2025 Can Suck It

The BBQ Pit
1

On top of gestures wildly at everything, this year has kinda blown for me.

I developed dry eyes. I’m in pain about 80% of the day, and my eyes have a reading and screen time limit of about 9 hours a day. I work from home, so I spend my entire day looking at screens. I love to read, but it’s incredibly painful to do it- I’ve only read two books this year, as a result.

Our dog, Roxy, went in for dental surgery. She became progressively paralyzed, and we had to have her put to sleep less than a week later.

My wife lost her job about four months ago. Despite her 30 years of experience as an accountant/bookkeeper, she’s had no luck finding anything else. She’s had a few nibbles, but they always seem to “go another way”. Unfortunately, we’re here in Canada on her closed work permit, which expires next November. If she doesn’t get a job and renew her work permit, we’ll have to move back to the US.

Which brings us to the topic of staying in Canada. We applied for Permanent Resident status back in March. At that time, the wait time for processing was about 8 months. Sometime since then, the estimate has increased to 22 months. We have no idea where we are in the process.

And then this morning. My son called me up from Austin, where he lives. He led with, “First of all, I’m okay…” He apparently had a heart attack last night, at age 38. He doesn’t have insurance, or a steady job- he’s been living off of his mother. He had stents put in, and now he’s going to be going onto roughly the same pill regimen I’ve been using this year. I can’t even realistically get down to Texas to see him.

So yeah, I’m so incredibly ready for this year to be over. It’s been the longest decade of my life.

Feel free to include your own rants about this fuckin’ year.

2

I’m very sorry.

2025 hasn’t been my worst year.

3

I wish I could say 2026 looks like it’ll be a better year, but I don’t see any signs that things will improve. With a delusional US president anxious to start a war with Venezuela, and the cost of everything getting higher each day, I’m seriously thinking about heading off to some other country where people actually trust their government. Unfortunately, it would cost every cent I had to leave the US and settle somewhere else, so I’m stuck here for at least another year.

4

Lost my job, lost nearly all savings, two car collisions. I did get a new job so I have that good at least.

5

I work for a large defense company, and in February my contract ended abruptly due to some really bad timing and an Executive Order. Very luckily, (a) I was never laid off, because I was able to pivot to short-term proposal support, and (b) I found a new (and better) job within my company that started four weeks after the previous one ended. Still, that was a pretty crappy and tense month.

In August, my uncle died. He was 88 and had been declining after a decades-long battle with prostate cancer, but the end was a bit sudden.

In September, my dog died. She was 17, and I’d had her since she was 3 months old. She’d been having “old dog” degenerative arthritis and muscle weakness issues, and in August she didn’t rebound from a bout of GI distress and starting rapidly losing weight. Testing – while I was out of town at my uncle’s funeral – revealed that one kidney had shut down and that she had inflammatory bowel syndrome. She didn’t like the prescription food and was clearly becoming increasingly uncomfortable, so I made the impossible decision to let her go. I’m still grieving pretty actively.

Last month, an extended vacation/trip to NJ was cut short when I hit a massive hole on I-78 on the way north: the result was a shredded tire and a stressful and unexpected overnight stay in Allentown, PA, followed by the other 3 tires also being replaced before I drove home. I still got to spend some time with family (including my widowed aunt), which was great, but I spent much more time dealing with the car. Not much of a break at all.

Yeah…2025 can bite me.

6

We started kindergarten this year. We had very high hopes. They are in the basement now.

My substantial support needs autistic boy appears to have severe ADHD, the school is failing him, I don’t know what they should be doing instead. Rather than acknowledge that they misjudged the extent of his disability they are super tempted right now to slap him with a “bad kid” label and blame the parents and it all fucking sucks. I’m not a praying person but it’s sorely tempting because I have no idea what to do.

Don’t even get me started on the dumpster fire at work thanks to Donald fucking Trump. It’s a wonderful year to be a nonprofit. We’re half a million in the hole and it’s 25% my job to fix it (Or 50%, depending how you do the math. We’re 50% grant funded.) It’s so much pressure.

We’ve had some great things happen but I’d trade them all for my boy to be successful and happy in school.

7

I am so sorry about the struggles regarding your child. My wife substitute teaches regularly in an elementary school (includes some pre-schoolers). The school is in a crisis because the range of special needs (for several children, severe ADHD is an – or the – issue) is overwhelming, try as they may to distribute the work load among the special needs specialists, the regular teachers, and the teacher’s assistants, the principal, the subs, and the others (librarian, etc.).

According to Mrs. Map, the (or a) core problem is a set of parents who don’t take their child’s particular issues seriously – some are single parents, others both parents work full time, others they’re simply in denial (understandable), or actively contributing to the problem (are abusive, drug addicted, etc.).

You are in the opposite situation: you ARE the caring, involved, realistic parent – it’s the SCHOOL that isn’t acknowledging the reality.

Again, I am so, so sorry for the anguish you are enduring. The last sentence of your post is heartbreaking.

8

Thank you. We’re supposed to have a meeting in January and I’m hoping they have a better plan for him because he’s clearly in crisis, and so is the teacher. I think she’s reached her breaking point. Meanwhile we’re trying to show that we are those parents that take this all very seriously. But she has shut down all conversation about this until January 17th.

We have a meeting with a psychologist Monday for an ADHD eval and results session. I’m really hoping they can help.

We are working on some things at home that might help, but one of my primary motivators for that is just to make things run a little more smoothly at home. Things aren’t perfect at home, and sometimes frustrating, but it’s nowhere near to the extreme of what’s happening at school. But I figure if we can start improving some of the home issues it will carry over to school, especially if I can then tell them “this is what works.”

But what I don’t want is for the negativity in school to affect the closeness and love we feel at home. Despite the challenges I think our interactions with our son are overwhelmingly positive. I just want to protect that.

9

:people_hugging: (extra characters for Discourse)

10

Not my worst year.
There have been many years too difficult to even think about.
But not a great one.

Probably the worst is yet to come.

11

After a few health scares ( all okay) I wonder why I hadn’t heard from my guy ( we had been on and off since 2021) I call the nursing home and find he died( in Sept. I found out few weeks after).
That was horrible.

12

I’m so sorry, @Lightnin! I’m going to take the view that 2026 is going to be much better! :heartbeat:

13

That is horrible. Hugs to you.

14

I don’t even want to list everything but yeah, 2025 can suck it.

A lot of things have been going on with family and loved ones, and none of it is anything I can control or influence which just leaves me in a bit of a panic state, waiting for the next problem to arrive.

I’m also struggling with my job which on paper is a dream job but …Ugh the inefficiency and inertia and just shitty culture makes me want to quit on a regular basis. I want to do this work, but the way we do it is just awful.

There’s no real reason to think 2026 will be any different, other than just the mental framing of turning the page and starting fresh. I do hope it goes better for everyone.

15

It was a year that sucked. There were a whole lot of people with absolutely zero reason to give both me and mine a hard time that did… again for no reason.

Best Guess: it was to try to make them feel better about their miserable selves.

But that was 2025…

16

That didn’t take long. A few hours after this post I got news of a family member having a health issue, general malaise. It’s most likely due to side effects from medication but it’s worrisome nonetheless. Waiting game right now.

On the other hand I just had dinner with an old friend who I love dearly and it was wonderful to spend time with them and their spouse, but life has us living far away from each other and I don’t know when I’ll see them next (hopefully this summer). I’m torn between being really happy and really heartbroken. I love this person so much and wish they were in my life more.

Just Big Feelings right now.

17

See my recent posts in the current mini-rants thread for a listing of the health issues I’ve been having the past few months. I think I can honestly say that 2025 is the worst year I’ve ever had, with the possible exception of 2005, when my wife’s Parkinsons turned to dementia.

18

In 2025s defense, most of the problems with it are due to Trump being elected in 2024. So 2024 can suck it too.