If 2025 Me Could See Me Now: A Lot Can Change in a Year

A commitment to show up and write my truth | Day 272 of 365

If you've been anywhere near TikTok this month, you've seen the trend where people picture their 2025 selves getting a recap from who they are now. Some of them are glowing. Some are laughing. Some are quietly crying in the car.

I watched a few and thought, okay, fine, I'll play.

If 2025 me could see me now, I don't think her first question would be a deep one.

She'd look around and ask, "Wait. Where is all our stuff?"

A year ago, we were living in an apartment that felt like the dream. We traveled constantly, mostly between two big cities, but we had our routines and our comforts. We had systems and structure, and help when we needed it. Life wasn't simple, exactly. It was simpler. We were comfortable financially, my businesses were growing, and everything had a rhythm to it. From the outside, and honestly a lot of the time from the inside, it looked like it was all working.

Then I chose to take nearly everything that felt certain, put our belongings in storage, and spend the summer on an adventure with my husband and our young daughter.

2025 me would have had questions. She might have staged an intervention.

A Lot Can Change in a Year, and Not All of It Looks Like Progress

When we talk about a year of change, we tend to skip to the ending. The finished house, the thriving business, the healed relationship, the woman smiling next to a quote about trusting the journey.

I don't have that ending to hand you. What I have is the truth that a lot can change in a year, and most of it arrives without a bow on top.

We still don't have a permanent home with all our things around us. We aren't settled in the city we used to call ours, and we don't have the presence there that once made life feel familiar. Financially, emotionally, and physically, this has been harder than I expected. Nothing has magically worked out. It is all still in process.

The odd part is that a lot of it was on purpose. I was willing to take apart things that worked, because I knew they wouldn't keep working the way I needed them to. That meant giving up a significant amount of income. It meant questioning business models I'd spent years building, and choosing long-term stability over short-term comfort with no promise that the new plan would pan out.

There have been magical moments. There have also been moments when I cried in the bathroom and hoped, more than believed, that everything would somehow be okay.

Both of those are true, and I've stopped trying to pick one.

Maybe your version doesn't involve a storage unit. Maybe a year ago you were in a different job, or a different marriage, or a different city, or a body that felt more like yours. Maybe you lost someone. Maybe you outgrew something you'd worked hard to earn. You might be looking at your life right now and wondering why it doesn't look anything like the progress picture you were sure you'd have by now.

I know that feeling well. I'm sitting in it with you.

What I Wanted Success to Look Like, and What It Looks Like Now

A year ago, I would have told you success meant having a successful business.

I no longer think that's enough. I want businesses with real systems and structure, ones that can run without leaning mostly on me. I don't want to be the person holding every moving part together while insisting she's fine. So my new version of personal growth involves handing things off, putting systems on autopilot, and walking straight into fires I used to tiptoe around.

Sometimes growth looks like earning more. Sometimes it looks like walking away from income because you finally understand what staying would cost. Sometimes it looks like having everything together, and sometimes it looks like putting everything in storage.

The Whole Season, Looking Back

When I read back over the last few weeks of writing, I can see this year all through it.

I wrote about a temporary house that doesn't feel like me, and a single candle trying to do the work of an entire home. I wrote about being blindsided by someone I thought I knew, and how I'm learning to trust myself anyway. I wrote about the people who become part of our story, about how much I was carrying, and about a morning at a red light when news arrived that I never chose. I wrote about how I don't have to find a lesson in every hard day. And I wrote about a Tuesday when the four of us sat down to bagels and I noticed I was happy while it was happening.

None of those posts wrapped up neatly, and I've stopped apologizing for that.

What I see now, stacked together, is a woman who kept getting up. A woman who was grateful and homesick in the same breath, tired and hopeful before lunch, sure of her choice on Monday and doubting it by Wednesday. I don't think any of that means I chose wrong. I think it's what it feels like to build something new while the old thing is still fresh in your hands.

What I'd Tell the Woman I Was

If I could sit next to my 2025 self for five minutes, I'd tell her this.

You're about to start a very hard adventure. Some days will feel magical. Other days you'll wonder if you lost your mind. You'll cry in bathrooms. You'll miss your routines and your home and the version of your life that made sense. You'll find out that trusting yourself sounds inspiring until you have to do it without any proof it will all be okay.

Then you'll look at your daughter and remember who you're doing this for.

You'll look in the mirror and remember you're doing it for yourself, too.

And somewhere along the way, you'll realize you're also doing it so another woman can see that it's possible to walk into the unknown without pretending she isn't scared.

Please don't be ashamed that you're struggling. We act as though people are supposed to waltz gracefully through hard things, as though real change arrives with good lighting and a soundtrack.

It doesn't.

You don't waltz through hardship. You go through it. Sometimes you dance for a few steps. Sometimes you fall on your face. Sometimes you literally fall on your face.

Then you get up, and you go on.

Grateful for This Year, Unfinished As It Is

I want to say thank you, and I mean it more than I can fit in a sentence.

Thank you to my husband, who said yes to this. Thank you to my daughter, who has no idea how much she's been the reason. Thank you to the team who kept showing up while everything shifted, and to the people who were generous with their time and their knowledge when I was still figuring it out. And thank you to you, for being here on day 272, on the days I had something wise to say and the days I only had a candle and a drip coffee maker.

Somewhere in a storage unit, Nessie and Nessoo, my Nespresso therapists (just kidding, not really), are still waiting. I am still considerably less patient than they are.

If 2025 me could see me now, she might not understand every decision I've made. She'd be startled by how unfinished it all still looks. But I think she'd recognize something in me that she'd been quietly trying to find in herself: the courage to let go of a life that worked so I could build one that truly fits.

And I think she'd be proud.

There are ninety-three days left in this promise. I'm still going.

About the Author | Day 272 of 365

I'm a soul-led coach, entrepreneur, mother, and recovering perfectionist, currently navigating healing, uncertainty, temporary chapters, motherhood, work, big transitions, grief, nervous system healing, overstimulation, emotional growth, and the ongoing lesson that life works a whole lot better when we stop trying to carry everything alone. Today that lesson looked like admitting I took apart a comfortable life on purpose, that the rebuilding is still unfinished, and that struggling doesn't mean I made the wrong choice.

Day 272 of 365. Still showing up. Still grateful. Still getting up and going on. 🐧