My Autistic Perspective on A.D. 2025
Raising a Baileys Coffee to the New Year!
"Happy New Year! Happy New Year! May we all have a vision, now and then, of a world where every neighbour is a friend." - ABBA, Happy New Year, 1980
The New Year is always a good time to reflect on one's accomplishments over the previous year while setting (or resetting) goals for the current one. While I published one of these reflective posts on A.D. 2023, I was unable to do one on A.D. 2024 due to a particularly nasty virus coupled with an equally nasty lower back injury. Thankfully, the only pain I'm coping with at the moment is a literal "pain in the neck" due to a recent neck injury, though I'm currently wearing a neck brace, so I should be comfortable enough to type one out on A.D. 2025. As they say, "On with the show!"
While 2023 was a year in which I made plenty of progress and 2024 was a year in which I made much less, 2025 was something of a hybrid year in terms of reaching my goals. The aforementioned virus and lower back injury lasted well into the first quarter of 2025, preventing me from reaching my weight loss and exercise goals I hoped to achieve by summer. Likewise, a second particularly nasty virus I contracted on a flight home from British Columbia in the spring required another long recovery period from the second to third quarter of the year, thus derailing my plans to enroll in summer highway driving lessons, which is the final challenge towards earning my full driver's licence.
Despite such setbacks, I managed to push myself into social settings and situations I'd normally avoid due to my autism-related social anxieties; I began attending a new social group for adults aged 21+ with special needs, where I rediscovered and rekindled my love and passion for drawing and painting, leading me to work on my Public Domain Doodles and The Joy of Drawing pages (I even sold a couple of real world paintings, which was so cool). I reunited with another special needs social group I'd lost touch with, joining them for "moonlit chair yoga". Oh, and I attended my younger cousin's wedding in British Columbia as well, where my parents and I also found time to meet up with some old friends who moved to the West Coast long ago. We subsequently received visits from some of our other family and friends, which was very nice.
While I didn't achieve the beach bod or full driver's licence I'd wanted to have in 2025, I found an awesome new support worker who helped me enroll in a workshop to earn my forklift certification, which I'm proud to have accomplished. My support worker is also dedicated to helping me reach some of my other goals, such as my missed weight loss and fitness ones, so, to quote former Nintendo of America president, Reggie Fils-Aimé, "My body is ready!"
Oh, and another interesting thing happened in 2025; I rediscovered my joy of travelling within Canada and supporting domestic businesses alongside my fellow Canadians. Canada is a huge, beautiful country, with so much to offer.
Lastly, I continued updating my website and would like to further hone my coding skills so I can spruce it up with a few bells and whistles. I've also enjoyed discovering and following some cool new websites on Neocities and am so grateful to all those who've discovered and followed mine. Working on my autism-themed website, A Blue in a Sea of Reds, has definitely been a fun and therapeutic labour of love for me. So, in closing, I'd like to express my utmost gratitude to my family, friends, and followers for all your support and wish you a very happy, safe, healthy, and prosperous 2026. May all your goals be met. Cheers!
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Posted in "Autistic Perspectives" on Friday, January 2, 2026.