New Years Eve

In the grand scheme of things, I don’t feel as if my life has really changed. When the clock strikes midnight, I’ll still be at home wishing I wasn’t, just like the previous year. I also didn’t find the love of my life, nor make new friends or even get a better paying job. And the manuscript of the story idea I’ve been working on sits unfinished, my dreams of being a published author unmet. I have failed to achieve the invisible milestones that society dictates a woman should have at my age.

Yet despite it all, I don’t feel defeated. If anything, I’m happier, somewhat wiser and braver than before. And for the first time, I’m able to look back on a year with no regrets. To me 2025 defines the year I did some pretty cool things like make champagne chocolate truffles in Switzerland and share a crêpe in Paris with my sister, meet my online friend of eight years for the first time in Germany and walk around rainy London with my best friend and our friendship bracelets. I also went to the walk of fame in Hollywood; took a spontaneous trip to Mexico and friends who had moved out of state came to visit me.

There were lots of K-pop fangirl moments this year too and along the way, the understanding that dreams can change, and it’s okay if the future I initially wanted never came to be, something I talked about more in detailed in my previous post, Turn Your Life into a K-drama, since it led me to find myself again, a version that exists now only because I didn’t stay in my comfort zone. And here are the books that became my top favorite reads in this year of self-reflection:

And I can’t end this post or year for that matter without mentioning my current obsession, a certain Chinese drama that premiered on Netflix and truth be told, I only clicked on because I saw Song Weilong starred in it, and I had seen him in another c-drama and loved it, so I figured, why not?

Yet, I had no idea how captivated I’d be by this drama. Shine on Me is top tier romance and has everything from workplace romance, unrequited love, college nostalgia, and my favorite trope, friends to lovers. It features a handsome tall love interest (Lin Yusen) who’s a neurosurgeon turned businessman with a heart of gold that does everything to help our heroine (Nie Xiguang) and win her affection as she navigates adulthood after graduation.

Am I just a hopeless romantic? Maybe. But I’d like to call it optimism. And that’s exactly the feeling I’m going into 2026 with.

See you next year.