025. But if any other appliance breaks down between now and January 1st, I’ll use my intuition to call a service provider or, maybe I’ll go on another trip to avoid dealing with the residue of 2025.
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