As the year edges toward its natural conclusion, we look back on 2025 with a mixture of dread and joy.
Politically, the 2020s have been marked by despot-spurned wars, upheaval, and a creeping feeling that those in charge may be some of the least competent people for the job. But this blog is not about the real world, politics, the insanity of greed, climate collapse, or the rational fear many of us carry with us into the next year. This blog is your way out — a small escape from it all. Still, here is what I’ve spent my own time contemplating and doing this year:
2025 was the year of the facelift — a year in which even perfectly perfect young people seemed to have one, the matrons of conspicuous consumption certainly had them, and I found myself having a long, hard conversation with myself about how I want to age. Perhaps it had something to do with turning fifty in August; perhaps it was the rising pressure to “look one’s best.” It’s remarkable, frankly, that I’ve never given it much thought before, considering I grew up in 1990s and 2000s London in the age of the supermodels. Maybe it was because they were all that way more or less naturally. Now, everyone can be beautiful, you just have to have the money to pay for it. The whole thing has become boring to me.
So, turning fifty this year, I decided not to buy into the cultural terror of ageing. I’m going to try to embrace it. Which means: no thank you to Botox, fillers, and whatever else is currently on offer — for me. I’m going to age like an old mop and enjoy being ugly and invisible. Because lah-de-dah… Menopause helps with that one too: the indifference it brings to the male gaze also helps.
I’m working on the substance of me instead; being Gen X, I think the factory settings we came with were programmed that way.
That brings me to the true riches of having an inner life, a now useless university education in the arts, and a room of one’s own with a wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling library of books and music. That sanctuary keeps me from turning into a tech-bro or reality-TV entrepreneurial type, and anchors my soul long enough to live out my days without the temptation to flee my body before its time. At least, that’s how I see it. —You wanna keep your soul? —You gotta keep it healthy and fed.
I wonder how that’s going for he who shall not be named but has the initials EM (he owns a car dealership)?
I lost a friend this year. A close one. He was my American twin, my greatest pen pal, someone I chatted to several times a week for eleven years without a bad word coming between us.
We agreed on almost everything, except our respective opinions of A Gentleman in Moscow. We shared passages from our writing, sent each other silly video clips from our daily lives, and talked endlessly about our love of Cary Grant, old movies, books, fashion (yes, I love fashion. Fashion is art), and friends. We planned to go on the new Orient Express together, once even pondered buying and sharing Jackie and Lee Bouvier’s childhood home — and then laughed about it. I miss him so much it hurts. Some friends are irreplaceable; some you imagine yourself growing old with on the Riviera.
So, darling Dutch* — I miss you madly, wherever you are. Life is heavier and more heartbreaking without you. I almost feel like I don’t know what to do now you’re gone.
On a brighter note, it has been a good year for my family. My sister had a baby in autumn 2024 — thankfully, a girl — and we are all obsessed with the little genius. It has been wonderful, too, to see my father transformed into a much gentler, kinder man than he had been before the arrival of his granddaughter. It touches me endlessly to watch him grow.
On my mother’s side, I spent a great deal of time at her house this year, which has been wonderful — giving only the faintest whiff of Little & Big Edie vibes. I’ve had time to write, to walk in the countryside and circle the lake with her and the dog. One doesn’t need much in life, really: friends, family, dogs, and wide open spaces — with the occasional trip to the theatre, cinema, or, say, a live music performance. And food, of course, but that has become so expensive that even what was formerly known as the middle-classes are now starving. —See what my beef is with the greed of the few yet?
And isn’t it funny how the older one gets, the more one tires of toxic relationships? Old friendships that have simply run their course? The weeding out has been cathartic — sad at times, yes, but cathartic — and the time one suddenly has to give to the people one actually love and enjoy the most is priceless.
My plans going into 2025 have all reached fruition. I wrote a novel, though it took longer than I naïvely expected — nine months of gestation. With ADHD, I assumed it would be done in six weeks of hyperfocus, forgetting that a book requires more than a first draft. It requires editing, resting, simmering. The process also included hating it, loathing it, being furious with it, and then — in equal measure — feeling flashes of grandeur, love, and acceptance of the final manuscript for what it is, rather than what someone with a “bigger, better brain” might produce. I am tossing my ego aside on this one, and focusing on the journey there.
Regardless of what becomes of it, writing it has been one of the most valuable experiences of my life. It taught me perseverance, a new level of discipline, and better ways to manage my neurodivergence. It matured me. It clarified things to me I hadn’t settled on before. And it made me, for lack of a better phrase, a better person.
I also shed the weight I’d slowly added over the years (I am talking unhealthy weight, not just “oh, no, I could do with loosing five pounds” weight) — the creeping middle age, the menopause, the eating disorder, the fact that I quit smoking in early 2024. It has been something of a personal miracle.
Altogether, 2025 taught me lessons, gave me tools, and most importantly delivered me acceptance: that simply being here, putting one foot in front of the other, working on your shortcomings, your environment and your small little-person-in-the-world’s mediocre goals — that is enough. For yourself, your loved ones, and the wider world. The rest, as Alexa Chung would say, is a capitalist trope.
Happy Thanksgiving, friends. Thank you for being here!
Birgitte
Here is an excerpt from Great Are the Myths – you can listen to the first few chapters on youtube in a generic voiceover made possible through an app – brave new world, indeed:
*In loving memory of my friend, Matthew Rooney 1973-2025.
My World of Interiors 