A Retrospective On This Past Year

Another 365 days around the world; and here I am—twenty-two—looking back at a year that nearly split me in half.

My last birthday was quiet on the outside and loud underneath. I was with my girlfriend and my family, sitting around a table, eating like everything was okay. But it wasn’t. She had discovered something personal on my social media—something that hurt her—and she didn’t say anything until near the end of our trip. The silence between us was deafening; and even though she was beside me, she felt so far away.

At the same table, my mom looked at me and said, almost casually, “I hope you make better decisions in the future”; and my dad barely spoke. I could feel his judgment without him saying a word. I remember thinking, This is supposed to be my birthday; but I felt like I was on trial.

Still, I held onto hope. I thought things would get better. I thought maybe I’d move to Miami when school was done; I was researching programs, calculating tuition, trying to imagine a new life. I thought the cracks in my relationship would seal themselves over time—or that I could seal them myself. I truly believed love could survive anything if I just loved hard enough.

It’s painful to admit how wrong I was.

This year tore through me.

I lost the person I trusted most; the one I leaned on; the one who knew my insides better than anyone else. Our breakup didn’t just end a relationship; it ended a friendship, a dream, a shared sense of safety. And then, not long after, my health collapsed. My body started betraying me; my memory grew foggy; my days turned heavy and slow. There were moments I looked in the mirror and couldn’t see myself.

But I fought to stay.

I started a blog; I began recording myself talking to the camera, sometimes in tears, sometimes in silence. It wasn’t perfect—but it was mine. In those shaky, unfiltered moments, I came back to myself, little by little. And even when everything felt hollow, I showed up.

I’m proud of that; maybe more than anything else this year, I’m proud that I didn’t give up.

This year also made me let go of things I thought I couldn’t live without.

I let go of her; not just the girl, but the future I imagined with her. I let go of the idea that the strongest love can survive anything—because sometimes it can’t. And I let go of the part of me that didn’t think I could survive real pain; because I did.

I’ve changed. I can feel it in how I speak, how I trust, how I love. I’m more careful now. Not colder for the sake of being cold, but because I finally understand how much it hurts to keep giving yourself to people who can’t hold you properly. I don’t see love as this glowing thing anymore. I see the edges now; the weight; the expectations. Everyone wants something from the people they’re close to. That doesn’t make love bad—it just makes it real.

What I don’t want to carry into twenty-two is the past. I don’t want to keep dissecting the breakup; replaying it like a movie; waiting for an ending that won’t come. It happened. I hurt. I healed. I’m still healing. But I don’t need to keep holding the knife.

What I do want to carry forward is the version of me I met in recovery.

The one who looked at my dad and said, “Let’s go for a walk,” then quietly did four laps like it was nothing. The one who kept showing up even when no one was clapping. The one who didn’t need to be seen to know he was strong.

I want to live like him, walk like him, build like him.

Not someone waiting for life to return to what it used to be,
Someone who makes a new life out of everything that’s left.