2025 recap

what a year it's been

How is it January 7th already? That leaves, what, five more days in January?

January is over.

Which means it's...“February”?

Look, I love February, but it's not a real month.

I don't mind it being short.

Hell, I'm a card carrying member of the short king org (skorg) myself, but February is exhausting.

Every four years, right when you think that little scallywag has figured its shit out, February jumps out and goes, "omg wanna know how weird I am? I've got an extra day now lol."

February is over.

That means it's already March, a month that's clearly hired one too many PR branding agencies demanding it be viewed with the same gravitas as other holiday-focused months. Like dude, pick a lane - Mardis Gras? Ash Wednesday? International Women's Day (what about celebrating women domestically?), Ides (the hell is an Ides) of March, AND St. Patrick's Day?

March is over.

So it's basically already April, a month spent cosmically unpacking the deceits played upon each of us on the first of the month.

"Haha good one" we say, being fooled, like it's all a god damn riot. But internally we suffer
in grief and decay
until May.

And we all know May is but foreplay for June.

While June, bless its heart, struggles to love up to the hype May creates for it.

It’s a classic DJ Khaled situation.

Khaled (May) is supposed to come out and get people excited for the actual rappers but then all anyone talks about is DJ Khaled (are we the best? or are you the best?)

July overcorrects, thinking it can save the back half of the year and maybe get promoted to January, but July goes way too hard.

Fireworks? The stuff that sounds like bombs and terrifies literal puppies? Big February energy tbh.

August is a good month except August lasts a week, and given how fast the first week of this year went, that Augweek will be over before we know it so yeah, it's already September.

Heavy is the burden of September with it’s ‘back to school’ shit and ‘time for fall’ nonsense, like come on September look around.

Global warming pushed fall back an entire quarter, and school is a psyop meant to indoctrinate kids into cosplaying as neutered rebels or rule-followers inside a system that churns along regardless.

I know, it’s a lot! Which is why, yea, September is over.

That brings us to the big three. The closers. The headliners.

October!
November!!
December!!!

Except it’s one of those festivals with artists way past their primes.

Oh cool, here's October performing “Halloween”, yet again. A great song - spooky etc - but we've seen it. Isn’t it time for a third option - “trick or treat or…tickle (consensual)”?

November comes on doing a regressive Thanksgiving thing which the crowd eats up (!) whilst acknowledging how fucked up it is (see: September).

So yea, October and November are over which means it’s December.

December, a month that eschews (godblessyou) the real calendar for the ‘advent’ one, a countdown to christmas which uses the joy of gifts to mask the stress of another year done.

But things don’t end there.

Injury, meet insult: christmas is followed by the most try-hard holiday of them all, new years eve. "We're so crazy we're gonna drop a ball" what are you, a 12 yr old boy get real.

The last three months of the year last for half a second each which means, yes, my friend, it's January 2026.

We'll spend the next week making big plans for how this year will be different only to be clobbered with the realization that it's somehow January 7th, which leaves what, five more days in January?

January is over.

Which means it's...“February”?

Look, I love February, but it's not a real month… (repeat, two-mirrors-staring-at-each-other style until it all goes kaplow).

and/or…

It's easy to write about the passage of time. “It goes by too fast,” parents always tell me.

"I know it" I reply, but in my head try to figure out a way that they are wrong and that time is actually moving reasonably slowly, in fact, and they’re just missing it, too busy STUCK IN THEIR PHONES to notice the beauty of that tree (maple) or that baby's laugh (gurgle).

I'm wrong though. Time does move fast, especially when I complain about it.

The good stuff of life, though, exists outside of time. Like last night when we had a dance party in the kitchen and Wilder screamed, "STOP."

We stopped.

"I know what will make this better," he said, running into the living room.

A pause, then: "STUFFIES."

He bounds back in holding Teddy his frog and a doll for EmmaJunie (a nickname he first gave her) and a few other stuffed animals for each of us to hold. The dance party continues unabated until, "STOP!"

More stuffies are brought in to ensure everyone has two except Lauren has one cuz she's holding a real life stuffie named EmmaJunie.

The party continues for...I don't know, fifteen seconds tops?

But that's not really true.

It lasted forever.

Except even that feels false.

It existed outside of time.

It was infinite.

Cosmic.

In that place outside of time where, just for a second (language is grossly inadequate here), we can forget about ourselves and live fully in the overwhelming feeling of - and I am as sickened by this as you - love.

And then it's gone.

No, it’s still there.

Our experience of it, that’s what ends.

Because it's always there, no matter the month.

It's here right now.

Maybe you felt it a second ago reading about my little dance party, or when you looked deep into the eyes of that person who makes you feel like you can exist just as you are, fuck ups and all, that person who looks at you and says, "not only are your fuck ups okay here, they are preferred. Bring em all, we've got space here in this costco for fuck ups. we've even got fuck up samples over there" and they point to a station where you can walk toward one another and end up walking in the same direction and saying sorry and both correcting the other way for infinity (see first half of this essay).

If there's a heaven, it's a land of fuck ups and make believe outside of time.

And maybe every so often we get little glimpses of it. Maybe.

Or, maybe there's no one with whom you find such relief.

Whether alone or surrounded by others, the loneliness of life is real.

I feel it all the time.

Or, I avoid feeling it by getting real snarky smart and writing things about how the year is over, how nothing matters, how it's all bullshit.

And in those moments, it is.

But that's because they are moments.

In time.

There is the other thing too - the good stuff you find in books and music and movies, films even, and art and love and hugs, shared recognition of weird little guys or shitty situations, the feeling of really being heard without saying a word.

They are everywhere because they are everything, outside not just time but space too. Trippy, sure, but life’s a trip and then you fly.

I’ve got good news and bad news:

The bad news
is that life moves way too fast.
There’s not enough time.
The good news is
time isn’t real.

Might as well get out there
and have the time of your life.

---

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Turns out, I didn’t figure out jack. Or jill.

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Comment

1. How the fuck are you all?

2. Is time real?

4. What are you thinking for 2025? Predictions? Goals? Mottos?

6. Being less connected has reminded me of the stuff that most matters for BAT - the readers. Y’all rule, and I’m hoping to spend less time worrying about the numbers and more time engaging with you actual BATheads. This isn’t a question, or is it?