and you, how will you live?

that is how i want these years to be remembered

18.01.2026

25 years of life. i feel the anguish of my time on this earth and don’t know what to do about it. i thought about walking through the past. a walk through my 25 winters.

i’ve been thinking about everything a lot and it all seems—i don’t know. it all seems so far away, out of reach just as a balloon drifting freely in the sky. and i wish i could understand what i feel. it all sounds so bad. i can’t even decide what to have for dinner, so i starve for days. the paralysis spreads beyond food—what to wear, which path to take, whether to answer a message or let it sit for weeks. every choice feels weighted, like choosing wrong will prove i’m exactly as lost as i fear i am. so i choose nothing.

because choosing means committing to being someone, and i’m still not sure who that someone is supposed to be. i look back and see all the versions of me i’ve tried on—costumes in a boutique of characters. and then all i want to do is leave. go home and leave this dreadful shop.

you’re alive only when you remember. they say life begins when you have your first memory. mine? which one is my first memory? they are all confused, snippets of a passed life, of times that don’t have a clean timeline. was this when i was 7? was this other earlier, maybe i was 5? i don’t remember. so since when am i alive?

is it enough to just remember? or do you have to feel it again—be tethered to the moment to the point that it burns and freezes at once—for the memory to mean you lived it? because i have all these fragments, these scenes stored away, but when i replay them, i’m watching from outside. it’s only when the emotion hits, when nostalgia floods in, that the ache returns and i can taste the summer air. that’s when i know i was really there. that’s when the memory becomes alive. and maybe that’s what living is: not just experiencing, but feeling it enough that it leaves a scar. something that throbs when you touch it years later.

all this time that has gone by, and i remember only a fraction of it all. what do i remember of 2025? the trip to london? the wasteland of eliot? the architecture class? the trip to japan? that boy who haunts you still?

i will forever write a story in my head, just because i’m a coward to do them in real life.

this is what i would like to change. my cowardice to make it morph into prowess, into momentum. because i fucking want to start living. i want to live. i want to feel whole again. and i see it. the pieces falling into place, the notes forming a melody. and maybe that is what the next 25 years will do for me: kintsugi.

maybe the first 25 years were to break all of these bowls—the different bowls i created, all my personalities and characters, all the persons i’ve met. breaking them open to see what was inside, to see which versions of myself were genuine and which were just performances for an audience that never truly watched. and then choosing. choosing the parts i want to keep and the ones that don’t serve me anymore. the shattered pieces scattered across the floor—some too sharp to touch, some so worn they crumble to dust. and with the gold thread of time, merging all the past persons i’ve been into one. the cracks visible, the seams showing. kintsugi doesn’t hide the damage. it says: yes, i broke. yes, i fell apart. and look how the light catches in the gold now. look how the fractures have become the most interesting part of me.

only the cracked ones let the light through.

so what am i? how am i? happy? sad? curious? yeah, maybe all of them together. a quarter of a century gone, and i’ve grown. the candles on the cake melt faster than i can count them. wax dripping away like the years i keep trying to hold onto.

it’s stupid to think this way. like, there is no clear cut. there is no script. it’s just my mind spiralling and fighting with itself. i am still young. and i want to remain young, interiorly. i want to laugh after all the years that i haven’t. i need to make up for all the years i’ve wasted.

years. yes. well, no year is wasted. kind of it is. they go by and time moves. there’s no stopping it. like a blender, whether you close it or just let it all go around you, it’s up to you. it has always been up to you. if you focus on how beautiful it is to learn new things, how fun it is to obsess over facts or over books—that is life. how you perceive a day, even if it rains. it’s raining! and it’s awesome anyway. i remember one afternoon last spring, walking home from class with no umbrella. the sky opened up and i should have run, should have been annoyed, but instead i just kept walking. slowly. feeling the rain soak through my clothes, watching the pavement darken, breathing in that petrichor—god, that smell. childhood in a single breath. for once i wasn’t thinking about what i should be doing or who i should be becoming. that’s the feeling i want more of.

or when the other day i fell down again on the streets (yes i might spend more time on the street floor than upright). it had snowed for the first time this year, and i wanted to go for a walk (yes me and my walks) and i just slipped. i wasn’t angry, or embarrassed, or i don’t know. i just laughed. and thanked for my still young-ish body (the next day i had back pain, but oh well, now i am just as new).

or when (daily) in the late afternoon, i just put my earphones on, full volume, and dance in my room. that feeling oh god. that is how i want these years to be remembered.

they say new year, new me. fuck that. new year, old me. the child who danced in her room, who made thirty pirouettes just because she wanted them to be good. when the world seemed to be moving so fast and everything blurred out. and my whole existence merged into one single moment.

or when i was doing grand jetés in the living room, because i had to relive the suspended moment. i wanted to remain adrift in that fraction of second in air. that is what i want this 25th year to feel like.

all i fear is that i might not have all the time in the world. it’s already rushing away without me, and i don’t have the fulfilment i expected. that’s probably what makes me sad: the regret of the past years, not having ticked the boxes i expected to have done. and then there is the fear of never having the possibility again. maybe it’s just that. i want my years back. that’s it. that’s the why i want to go back: to remain frozen at this age, holding on to all the years that have passed and the ones still to come. time, time, time. it’s time to take stock of these years, and the result? well it’s not what i wanted it to be.

but fuck. who cares? i do. but i shouldn’t. i shouldn’t, because i want to be happy in my life, and all this grudge just makes me desperate. and i have to focus on the good stuff. that’s my 25 years resolution: focus on the good. on the good, sofy. i want to focus on the good. and some days i see it—i’m already doing it.

so here’s to the me who, in 25 years, will turn 50: i hope you have focused and still are focusing on the good. i hope you got everything you wanted. and i hope—i really hope—you haven’t lost your light. you can’t lose what is inherently yours. just dig deeper, dive surer, fly higher, and burn brighter. you have it. you are it. it will always stay there. maybe you will lose it, like a simple tv remote, misplace it, search frantically, swear it's gone. but it's there. it’s there.

it has always been there, and it always will be.

i don’t know you, but right now, i’ve known and remember the early versions of us. some times, some moments, i miss them—nostalgic for those times, nostalgic to be in the memory that forms so clearly in my head. but then here i am, sitting on this uncomfortable chair (i hope you have a better one) in sweatpants, drinking tea. and it’s snowing outside, and i’m content with what we have.

i hope in 25 years you’ll look back—yeah, of course nostalgic, because without nostalgia what are we? let’s leave the melancholia aside, shall we? i hope we’ll look back not wanting to hide in the past, but with loving eyes and see how far we’ve come, how happy we have been.

so, at last, i ask: and you, how will you live?