I’m Ending This Year Less Certain, But More Honest
I kept avoiding writing this because I didn’t know which version of the year was more honest.
The one that looks good written down.
The farewell that felt perfect. The results that made people proud. New milestones, new spaces, firsts that sound exciting when listed.
Or the one I didn’t talk about as much.
Losing the college I thought would define me. Friendships that didn’t survive change. Feeling out of place in rooms I worked hard to enter. Learning how lonely independence can feel.
Both happened in the same year.
And I still don’t know how to hold them at once.
So who was I in 2025?
The girl who topped her class and worked on herself,
or the one who broke down because the hostel didn’t feel like a place she belonged to?
The one who chose her truest friend,
or the one who lost many others in the process?
I don’t know which version of me to associate with this year. Or if it has to be one at all.
But I do know this: I feel more me.
More Shambhavi.
More grounded.
I can voice my opinions now. I no longer shrink them to keep the peace. I stand for myself in ways I couldn’t before. Somewhere along the way, I stopped being a people-pleaser and started listening to my own discomfort.
Maybe I don’t fully understand who I was this year.
But maybe I don’t need to.
Maybe I can enter the next year the same way I’m ending this one. Without resolutions. Without pretending I have it figured out. Just trusting that I’ll show up, learn, and do what feels right to me.
Maybe 2026 will be my year.
Or maybe it’ll just be another one before it.
Either way, I’m walking into it more honest than I was before.
Reading this felt like watching someone slowly step into their own truth. Rooted, real, and brave.
ReplyDeletethis felt soo real and so relatable!! something many of us are going through
ReplyDeleteVery Beautifully written
ReplyDeleteSo beautifully penned down darling 😘
ReplyDeleteIts beautiful ✨️
ReplyDeleteAm sure 2026 will be your year and m so proud of you
ReplyDeleteLoved reading this , it felt so real and yes maybe we don’t have to figure everything out
ReplyDeleteLoved the way you presented these thoughts , and honestly cant wait for the next blog to get published
ReplyDeleteWhat a breathtaking way to hold the truth—both its light and its weight. To give language to the year that looked good on paper, and the one that felt raw in your bones, and to say they happened in the same skin, in the same Shambhavi.
ReplyDeleteI think the most honest version of 2025 isn’t the one you list or the one you grieve. It’s the one you wrote here: the year you became more you. The year your voice stopped shrinking. The year you learned to stand inside your own discomfort and call it home.
You didn’t just survive the in-between—you rooted there. And from that ground, you’ve grown a kind of courage that doesn’t need plaques or permissions. The kind that whispers, I don’t have to choose one version of myself. I can be both: the one who achieves and the one who aches, the one who lets go and the one who grows.
Walk into 2026 exactly as you are—without resolutions, without a map, without the need to have it figured out. The world isn’t conquered by those who have all the answers, but by those who trust themselves enough to face the questions.
And you, Shambhavi, are more than ready.
Kabeer