I just chalked 2025 for the last time during 2025.
From tomorrow until the day I am done breathing, 2025 becomes a year gone by, a closed chapter. People who knew me in 2025 haven’t met me yet in 2026. That is a strange thought when you sit with it long enough. I am not entirely sure which version of me will show up tomorrow. Just that he will be older than the one standing here at the final Chalkboard for 2025.
I have never been one of those chumps who believes that flipping the calendar hanging on the icebox suddenly rewires your life. That is nonsense. Years don’t announce themselves as the change is coming. They don’t come with programs or banners proclaiming that everything is completely different. They define themselves slowly, quietly, and usually only in the rearview mirror.
While I was living through 2025, I never thought that this is a horseshit year or a fanfuckingtastic year either. Ask me again in 2027 or 2028 if you want a verdict on 2025.
One thing that I just realized about 2025: it was the first year since 1971 that I didn’t go to a White Sox game. That is a hell of a streak to break. 2025 was also the first year since 1984 that I didn't make blueberry pancakes for an overnight guest. The end of those two streaks tells me this year mattered in ways I won’t fully understand until a future acquaintance explains it.
Tonight, when you sing that song and you get to the part about old acquaintances, remember this: before too long, you will be an old acquaintance of yourself. The version of you sitting here right now will quietly slip into memory. Out with the old, in with the new, whether you are ready or not.
I am looking forward to getting acquainted with the 2026 version of me.
It is wild to think the 2016 me is already ten years old. Even stranger that the 1996 me is thirty. I haven’t forgotten any of those old acquaintances. Some were a joy to be around. Others were complete jagoffs, but they all got me here to 2026.
By the end of today, I will meet the 2026 me face-to-face. I have faith that bastard is gregarious and grateful. If I am lucky, he is someone that I can fall completely in love with again. Someone who knows how to handle the ebbs and flows that are coming. Because they sure as fuck are coming.
Auld lang syne, Chalkheads.
Don’t forget to toast that old acquaintance. Because it is you....
