2025 didn’t end up being the year I planned. It became the year that quietly rewired me.

The back injury forced a full stop. No rushing. No muscling through. No pretending I could outrun my own body. Recovery slowed everything down in a way that felt frustrating at first, then strangely instructive. When movement was limited, attention wasn’t. I had to sit with myself again, and that space reopened something I didn’t realize had gone dorment.

Somewhere in the middle of healing, microdosing, and long stretches of enforced stillness, my creativity came back online. Not with fireworks, but with persistence. Words started showing up again. Sentences formed without being dragged out of me. Writing stopped feeling like an obligation or a performance and started feeling like breath.

I didn’t set out to return to writing this year. It happened as a side effect of listening to my body, tending my mind, and letting go of the version of myself that powered through everything. Pain rearranged my priorities. Healing rearranged my inner landscape. Creativity slipped back in through the cracks.

This year taught me that sometimes what feels like loss is actually a reentry point. That slowing down can restore what striving buried. That the body, when respected, opens doors the mind alone cannot force.

I’m closing 2025 grateful. Grateful for healing that wasn’t linear. For creativity that waited patiently. For words that came back when I finally made room for them.

Here’s to carrying that softness, that attention, and that voice forward. Not louder. Just truer.