On the verge of 2025

Certainly, because we’re now at the end of the year, a friend of mine was talking about how drastically opposite two consecutive years can be in one’s life. As I grasped what she meant, I started reflecting to see if I had the same feeling about 2023 & 2024…

Nope! These two definitely twinned for me.

2024, as well as 2023, did itself.

I now enjoy saying about the years that “they always do themselves”. I started saying that upon realizing that years might come with specific sets of occurrences, call them good or bad, that feel like you just can do nothing about them. 

Of course, I don’t think that every single event that happens during a year falls in that category. There are events that we or other people plan, create or cause. Whether impactful or insignificant, these events, which are under our control, may or may not happened. But I’m talking about those other events that just come as if a specific year was their “appointed time”. As if they would still happen regardless of anything or anyone, and we just have to deal with them. Those, in perspective, are the reason why I have some reserve in the way I now approach the beginning of a year, versus the end of it.

Figuratively talking…

See a year unfolding itself like a scroll that you slowly unroll to read what’s written in it, day after day. Your reading, being you living, discovering, and interacting with the elements of your days.

So some days, you read and just flow with whatever’s written there; you don’t mind at all, or it’s pretty convenient to you. Some other days, you read and you frown, then you start erasing what’s written in there and start scribbling your own narrative. That’s when you take stands or make choices that change the regular course of the day; it could be your best or worst choices, but the point is that you do affect how things go. Some other days, you read but you just have enough energy left to make a deal and negotiate some terms in there. And then, some other days, you read and frown again, but when you get ready to erase the script and put the narrative you’d like to read instead, you find out that they can’t be cleared. No matter what you or people around you do to change the scripts, they stand bolder in your parchment.

And that’s when you’re forced to accept these events you cannot change or do anything about, until you become changed by them instead, ultimately. That’s also why now you look at that parchment with different eyes. You realized that some writings couldn’t be scratched away because they were inherent to the parchment’s material itself.

This perspective has somewhat balanced my expectations of new years. I still welcome them with cheers you know, with all my best wishes and new resolutions. The joy all around is so contagious anyway, it feels good. A new year is always an opportunity to reset or start anew, and I’m grateful whenever I have it. But mostly now, I consciously approach new years with way more curiosity than anything else. As if to ask it “What will you bring? Are you hiding some irreversible events from me now? Let me see you fully first, then I’ll know about you“.

The first year I used this approach, I wasn’t aware that it was some kind of a switch. It was after I had faced a very strange and painful year. So still in shock at what that year had brought, at the end of it, I decided to go through the next one with no plan whatsoever, just watching how it would unfold itself. On purpose I had no new resolutions, no goals, I just wanted to observe the year doing itself as I would continue to do whatever I was doing. I wanted to do it as an experiment, but in fact, I was still coping from the previous year. Picture someone getting out of the ocean, where she/he almost drowned, getting back on their feet and facing the sea, shouting: “Here I am again! Show me what you’ve got that time! Bring it on! C’mon, surprise me!“

Then picture that a huge wave came as if to wash that person away but because of that first experience of almost drowning, she/he learns to manage and figures out how to ride the tide (just imagine it, please don’t ask me how that is even possible without a surfboard), and the tide went its way with her/him and smoothly brought her/him to new horizons.

So now, at the end of the day, how to stay mad because of your nearly-drowning experience, for not only did you survive but also you can ride waves now. In addition, you realize that the waves are not necessarily against you, you just have to make sure you’re not found under them when they come, but above them.

However, when a year ends…

When a year ends, you get the privilege to see all there has been. For instance, this year, since I journal often, I went over the whole year in order to do some appraisal and, gosh! Just to be able to review it and laugh a little at the most challenging situations I had to face is a real blessing. All of those are why celebrations feel more genuine to me at the end of a year. 

In those two past years, 2023 & 2024, I did so many things for the first time. Some very hard, painful, some very challenging, and some exciting and fulfilling. I discovered muscles that I didn’t know I had. And for the fact that I can look back and appreciate how it truly went, the low and the high, the crazy and the balanced, the strong and the weak, the setbacks and the comebacks, the laughs, the tears, the smiles, the jokes, the road, the tunnel, the light… and for the fact that I made it to the last day, and saw it all completely, I say it was a great year. Not good, not bad, just great. Even when I have to pair it with 2023, because 2023 prepared me for 2024. So now I celebrate ends of year wholeheartedly. That’s when we know what a year it was! It displayed itself, we saw it fully. I get to be very grateful for that, and also confident towards what’s next.

Now, here we are again, this time, at the verge of 2025. Ready and open to deal with the irreversible writings coming up, sticky to that new parchment.

Thank God, these stubborn scripts are not just those we’d like to frown about and rip out, but they can also be events that warm our heart and that we’d like to nurture and cherish as long as possible.

Happy New Year! Excited to see how 2025 will do✨

For some reason, I really have a good feeling about this new one.

But still, in all the cases, may God bless and see us through! Health, Prosperity, Longevity and Happiness!🥂

Because remember, God blesses us, but happiness is our choice.