2025 sucked, if I am completely honest. I had the worst year of my life in almost every way possible, but I am determined to scour the ashes of my burned soul and find the lessons that will keep me from ever repeating this level of pain and misery again. No one knows me better than I do. I have a long history of not listening to myself. I have inner dialogues that tell me exactly what to do in any situation, and at the same time I talk myself out of those great decisions. I

Grief Still Echoes There is a version of sadness that doesn’t end just because the relationship does. It lingers. Because our love lingered. The sadness, however, rearranged my daily life. It changed the way I breathe, the way I exist in a room, the way I brace myself when my phone dings. Sadness is the kind of grief that keeps unfolding after the break—through the silence, through the unanswered questions, through the responsibilities left behind when someone else walks away

Although I expected identity to be precise, I never seemed to find it. Growing up, I didn’t know which friend group I belonged to because I liked a little about all of them. I had a sporty side, a musical side, an artistic side, a nerdy side, a wild side, a conservative side, a confident side, a shy side, a nervous side. In high school there was a spell where I was the photographer or the German-loving girl. Or maybe the one who knew so much about music. My style was also wid