2025

It’s 2025. Wow. Last year, I wrote that I wanted 2024 to be a year of self-exploration. I wanted to understand myself better, put myself in tough situations, and learn how to adapt. I’ve done that and so much more this past year.

2024 has been one of the wildest years of my life so far. So much happened. I travelled, concluded my first job, started my PhD, realised I was in love, moved to a new city, began to build a new life here, made new friends, started bouldering, committed to therapy to understand myself better and improve myself, furnished my own home by myself for the first time ever, entered a whole new stage of my life, worked harder to mentor my brother, and felt what it’s like to wear my heart on my sleeve.

It has been truly humbling, gruelling, satisfying, and fulfilling to have lived this year. I am so lucky in so many ways. I can’t believe I got lucky enough to have my own apartment, I can’t believe I got lucky enough to learn that I can feel a love that consumes more than my whole heart, I can’t believe I got lucky enough to watch my brother grow into a fucking powerhouse, I can’t believe I get to watch him and support him while he achieved everything he wants, I can’t believe I got lucky enough to challenge myself through bouldering, I can’t believe I got lucky enough to find a therapist I actually click with, I can’t believe I got lucky enough to make so many new friends in such a short period of time. I simply can’t believe how lucky I’ve been this year.

I feel an immense amount of gratitude for everything I have experienced this year. The good, the bad, the neutral, the painful. All of it adds up to create the me I am at the end of this year. I am so lucky to have the privilege of experiencing my life in this way, sharing it with the people I love, and paving my own way. I am just so, so lucky.

As I look forward to 2025, I want to take my gratitude, my pain, my love, and my discoveries with me. I want to continue exploring, learning, and discovering. I want my heart to feel full. I want to go through challenges and difficulties and deal with them differently. I want to grow out of old ideas and thoughts, I want to expand the way I look at the world. I want to put the work in, no matter how scary, painful, or difficult it may seem. I want to show up for the people I love and build better boundaries so that I can communicate when I need them to show up for me. I want to change old habits and set into place new ones. Hell, I want to love, have sex, have fun. I want to boulder, go to the gym, and maybe even go for runs! I want to write, read, and listen. I want to learn, code, and do math. I want it all. I just want to fucking live this year.

I am so, SO excited. Life always throws me curve balls and the years are never what I expect them to be. But that’s what I love about living—I get to experience this incredible, extraordinary existence and traverse my way through it. I get to laugh, cry, smile, and frown. I get to dance, jump, and run. I get to squeal in ecstatic glee and kneel in debilitating anxiety. I get to see my friends and family change, grow, and shift. They get to see me change, grow, and shift. I get to do and experience all of these incredible things only because I’m alive. And what a fucking privilege it is to live. What a fucking privilege. I love it, I truly love it.

To my friends and family, I miss you every day. But you’re here, you’re always here. I can’t wait to see what you do this year. I’m always watching, even if I can’t be there. I’m always cheering you on. I wish I could convey in words all the overwhelming love and joy for you that overflows my heart.

2025, here we go.

1 January, 2025