for the past few years i’ve been telling myself “this will be my year” and 2025 was no different. it started with full force, and i truly thought i was ready to face it.

it might not have been my year, but it was certainly eventful and helped me grow as a person.

new beginnings - same old mantra

as the year started i knew i had to keep on with my mantra of “stay whimsy” to make it through; after all, it’s with that lens i’ve been able to keep myself sane. i’ve always seen it as a way to make sure i stay true to myself, no matter the situation that surrounds me.

and that it would somehow bring me happiness - but while that may be the case i also have to recognise that it’s enabled me to keep a bit of a facade up. which also allowed me to feel content even if my situation wasn’t exactly what i had imagined for myself.

the cracks showed

for the first time my loved ones even saw me lose my whimsy due to my inability to keep anything together.

the past few years have been a constant loop of burning out, and being unable to see a real future for myself - an endless crawl i keep starting over. this year was no different.

i started the year unable to focus on work, or my regular life for that matter.

this inevitably led to me finally deciding to seek professional help for my issues. i went through therapy that mostly made me more confused about my life, and what the actual cause of my burnout could possibly be. but it gave me the strength to fight enough to finally find a GP who would take me seriously and give me proper sick leave from my job.

i was truly hoping that with some proper sick leave i would be able to recharge enough to find my whimsy again, though i wasn’t yet ready for how much the next few months would change.

things i couldn’t hold

but it was really just the beginning of what eventually led to me losing my job.

when whimsy stopped working

unable to hold everything together, it finally hit me that my old ways of surviving weren’t enough. losing my job made me question what else i was actually capable of holding onto.

i had been seeing multiple people over the past few years, which had helped me discover a lot about myself. yet this burnout made me question whether i could maintain those connections in a way that was fair to everyone involved.

with that came the slow, sinking realisation: i had to downsize my life in every part in order to maintain my mental health.
it was heartbreaking.

i scaled back most of my relationships to see which ones could really be sustained as i healed, though i stayed in touch with everyone.

i thought it would allow me to put my energy into areas that mattered for my own healing, although in hindsight i may have been pushing people away that could’ve been there for me.

things that were real

even while everything was shrinking, the year wasn’t all doom and gloom; i did also have a lot of fun. i got to experience wales🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 for the first time, making friends and memories that i will always cherish - late nights drinking at the pub, days out exploring nature.

i also spent a week in the wonderful stockholm archipelago with a bunch of lovely players of the fighting game super smash bros. melee.

the quiet after

our routines vanished almost overnight. empty mornings, quiet moments, habits we had quietly built together - all of it gone.

it was only in the silence that followed that i noticed how much space had opened up around me.

seeing it differently

i spent the weeks afterward traveling and seeing friends, revisiting familiar places and discovering new ones.

the heartbreak had given way to newfound confidence, daring me to rediscover old connections and let new ones form in the spaces i hadn’t noticed before.

every trip, every conversation, every moment slowly filled the space left behind - not replacing what was gone, just giving me room to breathe and live again.

learning to stay

i had always told myself i wanted to celebrate my birthday somewhere abroad, and getting to do that while also celebrating the end of 2025 around my favourite people - both old and new friends - was truly wonderful.

i feel like i have the force to move forward and live my life in 2026.

i can see how there’s something truly beautiful in the mundanity of everyday life. we might not always be doing anything extraordinary, but merely existing, experiencing life, and noticing the sunlight on rooftops is a wonder in itself.