happy new years, 2026!

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heyy its a not music blog post for once! how are you all doing. i have had, if you arent following my fedi, a wild-ass 2025. content warnings for suicide discussion will follow, but i promise, its all good news :)

in 2025, i:
- got a safety plan for my suicidal depression
- started going out more because of the above, meaning i got to socialize more and play MTG with friends such as the amazing tautology
- speaking of which, got back into mtg! i missed it way more than i thought i would
- started HRT!!! technically, its DIY - i live in the states still, after all - but still: march 31st, 2026 will be my 1 year on testosterone :)
- started self-medicating my psychosis and depression
- GOT MARRIED!!!!!!!
- saw the mountain goats live at the neptune theatre!!!

... yeah, thats a lot, right? i cant say enough about how much starting HRT has helped my mental health, but to be honest, 2025 was a good year for finally dragging my mental health out of the gutters now that i have a bigger support system. i got adoptive older siblings now (no take backs) and i play TTRPGs every week for the first time in years - i even found my enthusiasm for running again, and im currently DMing a VTM 5e campaign for my group!

not ALL of that is solely due to HRT, although again - its helped so fucking much. im way more fully outgoing and actually an extrovert now that im not constantly paralysed by dysphoria, depression, and anxiety. its crazy. but i also admittedly started smoking* (*vaping nic) which has helped self medicate my psychosis a lot which, surprise surprise, also makes me more functional as a person when im not constantly dipping in and out of severe delusions and hallucinating 24/7. this is not a medical recommendation. (also my older sister very nicely gave me psychosis safe weed so thats helping too ngl)

my advice is not medical recommendations for your problems but i will say as a poor motherfucker stuck in america, i am currently doing the best i ever have in the mental health department in my entire life. and that is... crazy, to me, honestly. the end of this month roughly marks 1 year free of active suicidal ideation, which, coming off of having to drop my retail hours in 2024 after another suicidal breakdown, feels... unreal. every month after january is a brand new benchmark for me in not actively wanting to kill myself. it feels very surreal to say that.

and you know what?? not only that, but i got married! im married!!! im legally married in canada! i got to a point where i have been mentally able to cope with finally dealing with my toxic, fucked up living situation and ignoring my parents and actually able to start examining and unravelling my "fear of commitment" and i got married im married. my husband luis colrana is legally factually actually my husband now. (many people note we have been technically engaged for a few years. to be fair, i dont think either of us anticipated getting to a state financially And mentally where we would impulse get married on halloween, but i am so genuinely happy about it)

did you know: i LOVE my husband. i get to spend the rest of my life with him now and jesus christ, i have a rest of my life? i actually feel like i can see somewhere beyond a year in time? i actually find myself not going "it wont matter ill be dead next year anyways" and instead starting to actually make real plans and take the bus to seattle regularly and hang in dive bars and connect fully with my local punk scene. i went to my first ever convention in 2025. im going to vancoufur with my HUSBAND in march!!!!!

you may have noticed over the course of music reviews and random updates in 2025 but another side effect of all this is that im actually fully gaining control over my own fucking life and getting to actually be who i want to be. granted, as my friends affectionately put it, that is "punk bard with a charisma of 20" but im honestly overjoyed by it anyways. i have so many dice and d&d and vtm 5e books in my room now. my record shelf is thriving. i throw on a leather jacket and hang out in the smokers area sometimes at events and feel like a stereotype but im so happy about it. i really, genuinely have not felt this great in years. you might see me semi regularly now in seattle around crows nest or the furry bar™ or hanging out in cap hill cause they added a busline to my shitty down that drops at lcc at the link rail stop!

i got to see TMG live this year at my very first concert, and my best friend and sibling tautology picked up a sweatshirt for me that says "...if it kills me", after the iconic this year from the sunset tree. i wish i could convey to you the borderline religious emotion that screaming along to i am gonna make it through this year if it kills me in a theatre full of other people listening to john darnielle play it live gave me. i did make it through 2025 if it killed me. 2026, i think, might be the very first year ive ever made a new years resolution, because i think im gonna make it just fine. my new years resolution, for the record, is to keep getting out of the house more and go to some dive bars that play local punk bands. it feels like a makeable goal, for once.

i have a lot of euologies in me. ive described myself as a graveyard of other peoples' memories once. im a psychopomp and a spirit & fire witch, so the dead and i are best friends, really. 2026 is the first year that i think im going into it after laying everyone down gently at the lethe to rest. i think those i love that are in asphodel will be proud of me for finally trying to move on with my life instead of doing everything i can to stay ensnared in the past to "keep their memories burning". in truth, i think ive known for a while that to truly keep their memories alive, i need to throw a bunch of shit in the pyre and let them go free. 2026, i finally have set that bonfire.

i quit spotify in 2025! me and my husband and sib in law (sibil) made a raspi full of music that streams to our devices. im making a solid effort now that im less* depressed to actually kick a bunch of actual fash and horrific bullshit out of my life even if it inconvienences me. (considering i already cold quit starbucks last year, im starting to realize its way easier than it seems, corporations just love preying on people not wanting to put even a tiny bit of inconvience into their lives).

as you know, this website STARTED bc of the great twitter explosion, and maintaining it has become a mixture of self expression, therapy, and genuine delight in having my own space to post whatever the fuck i want in whatever way - but its also help me quit a bunch of other social media sites cold turkey and realize what a toxic cesspit they are. i run a mastodon/fedi server with my husband, obviously, which is where all of my microblogging goes nowadays, and i have a bsky that i rarely personalpost on but hang out there to encourage harm reduction in the form of encouraging small businesses and artists to jesus christ get off twitter dude its a fash AI slop pit. its nice posting my stupid music blog monthly (or, uh, semi monthly) and posting random longform bullshit like this whenever i so please, and updating my silly little statuses on the front page, and shit dude i opened a sex toy review blog. i can just DO that. hell yes.

some other misc stuff im proud of from 2025... oh, ive managed to teach a bunch of my older coworkers how to actually interact with and respect trans people, which may seem small but if youve ever interacted with small town blue collar old people its a very funny and strange rollercoaster. they say some out of pocket weird shit a lot of the times but the more youre charismatic about it the easier it is to teach them to just be normal. that makes me happy. although admittedly very strange experience being regarded as one of the boys and having to dryly go "ol' ball and chain jokes arent funny" every now and then lmao

so, yeah! i had a weird but ultimately very good 2025 in spite of the state of the world. going into 2026, i really well and truly can say for the first time in my life: let them try and fuckin kill me. they wont. this is the tonal opposite of my last year new years post, and im... really emotional about it. it feels surreal.

see you all across many music reviews and blog posts of many varieties this year, explorers!

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