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So... 2025. Not my favorite year I've ever lived, but I have heard quite a few people say similarly the past 2-3 months.
So here I am, battle-weary and with my own 2025 recap clutched in hand, to join the table, look around with sympathetic eyes, and say, "Ah, dearest, I'm so sorry! You too?"
Though the night was cold and very unkind, there were yet some stars that merrily twinkled from the darkness.
Allow me to share a few of them below:
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I wrote over 100 pages in the manuscript I'm working on!! 🥹
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I wrote 24 posts for my With Joy blog, and 10 posts for my Twilight Skies blog!!
That's more than I have ever posted in a year before! But more than the quantity, I am proud of the quality of what I was able to put together. This year wasn't easy, but looking back I see it isn't true that I fully lost the ability to put intention and beauty into my creative work. I think I have changed therefore my writing has. And I think I have matured therefore my writing has. But it is not worse. All along, my work, it was good. 🥹
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Grace Anne's Tuesday Letters were immensely encouraging, a breath of pure, fresh air. It was so, so, so nice to have something like that to look forward to every week. 🤍
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I went to the movies twice this summer! And the first time was to see HTTYD in theaters!!
This was really important to me because I didn't see it in theaters when the original came out in 2010, so I really wanted to be there this time around, 15 years later.
And I got to be!!
It was basically copy and pasted from the original film, down to costumes, dialogue, camera angles, literally everything, haha. Generally, we as fans advocate for that sort of thing, but this was so much copy and paste that they could have changed a few things, lol! Nevertheless, I still enjoyed it, and I am so, so happy I got to go.
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The second time was to experience the K-pop Demon Hunters sing-along!!
In August, out of nowhere they announced K-pop Demon hunters was going to be in theaters but only for a weekend! (I think I literally found out the day before!) But my sisters and I were able to make it!!🥹
It was so sweet! Just a whole theater, little kids, teens, and adults, singing those songs together. <3 <3 <3
If you haven't seen the film yet, please don't let the intensity of the hype scare you off. It wasn't a perfect movie, there's no such thing as that. But the songs were fire, and the message was really powerful. And it's got some of my favorite story tropes: The power of friendship (yes, I'm being serious xD), achieving goals as a team, letting go of the past, and stepping into ALL that you are.
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The thing that most defined my year, though, was the Stray Kids concert in June. And so, so, so sadly, I do not mean that in a happy way.
I've a post about it here, so I won't revisit the details.
But it's not just 2025. For many years now, even before the 2020s came, things have not been easy. So, throughout the months leading up to the concert, I think, unconsciously and probably a little consciously, I was using attending the concert and seeing some of my favorite people ever as proof to myself that sometimes, everything is okay.
Sometimes, the dreams do come true.
So you can imagine how going into that fateful day with that mindset made getting over what happened a hundred times harder than it might have been.
I have so many regrets from that time. And there were many painful things that happened before, during, and after the trip that made the main disappointment even harder to bear.
It has just been a really tough time.
But, there is a mini redemption story :)
Hopefully, I'm getting the rest of this timeline correct:
A few months after the concert (I think it was October), one of the members, Hyunjin, revealed he too had had a rough 2025. He'd been having an issue with his voice. It was so bad, he thought he might have to leave the group because he couldn't sing anymore. But, with the help of his members (what'd I say about the power of friendship ;) and a vocal coach, it's getting better and he was able to stay in Stray Kids.
I was soo happy for him!! And for the millionth time, the Kids inspired me.
Then, in November, Stray Kids released an album interview for their then-upcoming release, Do It. It was a thirty minute interview where the producers of the group, Bang Chan, Changbin, and Han brought the rest of the members on one at a time to discuss the songs and the creative process of making them.
And at the end of it, as the instrumental to my favorite song by them was playing, they talked about heading into the last months of 2025, how much they wanted to do amazing at all the end-of-year shows, give back to their fans, and end the year strong.
With no regrets.
And I thought to myself, actually, yes. A hundred times, yes.
This life is so precious, and now is all we have.
So I decided, instead of crawling, defeated, into the end zone, as I had settled for, I would put on bravery one last time for 2025.
While Stray Kids set out to end the year with a bang in their corner of the world, I set out to do the same in mine.
For Stray Kids, just a week or two after that podcast episode dropped, they won a MAMA award for album of the year, essentially an Asian Grammy.
And as I watched all the members on stage receiving that award, most of them in tears, and knowing the painful stories they've shared, particularly what Hyunjin walked through this year, it hit me.
Maybe things really can get better if you don’t give up.
Now back to my corner of the world. Armed with inspiration from my favorite band, I looked to tackle what I could. I'm afraid not all of the things I attempted went well.
But one of them, one of them actually did, you guys. 🥹
A week or so before Christmas, I was invited to do something with a group, but I wouldn’t know anyone there. At this point, I didn't care about the epiphany I'd had a few weeks prior and was feeling pretty defeated again.
But, I had promised the month before that I would, at the very least, try.
I couldn’t muster the courage to hope that it would be good. But I could muster the strength to pick my aching body up and head out one more time.
And, guys, it actually went well! 🥹 I had fun. Afterward, as I headed out into the cold December night, making my way to the car, a smile on my face, I just couldn’t believe it. It had actually been good. 🥹
Friends, please don’t let life be only what happens to you.
I know there is a time for waiting for good things, but, I think, there is also a time to step forward, to reach out, and to make a dream a reality. To pour magic from your fingers and make the world a brighter place, right where you are.
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Despite my small victory that day, things still aren't easy in my corner of the world. And I don't want to give the impression that things are all rosy now for Stray Kids either. Life is a jumble of good and bad, we know this. I just wanted to say that they were able to win a victory that mattered a lot to them as a direct result of not giving up. And in my corner of the world, so did I.
There are stars glittering in this dark night. And this post is me sharing the constellations I see.
Friend, I also want to add that if it's a little too overwhelming to look out at the year ahead all at once, that's okay.
We can still try. We can still do our best. But we can take it slow. We can do our best one day at a time, one moment at a time. One step in front of the other.
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I hope, dearest reader, that you do not have to join this sad table of an unkind 2025, but if you do, then pull up a chair, love. There’s good company here. <3
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