100 things that made my year (2025)

1. Walking.
2. Realising that not everything must be temporary.
3. Starting a year with a writing challenge organised by a writer and a friend of mine. (Thanks again, H.)
4. Midnight walk in a white park. I let the dog run around and frolic in the snow.
5. Reading.
6. Graduating the Sputnik Photos Mentorship programme for photographers. Making it come true after 10 years was an interesting journey into the past, questioning what once had been important and how it aligns with my present (and future).
7. Meeting talented and creative people.
8. The Child.
9. Berlinale. Queer shorts.
10. That day in our living room when we could hear the heartbeat.
11. Making pierogi with friends.
12. Visiting a street festival in Kreuzberg.
13. Watching animals in the countryside.
14. Noticing trees. Taking pictures of them.
15. Making friends with  other queer parents.
16. Playing taboo with in-laws.
17. Grünkohl.
18. Going to Warsaw every month. Discovering her beauty and energy. 
19. Going to Warsaw with my wife, eating the best vegan sushi, and listening to her impressions.
20. The view from the PKiN's rooftop.
21. Swan Lake at the Staatsoper. Even a sick kid who coughed for the first 45 minutes couldn't ruin it.
22. Lady Gaga's new album. Even Taylor Swift's new album.
23. The Eurovision. How it's a tradition in our house to invite people and rate performances on professional scorecards.
24. Watching Alien as a form of preparation for the labour.
25. Making art. Not as often as I would like to but still every little thing makes my brain 7% happier.
26. Witnessing the labour. Nobody will take it away from me that our child was born 5 cm away from my knee.
27. The Child. I know I mentioned them already but a not-born-yet and a born-already made my year in very different ways.
28. Mid-wives.
29. Coming back home from the hospital. The stillness of our space.
30. Watching Women's Euro.
31. Eating pierogi.
32. Learning how to cook more and freeze. Motivation from my mama: the reality is that it takes basically the same time and energy to cook 2 portions or 6 portions. Hint: use a bigger pot!
33. Lesbisch-schwules Stadtfest.
34. Meetups for queer people who want to build a family. Facing and challenging internalised opinions about what a family is or could be.
35. 4 months of Elternzeit.
36. Baby carrier. The heaviness of a sleeping head on my chest.
37. Friends who took care of Smyku when we were awaiting the birth. (Thanks O&T).
38. Exploring my partner's hometown.
39. Travelling with the baby.
40. Seeing my in-laws and parents as grandparents.
41. Showing Kraków to the baby. Seeing the worlds colliding in a delicious way.
42. Attending some baby groups and classes. The infrastructure for new parents is incredible.
43. Asking for help. Still not my strong suit. I often feel embarrassed or too much. But then, getting help feels like lifting a huge burden from my shoulders, a glimps of light, reminder that I mustn't be self-reliant all the time and alone.
44. Audiobooks read by real people. The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar. Wohnverwandtschaften by Isabel Bogdan. Czuła przewodniczka by Natalia de Barbaro. Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata.
45. Libby - the app to access online resources from the local library. Waiting for two months to listen to Stefanie Sargnagel's Iowa. Letting go of some books I couldn't finish when I saw other people already waiting. The experience of not being alone in the reading experience.
46. New beds. Painting the baby bay. Building a bigger bed for us after we realised 140 is too small for our pack. Building another baby bed because the child had out-grown the first one.
47. Occasionally complaining
48. The most laborious lemon cake to make. Three hours in the kitchen. Worth it and will never repeat it.
49. Listening to fewer podcasts because people who know it all are fatiguing.
50. Fixing my 5-year-old phone instead of buying a new one.
51. New glasses bought at a friend's store. Never before had I gotten so many compliments.
52. Friends who gently visited after our kid was born. A friend who brought us two jars of soup, another one with pastries and patient ears, an old friend who brought a healthy juice, the one who helped me to drill holes in a wall.
53. Buying second-hand.
54. A lot of baby-related classes. Birth preparation, breathing, first aid. 
55. Being misgendered a few times
56. Emaus tree.
57. Collages.
58. High-contrast cards drawn by friends.
59. Visits to tle lesbian archive.
60. Eating more veggies. Soups.
61. Matching sets of bedding. 
62. Ikea meals. The fact that the tiramisu is without alcohol.
63. Cutting my hair too short.
64. Voting,
65. Not getting a tattoo of a moth to conquer my fear of them.
66. Visiting cemeteries. Reading names. Wondering about the past lives.
67. Air mattress on a balcony in the summer. Chill evenings.
68. Limiting the sources of parental advice to mid-wives, a book, and a friend.
69. A yellow ballpoint pen from a store with Japanese stationery.
70. Strawberries from strawberry huts.
71. Blocking toxic people.
72. Inventing songs for my child.
73. A group of Polish women. We meet for dinner almost every month, chat about life, big and small things, and it's just lovely. They are lovely. Thank you!
74. Attending a queer writing group.
75. One saved bat.
76. Asking myself a lot of questions. What is the meaning of life? What does it mean to be healthy or sick? How one reaches the alignment between their body and soul? Is it possible?
77. Metamorphosis by Kafka.
78. Good Timing to prevent the Worse Timing
79. Chia pudding.
80. Ranting about AI.
81. Queer romance novels. Discovering Nicola by Clare Ashton (so funny and painful in the right ratio).
82. Rent DVDs from our library.
83. Languages.
84. Women pastors and queer women pastors.
85. Eating persimmons all winter.
86. Kanzelei Liebling Kreuzberg. I watch it for German, predictability and recognising places.
87. Exploring with google maps. Reading petty reviews of bus stops and post offices.
88. Breathing exercises. Especially exhaling.
89. My best friend who encouraged me to complain and vent as a new parent.
90. Strong arms.
91. Serious conversations with my wife after being goofballs.
92. A bit more stability at work.
93. Rearranging bookshelves as a way to discover something new about my partner and myself.
94. Cleaning the kitchen as a ritual to say goodbye to a day.
95. A very warm winter jacket.
96. Wordle, Strands, Connections and Mini. Not Spelling Bee.
97. Calling my parents more regularly.
98. Being more assertive.
99. Practice makes everything.
100. Writing this newsletter. 32 times last year! I just counted, and the number surprised me. My dream would be to write with Austin Kleon's regularity (he writes twice a week) and some zear I will maybe get there but 32/52 is much more than I thought. Thank you for reading my letters. I find this way of internet presence intimate and personal, and I wholeheartedly appreciate all of you, my 78 readers.

Thank you for reading!

Wiktoria

PS. PS. Writing this list (check out the 2022, 2023 and 2024 editions) was first inspired by Austin Kleon who has been my hero for years.