What 2025 Gave Me, What 2026 Might Hold

Every year, around this time, I tell myself I am moving forward. And every year, when I look closely, so many things seem to stay the same. The routines. The responsibilities. The quiet weight I carry into each day. It’s not that nothing changes. It’s that change rarely arrives in the ways I hope for.

This year was no exception. I showed up. I did the work. I kept going, even when progress felt invisible. From the outside, it might look like another year that simply passed. But living inside it felt heavier than that. It asked me to endure uncertainty. To perform consistency while quietly questioning how long I could keep doing the same things. To accept that effort does not always come with immediate reward.

There were moments this year when I wondered if aiming forward even mattered. If every step I took just led me back to familiar ground. I learned what it feels like to hope carefully. To want change but brace myself in case it never arrives. That kind of hoping is exhausting. But it’s also honest.

Still, this year gave me something real. It showed me my limits more clearly than before. It revealed how much energy it costs to stay where I am. It made me aware that I cannot keep surviving on autopilot and call it living. That awareness didn’t fix anything. But it did wake me up.

Now, as I look toward the next year, I don’t feel certain. If anything, I feel cautious.

There’s talk of change at work. A possible transfer. New expectations. A sense that what’s familiar may soon become harder. Part of me is already tired just thinking about it. And yet, there is also a small, stubborn part of me that still wishes for difference. Not miracles. Not overnight transformation.

Just something kinder. Something that doesn’t feel like I’m constantly proving my worth. Something that allows me to grow without breaking myself in the process. I don’t know what next year will bring. It may challenge me more than I’m ready for. It may ask more from me than I want to give.

But I am entering it more aware than before. Aware that staying the same also has a cost. Aware that hoping, even cautiously, means I haven’t given up. Aware that wanting a different outcome doesn’t make me naive, it makes me human.

So this is where I stand between years: Not confident. Not defeated. Just honest.

Carrying the weight of repetition, while still leaving room for the possibility that this time, things might turn out differently. Even if only a little.

And for now, that hope is enough to step forward.

It really is a mess of feelings. Uncertainty tangled with responsibility. Hope brushing up against fear. Fatigue sharing space with resolve.

But even in this mess, I know one thing:

I will push through.

Not because I am fearless. Not because I am certain it will get easier. But because I have done hard years before. Because I am still here. Because even when things stay the same, I am still moving — quietly, stubbornly, forward.

And even if nothing else changes right away, I will keep going — not out of blind hope, but out of quiet refusal to stop trying. 

If you’re standing at the edge of a new year carrying mixed emotions too, hope tangled with worry, fatigue paired with determination, I hope you know you’re not alone.

May the coming year meet you with moments of ease, even if they arrive slowly. May it give you strength where things feel uncertain, and softness where you’ve been too hard on yourself.

Here’s to stepping into the new year as we are— still learning, still hoping, still pushing through.

Happy New Year 🤍 - MESSY E.

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