2025 was, I’m not going to lie, a hit or miss year. My life had some milestones–my kid graduating from high school and then going to college–but the state of the world being what it was made for a year of constant stress and anxiety. I spent time this summer and fall working through a serious bout of depression and came out of it on the other side feeling a little better about myself. But I fall back into these feelings and the habits that come with them too easily.

What that means is that December was a disaster when it comes to my bad overeating and overspending habits and while I can still mark “progress”, it wasn’t where I wanted to be.

Here’s the totals for this year.

• Physical Comics Read: 165
• Digital Comics Read: 17
• Trades/Graphic Novels Read: 16
• Books Read: 39
• Movies Watched: 18
• TV Seasons Completed: 1
• TV Series Completed: 0
• Podcast Episodes Remaining: 79

What’s interesting about “Books Read” is that I actually read 61 books last year, but 21 of them were via Libby or my public library and were not on my tbr. And I continue to just not watch as many movies or television seasons in my queues.

• Physical Comics to Read: 127
• Digital Comics to Read: 435
• Trades/Graphic Novels to Read: 12
• Books to Read: 99
• Movies to Watch: 200
• TV Shows to Watch: 45
• TV Seasons to Watch: 78
• Podcast Episodes to Listen to: 79

So last year, I set intentions and did my best to keep track of them, but when I went into the relapse phase I stopped doing that and certainly didn’t reflect on it enough. What I came to realize is that I need to make sure I’m actually paying attention to what’s going on. I also need to slow down. It’s a general life strategy because I am the epitome of “When I’m going too fast, I mess up.”

There’s really a lot more to this that involves advice from my therapist and psychologist as well as a ton of journaling, but I’m not going to go too far into that. Instead, I’m going to set the intentions I have for this year.

Intention #1: Do a quarterly purge of my comic book collection. Grabbing nine shortboxes out of my closet (thank God they’re not longboxes anymore) and then going through them can be quite the task. But over the holidays, I did just that and picked out comics that I knew I wasn’t going to read ever again and who weren’t really worth anything. There might be some I offer up to my LCS or sell on eBay (but tbh, I soured on eBay a while back because it’s become such a pain in the ass to sell there) and will put some into the Comic Book Circle of Life. Others, I’m just going to throw out. We’re talking the ones that smell like mildew, the quarter-bin finds that are torn up, and even some recent comics that I know are going to be quarter-bin fodder a few months from now.

Intention #2: Continue to Keep Myself Honest. Yeah, pretty much the same as last year. And while things didn’t turn out the best as I went through the fall and winter, I did stay honest with myself. Because accountability does not always equal progress, although it can definitely lead to that.

Intention #3: Post More Regularly: You probably noticed that I have a number of months where the only post was the monthly update post. And yet there are other months where I have tons of posts, both about what I’ve read and what I’ve been thinking about. I don’t know if setting a schedule will be a good idea since they sometimes fall apart for me, but I’m definitely going to work on being here more regularly.

Despite how 2025 ended, I’m hopeful for 2026. I feel like there’s a lot more in front of me and I can really make it great.