I entered 2025 carrying more than
I admitted. Stress I had normalized. Pain I had minimized. Stories about myself
that no longer fit—but hadn’t yet been set down.
This was not the year everything
changed. This was the year I changed how I listened. I learned that my
body was not betraying me; it was telling the truth long before my mouth could.
I stopped asking What is wrong
with me? and began asking What do I need to stay whole? I did not
escape the systems that exhaust me, but I built buffers, boundaries, and
language. I practiced choosing enough over everything. I honored
my creativity not as output, but as remembrance— through essays,
vignettes, journaling-as-ritual, and the slow, cosmic redrawing of my life’s
Etch-a-Sketch.
I reclaimed nourishment: food as
care, rest as necessary, ritual as grounding. I marked time not just by tasks
completed, but by what I built with my hands and what I consecrated with
intention. I allowed myself to be seen. I let support land. I practiced
softness without surrendering myself.
2025 taught me this:
I do not need to burn down my life
to save myself.
I need to stop burning myself to sustain it.
I leave this year more tired—
and more honest, more rooted, more mine.
I survived. I softened. I
stayed.
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