I honestly didn’t know where to begin with my 2025 wrapped because I didn’t know how to address the elephant in the room. A lot happened this year. But the main thing that happened was the life I thought I was building collapsed halfway through the year.
I stopped writing publicly after my breakup. I stopped hosting for a while. For a while, people even told me I stopped smiling. I stopped pottery. I stopped crafting. I stopped eating. Everything I was holding on to fell apart and my life was rebuilt. If you asked me 6 months ago, I wouldn’t be able to recognize the life I have now.
It feels like a cloud was dropped over the middle of my year but after writing this, I realized the beginning of the year and the end of the year were magical. This year has reminded me that you can’t have the highs without the lows. And that when I take a step back, my life is full of so many people I love, fulfilling, challenging, thrilling experiences, and everything in between. I am so grateful for this year.
I don’t expect anyone to actually read all of this. But if you are reading this, it means you are one of the important people in my life that made this year wonderful. Please text me or comment directly if anything here made you giggle, cry, reflect, think — I would love to know your thoughts. Comment directly on this if you have comment access!
I was surprised after writing this recap and collecting all the photos throughout the year about all the joy I had collected. My camera roll is definitely more of a highlight reel but I went into this long rambling with a lot of anxiety. I wasn’t sure where to start and the Big Breakup was weighing on my mind. I was anxious that there would be too much heaviness in my year to talk about. But after writing it all out, I realize that my year and my life is actually so great. Maybe I’m just on a high right now but I am so immensely grateful for what I have experienced this year — all the highs and lows.
Sitting here now, I know I wouldn’t want to unravel the last few months of my life, even though part of me still wishes things hadn’t happened the way they did. My life right now is creatively fulfilling in a way it wasn’t before. Parts of myself that couldn’t fully exist in my old life are loud and present now.
I felt stuck over the summer. In more ways than just the relationship. It was just the most obvious thing that came undone. Would I be this creatively pushed, or surrounded by this much love, if we were still together? Maybe. Would we still be fighting about the same things? Probably.
My time freed up. I had unstructured hours to think, reflect, and create. I wrote pages and pages of thoughts. Trying to figure out how I was feeling. I never thought I’d be someone who could be so taken by emotions. I had many hours on weekends wandering the streets of NYC on long walks. I took meandering phone calls while walking through Brooklyn, Oceanside, Denver. Everything reminded me of him. Everything reminded me of a happy path that was no longer panning out.
But it’s a lot to give this entire year in review to the Breakup. A lot more happened than that. I hosted my 30th Cozy Sundays. I wrote 11 pieces on my Substack and 2 on the Ambrook blog. I read 20 books. I discovered new music. I lost friends. I gained friends.
After the Wongstein holiday party, I got texts from friends like this. In my old life, I would have hosted a party just like this in many ways around this time of the year. But it wouldn’t have been with these people, or this silly, or this whimsical, or filled with homemade branding and live performances.
I’m in my rooting and nesting era now. So much felt out of my control this year, but I also made choices that surprised and grounded me. I was convinced I’d leave my job, or at least leave New York. I’d originally moved here for Jarrett, and assumed that once everything fell apart, I wouldn’t want to stay. Oh how wrong I was.
I have fallen in love with the city again and love my apartment so much. I have been crafting, going to the farmer’s market regularly, spending cozy nights at home. I have turned home into a place I genuine love to be.
I stopped running Cozy Sundays in June. As my relationship fell apart, I didn’t have the emotional capacity to keep showing up for a larger community. I had to figure out what to do with myself first.
I must admit there was a part of me that is always afraid that if I take my foot off the gas in terms of my hosting and reaching out to friends that I’ll quietly lose my place in a community. Instead, my friends caught me. Friends literally took me in on their couch and family home. The morning read-in crew kept insisting we meet every week, maintaining a rhythm when it was the last thing I wanted to do. People at work gave me space without making me feel like I was disappearing. My roommates brought so much joy into my daily life. This season of life showed me that community isn’t something I have to constantly perform to keep. I feel deeply supported, and increasingly confident that I can build a big, fulfilling life for myself in America and in adulthood.
Some friends were joking about how I recreated my boyfriend in the aggregate between my roommates, coworkers, friends and larger community. People started seeing the unhinged verbal tics I usually saved for home. I giggled and cackled with my friends late into the night. I hosted friends for small dinners and hangs. I visited my friends’ family homes. I let myself lean on my friends in ways I never did before. I lost a lot of love this year but also gained so much that showed up in different ways.
I’ve been thinking a lot about whether I’m still a “striver,” and I think my answer is shifting. I grew up with enough privilege that my motivation isn’t about survival or proving the world wrong. I had nice things, and part of me just wants to keep them. I’m definitely struggling with this identity as I see how my actions don’t really align with pure economic optimization. I do things that make me happy and I work on things that feel fulfilling but aren’t the highest financial upside.
Realizing this in the last few months has changed my perspective on ambition. I still identify as a very ambitious person but I don’t think the scale I’m measuring myself on is the same as before. I’m curious if any of you have had your relationship with ambition change a lot in the last year.