Love, Lust, Loss, & Life: a letter to 2025 before it finally ends…

January, February, March - Love

I started the year off green as can be. I snagged my first journalism internship, and New York City had just charmed me. I always knew I was meant for more in my life, and the beginning of the year started with that undertone, that more was coming my way. One chilly evening in New York, I stood on a rooftop lounge in Chinatown, wrapped in vintage fur, clutching a glass of cheap prosecco. I hugged the railing, the only thing keeping me from thinking I could absolutely fly, and stared at the skyline before me. I could hear cars, voices, glasses clinking, music near and distant. I was devoured by inspiration. I could see my future right in front of me, and I could almost taste it. I just had to close my eyes and breathe. Anything could be mine. Even this. February was fleeting, but special. My job had a Valentine's pre-fix menu planned, so I worked a dinner shift on the one night anyone who was with anyone was supposed to be out at dinner. I catered to each couple, making each one feel cared for and delighted by the evening muses. I'd stand in the service well, watching drink after drink get poured, lost in bitters and garnishes, waiting to get home and see my person. When I arrived home that evening, our apartment was sparkling, candles were lit, and there in the negative space of my studio stood my sweet, handsome boyfriend. He held flowers in his hands, and tried to cover the rose petals on the floor that spelled, “BE MY VALENT–” … turns out he didn't have enough rose petals to spell the query out in full, but it was still one of the most romantic gestures that's ever happened to me. March bathed in that feeling all month long. A warm breeze crept in, and my cheeks began to flush. My head filled with ideas that never manifested. 

April, May, June - Lust

How do you satiate the insatiable? I’ve been asking myself that ever since I realized how intensely I feel, how fiercely I adore, want, and crave. I’ve always known I was meant for more, but no one tells you how to actually get more. I’m young, I’m lucky, I’m talented, and I’m sexually frustrated. Restless in my body, my ambitions, my want for connection. But do I deserve the things I hunger for? The career, the intimacy, the friendships? I craved it all. Irrationally, selfishly, beautifully. So I started juggling everything I thought might get me closer. I told myself it was time to cultivate a lust for life. A lust for the world, for experiences, for myself. And then, I took a cinema class. Funny enough, it was just some elective I took to fill space on my summer schedule. Nothing special, nothing life-altering. A checkbox in my degree plan. But after the first week, something shifted. I’d catch myself getting excited to walk into that screening room, because inside that room, surrounded by a handful of not-so-strange strangers, I felt awake again. There was a friend. Their kindness. Their silliness. Their own hunger for experience that matched mine in the most disarming way. I’ll never forget how refreshing that felt, to meet someone who moments ago didn’t know a thing about me, who made me feel less like a girl wanting too much and more like someone allowed to want. Allowed to chase after a life bigger than the one I was living. And maybe my career momentum was somewhere just ahead, waiting for me to grow into it. I missed them when the semester ended. Or maybe I missed that feeling. As for sex… I didn’t know. I wasn’t having much. I wasn’t feeling like much. But the need was at an all-time high. Not just for sex, but for everything. For life to finally start. For something to click. For someone or something to make me feel awake again. That hunger for more… it comes back in waves. It’s a familiar ache. A kind of heat I’ve never learned to extinguish. Never. 

July, August, September - Loss

I was in an accident that totaled my car. It started as a day just like any other. 2 p.m. on a Tuesday, sunlight sharp, traffic thick on Guad. I was approaching 15th St. when an SUV blew through the red light and slammed into the right side of my car. My body ricocheted off the driver’s side window and into the airbag. The world froze. The world went white and metallic. I could taste nothing but exhaust. When I opened my eyes, panic rushed in. I threw my door open and stumbled out, adrenaline carrying me to the other car. Everyone was okay, thank God. But I was fucking furious. The anger hit louder than the impact. I went ballistic on the driver— a 20-year-old girl and her friend, both still holding their phones when I reached them. As they begged me to calm down, I saw a baby car seat in their back seat and felt my fury flare all over again. Over the next few weeks, I battled with Progressive to pay my car off, which they did, and that left me, well, without one. And worse, I was scarred in a way I’d never been before. I still flinch behind the wheel, even in the passenger seat. Every aspect of my life changed after that day. Deep, dark bruises plagued my abdomen. I felt like my world was caving around me. All I felt I had been working towards was coming to a stiff halt. Days before, I shot the Texan Girl Dreams of NY Style Guide, and wrote something in my journal that really stuck with me moving forward from this moment: Life must go on. I will take my time to feel, heal, and reflect, even if it takes me longer than a day. But I have class tomorrow, and a project coming out that I'm really proud of. If there's any time to keep going, it's now. The next day, I showed up to school in blue eyeliner and my favorite feel-good heels, like armor. 

October, November, December - Life…

I moved into a new apartment. Alone. That word pressed against me like a dare, almost seductive in its challenge. How dare you be alone, woman? As if I wasn’t already learning how powerful that could be. Slowly, tentatively, I began learning how to sit with myself. To feel the quiet instead of fear it. I started tending to the parts of me I’d abandoned, the dark corners, the restless dreams, the exhausted heart that had been running laps around someone else’s needs. A gathering of all the pieces of me I had scattered in the name of love. I began stitching my life back together, thread by thread, learning that wholeness doesn’t come from someone else’s gravity, but from the gravity of my own becoming. I get out more now. I see my friends more than I see my own reflection some days. I’ve made new ones, lost a few, and let the changes sting without pretending it doesn’t. I throw loud parties and spill my guts into my journal, ink smudged, handwriting nearly illegible. I dance around my apartment in a slip dress, windows open. I smoke cigarettes on my balcony when I shouldn’t. I make love on the couch with throw pillows falling to the floor and wine glasses still on the coffee table. And love doesn't feel so distant anymore. It was never something I had to constantly pine for. It’s always been here, inside of me, inside this home. I feel it most when I walk barefoot across my living room floor and let my hair down. I’ve spent so long searching, chasing sparks, chasing people, chasing the idea of a life that felt full. I thought I needed something outside myself to make me whole. But now, sitting in this messy life I’ve carved out, I see it clearly. And for the first time, I understand: I am enough. I have always been enough.

And as 2025 finally passes, I realize it wasn’t just a year of love, lust, loss, and life— it was a year of becoming. Every ache, every thrill, every heartbreak, every small victory has taught me that I am the constant in my own story. I have loved fiercely and lost painfully, I have craved and lived recklessly, I have fallen and rebuilt myself over and over. And when the clock strikes midnight and a new year awaits outside my window, I’ll keep learning, keep growing, and keep reaching for more—because I’ve finally realized that my life, my future, and my heart are all mine to create.