2025 Recap: A Quieter Year, A Year That Changed Everything
Ending one chapter, beginning another, for now
I haven’t written here in a long time. Not because nothing was happening, but because so much was. This year asked a lot of us, and it took time to understand what it was really about.
At its heart, 2025 became the year we left South Africa. Not because we stopped loving it, but loving it did not make the decision any easier.
Loving a Life We Built Slowly
We built a life in Marloth Park that felt deeply ours. A life where our days were shaped by immersion in nature rather than an escape into it. Days unfolded to the rhythm of animals moving through the yard. Evenings softened into sundowners on the patio with friends, watching the light fade and listening as the bush slowly changed shifts. Birdsong into frog choruses.
There was an ease to it. Simple dinners. Long conversations. Weekly trivia. Coffee dates. Craft days. Early nights or drives into Kruger when the mood struck. Watching elephants cross the road just ahead of us, or stopping the car to sit quietly while a leopard melted back into the brush. It was not extraordinary every day, and that was part of the magic. The rhythm of living with nature made even the ordinary days feel complete.
Living there full-time, though, is very different from visiting.
Marloth is a holiday town, and that reality shapes everything. Neighbors change constantly. Energy swells and crashes with the holiday/tourist calendar. At peak times, the quiet disappears. Roads fill. Parties spill late into the night with their ‘doef doef’ music. The stillness that drew us there becomes harder to find and even harder to protect.
There is also the reality of living inside an ecosystem under strain. Wildlife management has been deeply controversial for years, and legal challenges had effectively halted culling for several years. Inside a fenced environment, animal populations continued to grow beyond what the land could support.
We saw that imbalance daily. Herds of impala lingering in our yard for days at a time. One particular impala running toward the yard when he heard my voice, grunting/calling in a way that felt almost impossible for such a famously skittish animal. Native grasses ripped out by the roots. Warthogs breaking through gates out of hunger. Heartbreaking.
And still, there was wonder everywhere.
Mongooses and monkeys chasing each other like children playing a game with no rules. A baby bushbuck bounding after them, only to be chased back by the monkeys. Bush babies launching themselves across impossible distances at night, pausing to scan carefully for snakes below and owls above. Nights filled with the sound of hyenas, lions calling from Kruger, hippos arguing loudly over shrinking stretches of the river, frogs singing so loudly we couldn’t hear ourselves talk.
It was beautiful. It was complicated. It was real.
And I miss it more than I can properly explain.
The First Pull Toward Change
Early in the year, we traveled to Réunion and Mauritius, slowing down in places shaped by isolation and evolution. When we returned to Marloth, we settled into what felt like a quieter rhythm. Fewer visitors. Fewer plans. More time just being where we were. A much-needed break from travel and entertaining friends and family in South Africa.
In late spring, we spent time back in the States. We saw family, hiked familiar trails, and without intending to, started talking about something we had set aside years earlier. What would it look like to have a home again in the U.S.? What would it mean to be a little closer?
Colorado kept tugging at us. Persistently.
There was no rush. We cleared out a long-neglected storage unit and, eventually, after a few false starts, found a place in north Boulder that felt right. Light-filled. Mountain-views. Close to trails and transit.
A second home, we thought. A way to split time between two worlds we loved.
When Plans Stop Being Hypothetical
My mother was scheduled to visit us in September. As her health concerns grew, we shifted plans and met instead in Boulder. What followed was a rare, perfect September. Warm sunshine. Gentle days. A softness that felt like a gift.
But during that visit, we noticed a change in her that we couldn’t ignore.
My mom has lived with leukemia for years and had been on an oral chemotherapy drug for the last few years. She had been managing reasonably well, but her fatigue had deepened, and she was experiencing pain. Seeing her in person made the truth unavoidable.
Jim and I had the conversation we had been hoping to delay. What is the right thing to do right now?
We have always believed that decisions are for now, and people are allowed to change their minds. I knew I would never regret choosing to be closer to my mom.
We made a quiet plan. Selling a home in South Africa takes time. The process is slower, mortgages are harder to secure, and municipal requirements add layers of waiting that sit outside anyone’s control. We planned to return to the U.S. in December, list the house, and transition gradually, over many months splitting our time between the two homes. With plenty of time to say goodbye properly, to our friends, to our house, and to the wildlife. Time to loosen our roots rather than tear them out.
We truly believed we had time.
When Everything Accelerates
We didn’t.
Less than two weeks later, my mom had a scan that revealed a large, aggressive mass. Everything shifted.
She called on Friday, and by Monday night, we had sold our car, signed power of attorney to allow a friend in South Africa to sell our house, and were driving five hours to the Johannesburg airport. Over one weekend, we packed what we could into three suitcases each. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law, who had arrived just days earlier for what they thought was a two-week visit, carried extra bags and quietly held us together.
Leaving Marloth was devastating. We weren’t just leaving a place. We were leaving a life. A rhythm that had shaped us. Dear friends who opened their arms and welcomed us into their corner of the world. That loss still feels sharp, raw.
Where We Are Now
Right now, we are in motion. I am splitting my time between Boulder and my mom’s. Jim is holding down our place in Boulder. We are doing what makes sense for this moment, even when it feels ungrounded.
Have you ever tried to furnish and stock a house from scratch? Thank goodness for Amazon!
My mom’s treatment is working. That is the good news. There is relief in that, and gratitude, and still a lot of waiting.
Leaving South Africa was not a clean break, and it does not feel resolved. It feels like grief layered on top of love. It feels like choosing one responsibility and love while aching for another life we treasured. It feels unfinished.
That life mattered. It still does. The magic was real. The immersion, the ease, the way nature wrapped itself around our days. I carry it with me, and I miss it deeply.
This chapter is ending. Another is beginning.
For now.