this year unfolded like a spiral. not a collapse, not a detour, but a return that never quite landed in the same place twice.
i used to think spirals were failures of direction. proof that i hadn’t learned the lesson the first time. but a friend reframed it for me in a way that changed everything. spirals don’t bring you back. they only pass close enough to memory that the feeling feels familiar. you recognize the emotion and mistake recognition for regression.
in reality, each pass through the spiral asks something different of you. you carry forward what you were able to hold, and you release what you no longer need. over time, the weight shifts. the lesson stays. the ache softens. what once felt central becomes something you can observe rather than chase.
chemistry gave me language for this. spirals exist because systems are not static. they repeat with variation. they move outward even as they curve inward. what looks like chaos is often just structure viewed too closely. meaning reveals itself only when you step back.
this year, i kept circling familiar questions. about love. about worth. about timing. but each time, i noticed i wasn’t asking them from the same place. the urgency changed. the desperation faded. the questions became quieter, more curious than anxious.
there were boy issues, inevitably. i didn’t get the relationship i imagined. i didn’t get the mutual certainty i hoped for. instead, i found myself orbiting people who felt just out of reach. close enough to stir old feelings, far enough to demand reflection. for a long time, i thought closeness meant possibility. now i understand it often means remembrance. sometimes you’re near something not because it’s meant to return, but because you’re meant to understand why it mattered.
and then there was europe. distance does something profound to perspective. walking through places shaped by centuries, i realized how small my inner crises were in the context of a world so wide and waiting. not insignificant, but human. temporary. i learned that longing does not define a life. movement does.
friendship brought its own fractures. i learned that intimacy changes as people grow. that choosing yourself can feel like loss before it feels like alignment. that not all connections are meant to come with you forever. some exist only to shape you.
through all of this, boyhood interrupted became the place where i could think slowly. where i didn’t need resolution, only honesty. writing became a way to witness my own becoming without demanding that it make sense immediately. i’m proud that instead of numbing the chaos, i documented it.
now, i feel content. not because everything resolved, but because i trust where i am. i’m closer to the things i’ve been manifesting, not in outcome, but in orientation. my life feels less reactive, more intentional.
this year didn’t give me what i wanted.
it gave me what i could carry.
and maybe that is what spirals are for. not to return us to old versions of ourselves, but to pass close enough that we remember what we’ve already learned before moving on.
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