2025 Takeaways

No one told me, a natural born attention-whore, that moving across the country would make traveling home on holidays a homecoming of sorts.

As someone who can never be told enough that people love me, having friends and family express how excited they are to see me does a lot for my insecure heart.

My heart grows with every countdown text I receive from my mom and friends.

It’s impossible for me not to reflect on having people waiting for me across the country while having people here in Portland making plans with me for January.

My birthday party in October was the first time I felt like I really had people here who cared about me. I’ve spent the last five months attending social events and putting myself out there to an uncomfortable amount.

My biggest reason to move out was in seek of community. I expected and planned for the heavy building and effort that would go into cementing myself in Portland.

As I prepare to go home, I didn’t expect to uncover how deep my community at home goes.

They say distance makes the heart grow fonder and yet, somehow, I had no expectations for those feelings to form for me about New Jersey.

Discovering New and Old Communities

2025 was the year I learned how important a community is.

On a recent first date, I asked him if he feels pressure to find a long-term partner as he gets older. This is something I think about a lot.

Though I asked the question, I had to think about my answer. While I knew that a romantic partner isn’t a priority for me and probably never would be, I realized what was: a community. 

When I think about aging, I don’t ever picture one singular person doing it with me, besides my cat, and I’ve never felt unsettled by that. However, I do feel incredibly unsettled and fearful of being alone. 

After graduating from college, I remember hearing so many young women my age talk about post-grad loneliness and how difficult it is to make friends in your twenties. 

After graduating from college, my friends and family felt like the only constant thing in my life, keeping me together. 

When I would hear people talking about how they let friendships fizzle or how hard it was to make new ones, I’d think about mine. 

Three of my college friends recently flew across the country to celebrate my birthday and honor our annual Halloween traditions. Expensive trips aren’t necessary to prioritize friendship, but sacrificing time and convenience is. That first year after college, I drove back to Ithaca multiple times to see my friends, and I think if I didn’t, it would’ve added more distance between us.

Friendship isn’t easy. We can’t expect relationships to last if we aren’t putting real effort into those relationships. 

Something that took me a long time to learn, though, was that every person contributes to relationships differently. 

I know that some of my home friends would never fly across the country for a weekend of partying, but they will plan to meet me at our local bar as soon as I land back in New Jersey. Managing expectations and meeting people where they’re at creates healthy balances in relationships that I find very important. 

So when I asked my date about his priorities, I realized that my priority almost always is community. 

What is community? They aren’t only made up of best friends and family members that you see every day.

Communities consist of all levels of connections. From your best friend you text daily to the coworkers you see throughout the week to the familiar barista, it’s important to cultivate relationships of all kinds. When you don’t build up these connections, you’ll find yourself looking to one person for everything you need. Throwing all your needs on one person can exhaust the relationship and lead to disappointment when those needs aren’t met. 

Communities thrive when different people bring their personal touches and uniqueness.

I’ve found that making an effort whenever I meet someone new feels gratifying. 

When I grow old, whether I have a romantic partner or not, I want to have a community around me that keeps the loneliness from creeping in. 

I moved to Portland looking for exactly this. After two years in New Jersey, I think I became nose blind to the community I had around me. Leaving and still having people who miss me shocked my senses, and screamed Julia, you have a community already!

This realization made finding people in Portland so different.

Instead of feeling like I was starting from the ground up, I was instead adding to my already abundant community. This took the pressure off and allowed me to take time on the ones that felt special and strengthen those. 

I think it would’ve been easy to get caught up in making as many friends as possible and trying to make people like me, but instead, I’ve focused on really developing friendships that feel good. By doing this, I’ve spent the last five months putting time and energy into relationships I care about and, in turn, having people do the same for me.

2026 Goals

Reflecting on the second half of 2025 has helped me develop goals and priorities for 2026.

In 2024, I started setting goals for myself of what I wanted to accomplish, how I wanted to feel, and what I wanted to do with my time.

I think being intentional when entering a new year helps us clear our minds and be more aware of what we want for ourselves.

Setting hard goals can be unhelpful, but I find creating tangible goals that can be worked on over months helps me prioritize my time.

So, after setting my intentions for the new year, I know that I want to continue to pursue connections that make me feel good. Whether it be friendships, romantic relationships, or work connections, I want to make those decisions only if they’re going to feel good to me.

So, going into the new year, I implore you to consider your community. Think about your neighbors and your friends and the people who might be worth putting more effort into. And don’t forget to think about yourself too! She matters xoxo