An End-of -Year Essay

 

It’s been a minute😄

That’s how I wish to begin my writing from now on...because life doesn’t announce itself when it shifts. One moment you’re counting months, the next you’re standing at the edge of a year, wondering how it moved so fast and yet carried so much.

Lately, I’ve found myself back where the old souls live...in the aisles of hardcore literature. Montaigne’s essays. Shakespeare’s tragedies. Gibran’s quiet, piercing wisdom and having a background excitement of Clarissa Pikola's Women who Run with the Wolves. Words that have survived centuries and still know exactly where to touch you. Call me old school, but there is something sacred about literature that refuses to be rushed.

And somehow, in between English poems, essays, hip-hop debates, and Spotify wrapped surprises, my soul remembered itself.

This season has taught me one gentle truth:

Slowness is not a vice.

In a world addicted to urgency, choosing to slow down is a radical act. To sip your tea without guilt. To take weekends off and do absolutely nothing. To respond later. To stop trying to be right and instead listen. To watch. To feel. To simply be present.

Presence, as a friend once said, is rhythm plus movement. And I’ve learned that rhythm begins within.

Move your body.
Quiet your mind.
Align yourself with life instead of resisting it.

Because resistance...oh, resistance...is where heartbreak often begins.

This year taught me gratitude in layers. Gratitude for people who stayed. Gratitude for those who left. Gratitude for silence, solitude, long drives, and mountains climbed...both literal and internal. Gratitude for fear faced quietly. For words used more carefully, because I learned that words are spells.

I learned to read slowly again. To listen deeply. To return to childlike curiosity...the kind that asks why, how, what next. The kind that observes without rushing to conclude. The kind that understands that learning is not linear and meaning is not loud.

I became fascinated...again...by time, money, love, family, work, silence, nature, writing, sleep, knowledge, and the strange beauty of simply being alive.

I learned the value of a strong why. That if your why is rooted deeply enough, you can survive almost anything. That situational awareness...asking why, what, who, where, when...grounds you. It keeps you honest. It keeps you awake - Borrowed from the book Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl.

As the year closes, I feel grateful for family...my roots and my refuge. For friendships that stretched my thinking and softened my heart. For strangers, roads, vehicles, homes, hotels, trails, waterfalls, sunsets, and sunrises that held me gently.

For nature, which reminded me that I belong.

And perhaps most importantly, I learned something liberating:

An essay does not have to be correct.
An essay is an attempt.

A reaching.
A reflection.
A becoming.

So as this year ends, I do not carry resolutions...I carry reflections. Lessons engraved quietly into my soul. A gentler pace. A deeper curiosity. A willingness to change with life instead of resisting it.

I bless where I have been.
I bless who I am becoming.
And I step forward...slowly, gratefully, and present.

Adios, year 2025😑
Welcome, whatever comes next.

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Until the next trail, the next thought, and the next becoming - Bold Tracks & Backpacks.