Waiting for the Last Gasp – Adam Overland

As 2026 rolls in, you will never be the you that you were before you left for wherever it was that you went.

2025 was not, overall, a terrible year for me, though I know that it has been for so many. 

One of the benefits of keeping a blog is that you can look back on it (as well as the writings you didn’t make public) and review your life, like a glorified diary (though little glory, at that). If you’re like me, you might otherwise be prone to look on the dark side of things and conveniently forget the rest. But it’s undeniable that this has been a big year. You might even call it, “The Year of the Adam.”

For example, this past fall, after 23 years of living in Minnesota, I finally saw my first Minnesota moose in the wild. That was a memorable moment, if not a slightly magic one. I was also able to see the moose clearly, because 2025 was the year I finally got glasses. I mused here that, for most of my life, I’d had perfect eyesight—better than 20/20, like some kind of superhero. But then, like so many superheroes before me, the kryptonite of time kicked in and I was reduced to a mere mortal, though seeing that moose had me feeling otherwise, if only for a moment.

There were other wins, too: At the beginning of the year, I set out a goal to average 8,000 steps a day (according to my phone, which undercounts steps but at least does so consistently), and I’m at 7,980 with a week to go. As a friend of mine likes to say, “That’s good enough for me, and I’m the best.” 

A lot of those steps were weighted toward the first part of the year when I took my camper west and worked from Big Sur and the central coast of California for two months last winter… a lifetime ago, it seems to me now. Beaches and state parks, newness and wildness—all good for walking, no particular destination in mind. 

And so there I was a beachcomber, a human scavenger among the gulls and other shorebirds, searching for treasures among the stones that washed in and out with the waves. A highlight: In Pismo Beach, I gave a ride to a homeless woman who, before we departed, asked me for my phone number, and whether we might get together again.

Travel, that great surpriser, wonderful energizer, and palette cleanser. You head to some new and unfamiliar (or less familiar) land and your surroundings change, and you think just a bit differently, and act just a bit differently, leaving old habits and routines behind while gaining the opportunity to view them from some fresh distance. You say goodbye to familiar friends for a while and talk more with strangers, new characters drop in and out of your life in new settings, new twists and plots fall into and out of your story, your own narrative changing all the while so that you will never be the you that you were before you left for wherever it was that you went. 

Moving, I’ve said here before, is always riskier than standing still. But the rewards are fuller.

And so also in 2025 I left a role at the University of Minnesota that I’d comfortably sat within for roughly 16 years and took a risk, asked for and got a promotion despite the fear that came with leaving the stability of my old position. With the new job I decided to skip the travel this winter to stay put and hunker down and also to begin a writing project in earnest, no more fooling around. I turned 48, for god’s sake. 

Which got me thinking … If I’m ever going to write a book, I better get going. So I made a plan: write and/or work on a book every day for 365 consecutive days, which I’ve done since Oct. 8, the same day I quit drinking. I still think about throwing myself with abandon into a river of Cabernet, but the writing, it keeps me grounded, keeps me looking forward. A long-term goal is a good thing to have. 

That all began because I turned 48, the many candles on my cake burning bright with irony as the more they become the closer they are to being snuffed out. All that burning had me wondering whether my life hadn’t actually begun yet, only to realize the solution must be to run full speed toward whatever it is that you desire in your life, which might be the same thing that you fear. To run toward whatever will give it meaning, while at the same time beginning to set aside that which has been slowing you down. 

But perhaps the best thing to happen to me this year has been that I’ve somehow fallen in love … with dogs. When I started side hustling with Rover, a kind of dating app for dogs, I did so because I like dogs a lot, but I’ve always liked them best like I like babies: When they shit everywhere, it’s not my problem. 

This year I’ve watched a dozen dogs, some for as long as two weeks, and again and again, I’ve found myself sharing a space with these little furry creatures who all have their own personalities, who look at you with such big eyes and bursting hearts, so eager, it seems to me, to make sure you’re comfortable with them being comfortable near or on you. 

And though you didn’t think you were the type to let them lick your face, or sleep in your bed, there they are, licking your face in your bed, and it’s fine. It’s better than fine. Some have even shit, peed, and puked on your floor, and you cleaned it up and asked if they were ok, apologized for having given out too many snacks. And these dogs—some are even in my phone now. I get holiday cards and texts from their people. I miss Betty, and Bella, and Bernie, and Ollie. 

And so as 2026 rolls in, thanks for you, for everyone in my life. 2025 was my year, and I suspect 2026 might be as well—but it’s big enough that we can share it.