2025: Reflection
At least this year's recap can't call out my over-listening to boygenius.
This time of year is naturally very reflective; everyone is using this time to make plans for the new year and reset. I am no exception to this. I tend to try and make my resolutions less superficial, things that can be worked towards and aren’t based on a delusion that on January 1st I’ll wake up a completely different person. I mean, I wish I could, but fooling myself isn’t helping.
In the latter half of this year, I’ve gotten into writing in a way. On Substack, privately, just for me, and occasionally on this underground, unknown website called Archive of Our Own. I am not good at writing, but for the first time in my life, I’m kind of content with that. Typically, if I can’t do something perfectly the first time, I’ll give up, treat it as some moral failing, but with this, mediocrity is okay with me.
I like how my posts on here are frozen in time, little windows into my beliefs and worries. After laying out everything on the page, I have been able to repackage these things back into my head, neater and with more sense of the contents. As we head into 2026, this is how I currently feel, in a sort of self-obsessed recap.
(Other than the twenty one pilots essay, where not much has changed other than the fact that I will be seeing them in concert in 2026)
OCD 143/40: Who am I?
OCD is something I will live with forever, but it’s becoming more manageable. I’m not having panic attacks 2 or 3 times a day anymore, at least. Things still happen, and things are still not great, but being able to sit down and think, I’ve not had an intrusive thought I’ve acted upon in 5 hours, is a wonderfully freeing thought. Working with my therapist, it has become evident that my depression is actually worse than I thought, though, and is something I might look into getting help for in the new year (now that I have evidence that therapy can actually work).
The crushing weight of love/ A witch cursed me/ The deleted coming out one
Fuck you Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, also Fuck you Dan and Phil, also fuck you that one lesbian couple on TikTok that does the Lenox spice village videos. For a while, I’ve said I’ve come to the understanding that love isn’t in the cards for me. I had, but for the first time in a long time, that is beginning to weigh on me.
Thinking selfishly, I want love, I want to be loved so badly, and for a while, I managed to convince myself that love from my friends and family and putting out love into the world myself and through my career would be enough. This festive period has been incredibly hard; it’s also made me realise that I don’t think it’s enough anymore. Is it selfish of me to long to be someone’s number one?
This is difficult to admit, to be honest. I think this realisation is hitting me so hard right now because for the longest time, I had accepted that in my future, I was going to force myself to be with a man. In my mind, being with a woman would mean losing the type of relationship I have with my family. They’re not outwardly homophobic necessarily, but years of microaggressions have worn me down. My parents are the exception to this, I’d like to think, but I also just don’t know.
I have since deleted my essay where I formally came out as a Lesbian out of fear my parents would find it, as prior to blocking my dad, he did have this account. In it, I spoke about the almost violent internalised homophobia I experience, since admitting my full queerness, this has improved. I do still sometimes find myself falling back into the belief that a queer relationship means instability, but I am so thankful to have so many things in the media yelling at me that it’s not true. It sobers me up. So thank you heated rivalry, thank you phan, and thank you random lesbian couple on TikTok, whilst I still grapple with feeling like I will never receive love. I know the love I long for exists in other people. Is it so crazy to dream it could exist for me, too?
Snufkin and the art of knowing yourself
I don’t really have much to say here after the one above. I have been more myself. I like to think. Honesty with other people is still an issue I’m working towards, but happy to say that there’s at least some effort going on. I wrote a whole other essay about it, but it felt kind of repetitive, so I never posted it. Now that it’s been broken down, it’s definitely something I’m going to focus on in the new year.
My other New Year’s resolutions are to just create and consume more art. I want to read more, write more, draw more, and just experience life more. I plan to do enough interesting things in a month to be able to post a monthly Instagram carousel, which seems kind of vain now that I’ve written it like that, but I promise it’s not about likes or anything. I want to be able to look at the year and go Wow, I lived that to the fullest, It’s also partly spite, but let’s ignore that bit.
In 2025, on paper, I achieved a lot: I graduated, moved, and started a master’s. All of which are very impressive indeed, but it’s in the slower, quieter moments I look back on. Sitting drunk on the floor of my friend lolas flat just talking, absolutely destroying my friend Karen at Mario Kart in an arcade in Herne Bay, running around a tesco dressed as a fat slutty Ryan Ross for halloween, taking my nephew to the zoo for his birthday, giggling around ikea with my friend sev, all things my mother can’t brag about on facebook but things I am proud I achieved nonetheless.
In 2026, I want to focus on making those smaller memories. I was rejected from this program a couple of weeks ago. I wanted it so badly and put so much time into it. The reason I was rejected was that I was doing a master’s, and they didn’t think the balance would work, but they loved my work and invited me to apply again next year. Things will happen out of my control; if I’d spent more time, more effort, nothing would’ve changed the result. Things will happen out of my control, but what I can control is spending time with my friends, taking life slower, and with more appreciation.
I can control how 2026 will go for me, and if I stay in control, I plan for it to be a good one.