When
I look up and realize it’s almost 2026, something inside me goes quiet. Time
has moved so quickly and yet so gently, the same way waves pull back without
you noticing, leaving the shore a little different each time. Seven years have
passed since 2019, seven years of learning myself, losing myself, and
finding pieces again in places I never expected. I am not who I was back
then. My dreams have changed, my edges have softened, and the things that once
broke me now feel like old stories I can look at without trembling.
I
think of all the nights I cried into the pillow so no one would hear, and all
the mornings I still got up pretending nothing hurt. I think of the people who
walked away without looking back, and the unexpected souls who walked in when I
wasn’t even searching. This year along taught me more about patience than the
last three combined, patience with my heart, with my healing, with my messy
becoming. I learned that not every plan survives reality, and not every
love deserves to stay. I learned to let go of stories that ended, and to hold
on tightly to moments that made me feel alive; long drives at 2 AM,
late-night talks that stitched me back together.
And
somewhere along the way, without ceremony, I grew. Not louder, not harder, just
wiser. I learned to stop chasing what would not choose me. I learned to sit
with my loneliness until it stopped feeling like punishment. I learned that healing
isn’t a sudden sunrise, but a slow softening, the kind that only shows itself
when I look back and realize I’m no longer the same broken thing. So as the New
Year approaches, I carry this gentle truth with me; I am no longer
surviving my life, I am living it. Quietly, tenderly, bravely. And for the first
time in a long time, it feels like I am finally becoming someone I can love.