in 2025, i learned how to be brave
if i had bearblog sooner, in 2024, i'd probably have written something similar to this. the run from 2019 to 2025 has, so far, been a transformative epoch--particularly, 2023 to 2025 has been a trip. in reflection, 2025 feels similar to 2024 for me. i've had many happenings that were significant in how i relate to myself and the world. i experienced loss, grief, heartbreak, endings. i also experienced beginnings. and so it goes.
a lot happened, and a lot was back to back. i frankly didn't have the time to process until i graduated college at the cusp of summer 2023. full-time job and student status. the summer gave me free time i hadn't had in... honestly? a while. i had time to process all that had accumulated.
covid lockdown had an affect on my relationship to time that snowballed into 2024, and again in 2025. an arrested development, if you will. 2023 asked for me to pause, and 2024 posed the question, "will you speak up or will you keep letting others speak for you?" and 2025, i was not asked, but insisted on remembering that i have a voice.
it's not quite apparent over posts, as well as the sheer volume of posts thus far, but i used to keep a lot in. i didn't speak much. and this is ironic, considering i got a degree in communications. still, it all felt like time was passing me by, and i wasn't fast enough to keep up. i've been on autopilot, this mode of operation further situated in my day-to-day after two family members passed away six months apart in 2022.
i started 2023 barely coming out of a funerary fog, and ended with much-needed rest and a lust for life. i started 2024 in new territories, and ended with a new job, a new home, and a renewed romance. i made a set of choices in these years that were controversial, and at times questionable; i felt more grounded in my word (and keeping it). in turn, this all lead to the challenges of 2025.
once i settled into my new apartment, early january 2025, everything i needed to process spilled out from within, in droves, in such a cascade. i didn't anticipate how crowded my head would be. i had my cards read in march--my first ever--and the practitioner took a minute to lay out the spread. it was practically the whole deck. she lead with, "alright so, to start, you have a lot on your plate right now. a lot of change." well, yes.
this clean slate of a new living space made room to work through things i needed to, leaving behind what i didn't need to hold onto anymore. falling outs, and seeing that sometimes things don't work out the way you wanted to. still, i can acknowledge that i tried and was accountable for my own mistakes.
i did speak up a lot more this year. even though a lot of the time i felt like neo losing his mouth at the thought of speaking my mind, i learned that it takes courage to do so, and i had courage in me all along. it's scary to speak up! especially when there seems to be much at stake. but even if it makes others uncomfortable, upset, annoyed, and so on, it's better to say my piece and go. people outside of me don't know what's on my mind if i don't say anything. and if they stick around, that's cool and great. if they don't, well, it is what it is.
i don't regret anything i've done, no matter how cringe or how much i was at fault. i like to think that if things went another way in a past situation, yes, the timeline then could have gone in a different direction that i'd conjure to fit a specific narrative designed to make me feel bad over spilled milk, but it's best to not kick myself over "what ifs." if things went another way, i wouldn't be the "me" i am now.
i can sleep at night knowing i'm moving forward, even if it doesn't seem that way. as i ease into 2026, i can take away that i've come a long way and have much more ahead of me because of where i've been: in 2023, i learned how to breathe. in 2024, i learned how to fight. in 2025, i learned how to be brave.