Willow Pigeon

2025 Reflections

Mossy forest floor with a recently fallen tree, surrounded by evergreens at Lighthouse Park in West Vancouver on an overcast day in March 2025.

2025 was a year I identified patterns that no longer serve me and embodied that I could stop surviving and choose to start living. I worked relentlessly to put down what was never mine to carry and instead put intention towards learning what I want. It was far from graceful but at least on my own terms.

26,000 Kilometers

  • Got my Class 7N driver’s license, bought my first car, and drove 26,000 km around southern BC. Road trips, random lakes, learning the roads like the back of my hand.

  • Reclaimed visiting cities and towns I grew up in. Going back on my own terms.

  • Buying clothes and equipment I want and keeping them. Breaking the pattern of feeling obligated to sell them if I don’t use them “enough.”

  • Gleam is turning 3 at the end of December. Celebrating her growth alongside my own, working on her reactivity from prior attacks, building her confidence. She’s healing too.

  • Replaced my Nissan Kick’s cabin air filter for $16 instead of $150 at a service centre, despite my mobility limitations getting under the dash.

  • 455 days in my current home; the longest in years. Building a home, not just “a place to stay,” believing it is not something I’ll catastrophically lose.

What Was Owed

  • Worked through the Montreal backlog: my condo sold finalizing the foreclosure, resolved a Quebec rental dispute, and finished loose ends for my dissolved corporations.

  • Consolidated fragmented credit bureau files with Equifax and TransUnion through a combined 22 formal disputes.

  • Reorganized remaining debt, identified additional fraud, and worked with third parties to write off accounts that were obfuscated from me.

  • Built a comprehensive financial tracking system: iterating on a spending framework that works with my brain/accessibility needs.

  • Completed my last consumer proposal payment. Awaiting the certificate of performance in the new year.

  • Paid ~$54K in 2025 and ~$83K total across 2024-2025 towards debt left in my name.

The Work

  • Identified agency as the central organizing principle of my recovery work.

  • Built a personal crisis toolkit: regulated tools, intentional friction, safety planning, decision frameworks. Systems that work with my brain instead of against it.

  • Faced estranged family members after 11+ years. Not for reconnection, but for my own closure. Grieving a relationship that will never come back. Starting to put down the weight carried for that time.

  • Found my footing at Wealthsimple. Identifying my strengths, leaning into them, growing into the role while staying true to how I work best. Approaching 2 years in April, the longest I’ve worked anywhere.

  • Living as Willow Finch. The first name I’ve fully independently chosen, returning to Willow after almost a decade.

  • Advocating for myself in ways that were not safe in the past: with healthcare providers, at work, in relationships.

For Its Own Sake

  • First practical sewing project completed: repaired a hole in a sweater using my Singer 411G.

  • Buying many books I want to read but haven’t gotten to yet (using my professional development budget from Wealthsimple).

  • Invested in technical growth: sharpening Rust and Go skills, using LLMs as a disciplined force multiplier in daily work and side projects.

  • Discovered certification as a hobby. Earned: Class 7N (car license), fishing license. Exploring: Watercraft, Class 1 (semi-truck), Class 6 (motorcycle), PAL, and amateur radio operator. 

Back in My Body

  • Connected with a supportive primary care clinician. Referrals to chronic pain clinic and neurology in progress.

  • Overcame hospitalization due to respiratory complications due to a Covid infection. Survived, recovered, kept going.

  • Rebuilding my relationship with medication. Able to take pills again, more consistent with my prescribed routine.

  • Rebuilt functional strength through a gym routine, learning that rest is part of the process. From “couldn’t carry a coffee cup” to hitting PRs: chest press up to 35lbs, low row up to 45lbs.

  • Taking steps toward what I want: consistent laser sessions every 1.5 months, starting the long waitlist process for GRS.

  • Started the process of getting a wheelchair as a mobility aid. Breaking the pattern of reinjury with structural support that can do the work on bad days and augment my capacity on good days.

Integration

  • Consolidated all cloud storage platforms into Backblaze. Single source of truth instead of scattered across services.

  • Relaunched my blog. Public presence rebuilt on my own terms, folding in fragments from across the years, multiple names and aliases.

  • Built a system to reorganize my 8TB of files: identifying duplicates, tracking revisions to contextualize documents across years of accumulated data.

Intentions for 2026

  • Getting my wheelchair. Gaining access to the chronic pain clinic and neurologist. Structural support to break the cycle of reinjury.

  • Moving through the Montreal era. Consumer proposal discharged, remaining debt cleared. Legally becoming Willow Finch.

  • Visiting Berlin. An extended working holiday in a place I once felt seen, safe, and had agency. Returning to feel it again, not just remember it.

  • Getting a manual car. GR Corolla is the goal, with room for a Civic Si, GR 86, or WRX as the bridge. Reclaiming what was gatekept and denied. Not just a preference, but agency and engagement. Perfecting heel-toe downshifts. Something embodied. Something mine.

♥︎