If I had to choose one sentence to define 2025, it would be this: I finally stopped lying to myself.
About what I want, what I don’t want, and who I actually am when I’m not performing for anyone else.

This year was not soft. It was not delicate. It was not wrapped in velvet bows. It was sharp, clarifying, at times brutal — and exactly what I needed to become the woman I keep trying to outrun.

1. Myself: The year of self-honesty

Somewhere between turning 41 and surviving yet another round of therapy, I admitted the truth out loud: I like to be alone. Not lonely. Not lost. Not abandoned. Just… free. Free from the roles I inherited, from the expectations I absorbed, from the life I built to make everyone else comfortable.

This was the year I understood that my kids will be fine if I am fine, and that sacrificing myself for “harmony” is not noble — just slow self-erasure. I finally began choosing myself, without asking for permission.

2. Career: Stepping into the room as I belong there

Professionally, 2025 was a turning point. I stepped into bigger rooms, took on higher-visibility work, interviewed the CEO in front of hundreds of people, and didn’t die. I clarified who I am at work: strategic, fast, emotionally intelligent, and unafraid of responsibility.

I gathered my feedback, kept what mattered, and ignored the noise. And I set three ambitious goals for 2028 that finally reflect the life I want — not the one I was trained to want.

3. Writing: The year my book became real

This was the year the book stopped being an idea and became an actual world. I built planets, its cities, its suns, its gods, its magic.
I found my FMC and her fire. I discovered a MMC and his darkness. I shaped arcs, villains, heartbreaks, and miracles.

I also found my author voice: a mix of emotional realism, mystical feminism, and quiet rage. And yes — I finally accepted that I am a writer, not “someone who hopes to write someday.”

4. Health: Discipline as self-respect

I continued my journey to lose weight; hit plateaus, adjusted, learned, and kept going. I trained consistently, even on the days my period wanted to murder me. I added protein, iron, vitamins, and structure.

My body changed, yes, but more importantly, my relationship with myself changed. I’m building strength for the woman I am becoming, not the woman I used to be.

5. Finances: Becoming the adult no one prepared me to be

This year I stepped into real financial ownership. I mapped my assets, investments, and long-term aims. I learned more about investmanets, tax, and portfolio strategy than I ever expected to enjoy.

And I started planning — seriously, not theoretically — for my own financial independence. Money stopped being fear and it became a tool.

6. Life: Depth, friendship, motherhood, and hard truths

I made space for the people who matter. I saw how much my children love me — and also how ready they are to stand on their own.
I held the weight of family illness and grief with as much grace as I could.
I continued therapy, even when it peeled back layers I wanted to keep shut.

I planned meaningful travels. I let myself dream bigger. And I finally began making decisions not from guilt, but from clarity.

In short, 2025 was not the year I fixed everything, but it was the year I saw everything much clearly; myself, my relations, my future, my desires, my limits (or lack thereof), my ambitions.

It was the year I began rewriting my life with the same courage I give my characters.

And honestly? It was about time.