New Year’s Day 2025 came and went, much like the turning of any other calendar page. For most, it was a time of reflection and anticipation—a chance to dream up resolutions, set lofty goals, and marvel at the blank slate of possibility that a new year promises. Friends and strangers alike often speak of fitness plans, career advancements, and personal reinventions. The air buzzed with hope for the future. Yet for me, 2025 marked the end of an era.
On January 1, 2025, a quiet erasure began. The records, milestones, and triumphs of my career, carefully chronicled over decades, passed into obscurity. For years, I had known this day would come. Professional records are, after all, ephemeral. They are kept for so long as they are deemed necessary by systems and administrative governmental policies, then shelved, purged, or lost into oblivion. Still, knowing this inevitability did little to soften the sting of realizing that the proof of my career had all but disappeared.
As the clock struck midnight and the world celebrated the dawn of a new year, I found myself steeped in a bittersweet reverie. My career was more than a list of certifications, or a collection of performance reviews. It was a lifetime of experiences—moments of triumph, and heartbreak, acts of service and resilience, of bravery and loss. I had fought fires, saved lives, and eventually trained others to do the same. My hands bore the scars of the work, and my heart carried the weight of memories that would never find a line in a ledger or a place in an official archive.
The knowledge that the tangible evidence of my work had been swept away after just five years of retirement left me questioning how much of what we do truly endures. Our society places such emphasis on records, accolades, and measurable accomplishments, yet the most meaningful aspects of a career—the human connections, the lessons learned, the quiet impacts—are often intangible. They cannot be cataloged or preserved, but they linger in ways that records cannot. All that’s left are the faces and the names of those I worked with, regarded as family, and lost along the way.
For the past few days, I mourned the loss. Not because I needed the validation of my past—I have long been at peace with the work I’ve done, and the life I’ve led—but because those records felt like a tether to a part of myself that I’ve held so dear. My career is now reduced to bragging rights from another lifetime, or perhaps some forgotten dream. Yet at the same time, I’m constantly questioning whether or not I’m deserving of them. I’m left wondering who I even was back then, and perhaps more importantly, how these experiences have made me the person that I am today. The era of my public safety career suddenly seemed to slip further away, into permanent obscurity perhaps, as though it might have belonged to someone else entirely.
But as I sat with these thoughts, I realized something profound: while the records may have faded, the impact remains. My career lives on in the people I’ve helped, the lives I’ve touched, and the lessons I’ve passed on. The weight of my efforts is carried forward in ways I will never fully see but can take comfort in knowing exist.
So, as the world around me embraced the promises of 2025, I allowed myself to let go. Letting go of the records did not mean letting go of the memories, the growth, or the essence of who I became through that chapter of my life. Instead, it meant stepping into this new year with the same courage and purpose that defined my past, ready to write the next chapter without the need for validation from the archives of yesterday.
I took solace in my own personal journey of letting go—my life is so much more than paper trails, memories and life lessons are felt, lived, and remembered—not just by us but by the world we’ve left our marks upon. The records may vanish, but the legacy endures. Here’s to a new year, and to the stories still yet to be written.
January 3, 2025
