This Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year

And looking towards better things in 2025.

This time last year I was working on some big plans for 2024 and, well, you know what they say about the best laid plans…

The new year was barely 48 hours old when my mom woke up seriously ill one morning, and after a couple of hours of convincing she went to the hospital for treatment. I never would have guessed that this would be the last time that mom would leave our house, or that one month later she would be gone, and I would be on my own.

I had been my mom’s caretaker for the last several years so when she died it’s like I lost my job as well as my mom. By myself, it didn’t make sense to live in a three-bedroom house anymore, which is why I moved to a new apartment in June, so in less than six months I had also lost the home I lived in for 20 years. My sisters each have their own lives and/or own families, and only one of them still lives here in Guelph, so no matter how irrational the thought, I felt abandoned, left behind. It was my worst fear come true.

I needed some stability, and it was in desperately short supply. I spent much of the last year trying to find a job and having to repeatedly downgrade my expectations; the more resumes I sent out the more frustrated I was getting. A lot of very nice people told me how appreciated and valued I was, but I couldn’t hear it because if I had value, why couldn’t I find a job?! Why was I working so hard to get nowhere?!

Looking back now, I think I was having a real moment of crisis in the late summer and early fall. I took an extra week off from Politico work in August and I seriously considered never coming back to it. I must have sat down to write the last Politico post about three different times. I wanted to walk away from all of it, I wanted to walk away from Guelph. I felt used up, fed up and irrevocably broken. I could put on a happy face, but it wouldn’t last. It was only ever just a façade.

Much to my relief, while the last two months have been enormously busy, they have also been the most fulfilling. I stopped feeling like I was in freefall and was able to find focus again. I was also able to find satisfaction in doing in the work of Guelph Politico, and perhaps not a moment too soon because there’s a considerable amount of work to be done.

Speaking of which, let’s talk about what’s next in the Politico business…

First, it’s important to keep in mind that there’s going to be at least one election in 2025, and more likely there’s going to be two. In the case of the one we’re scheduled to have, the federal election, Guelph will be split between two ridings – Guelph and Wellington-Halton Hills North – which means double the workload for Open Sources when the writ is eventually drawn up.

I’m going to refocus on covering the council meetings every week, as well as those local boards and advisory committees of council. And covering those ACOCs is going to change in some important ways after March once the review by the clerks’ office is complete, and the recommendations approved by council.

Likewise, there will be some changes to how I’ll cover those meetings as I take BlueSky for a test drive to see if I can use that platform as an acceptable substitute to Twitter. I still firmly believe that I shouldn’t have to leave Twitter because “Leon” is the one that sucks, but it’s hard to deny that there’s a lot of instability and uncertainty when it comes to the future of that so-called “hell-site”.

It was a good year for the Guelph Politicast! I’m really proud of the slate of episodes we did in 2024 including the “Real Audio News” segments from the field, the detailed examinations of homelessness and the drug poisoning crises, and the two-parter covering the history of the Terry Fox Run in Guelph. For 2025, we will be counting down to the 500th episode, and I’ve thought about revisiting some of the people and organizations that we heard from in the first 100 episodes to see how far they have come along in the last 10 years. Obviously, there’s still a lot about the housing issue to stay on top of, and I’m working on a list of people to reach out to.

In other matters, I would like to be a little more consistent with the Space Invader editions of the newsletter, and I would also like to do some more in the realm of local sports. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been really enjoying the weekly sports segment in the Wednesday newsletter, and while I was stymied in trying to do a monthly Sportscast version of the podcast, it’s still something I would like to try again in the future if I can find some support. I’m also working on a couple of new collaborations that will hopefully expand the reach and voice of the Politico project, and I hope to have some more news about that soon.

Having said all that, I don’t know what the long-term future holds for Guelph Politico. I’m not saying that as a threat, but as a simple fact of my own headspace now. There are other things I’m interested in doing, other opportunities I’m interested in pursuing. I’d like to look at volunteering somewhere, or maybe explore continuing education. There’s some stuff to figure out, but for now, I think I’m reinvested in the Politico project.

Thank you to everyone who’s reached out with a kind word and/or financial support for Politico in this last year; any and all help has been appreciated from a well-timed new Patreon subscription to anyone that’s shared links and posts through their own networks. It’s always affirming to know that this work is appreciated by so many people in the Guelph community, and when everything seems to be going wrong, it’s that appreciation that keeps me going.

2024 has been kind of bummer, but maybe we can put out heads down and get back to work in 2025. Here’s hopin’.

Stay tuned.

Finally, feel free to reach out to me by email at adamadonaldson [at] gmail [dot] com, or find me on Facebook, Twitter, and, of course, GuelphPolitico.ca!