My 2025 Wrapped

So I’ve been observing how everyone's doing their Spotify Wrapped, YouTube Wrapped, literally-every-app-that-exists Wrapped? Well, here's mine. Except instead of telling you I listened to sad girl music 47,000 times, I'm going to tell you about how 2025 was the year I simultaneously had my life together and fell apart, sometimes within the same 24-hour period.

It's January 14th, 2026. I should have written this on January 1st like every other organized human with their life in order, but here's the thing about me: I'm the kind of person who makes ambitious plans and then gets so overwhelmed by the ambition that I procrastinate on the very thing I'm ambitious about. So yes, I'm two weeks late to my own life review. Very on brand for me, honestly.

2025 started with me coming back from camp, exhausted, spiritually recharged, and filled with that particular spirit of optimism that makes you think this year will be different. You know that feeling? Where you're convinced that THIS is the year you'll finally get your life together, track your expenses, become the person who has color-coded spreadsheets and knows exactly where every naira goes?

Yeah, I was that delusional. Or optimistic.

I don't really believe in New Year resolutions, they feel like setting yourself up for the specific disappointment of failing by February, but I do believe in growth. In scaling what already exists. In doing better with what you've been given.

I told myself 2025 was the year I'd document my income streams. Before then, my financial system was essentially: someone reaches out for graphic design work → I do the work → I get paid → the money disappears into the void of "things I definitely needed" (I didn't need them) → occasionally I save something → mostly I don't.

It was chaos. Beautiful, untracked chaos. My bank account was a mystery even to me. I was making money from graphic design and writing but had no idea how much or from where or whether I was actually profitable or just busy. You know, that thing where you're working all the time but somehow still broke? That was me.

So I decided 2025 would be different. I'd track everything. I'd have spreadsheets. I'd be financially literate and responsible and all those adult things people do.

I lasted until March.

MARCH.

Not even halfway through the year. Not even close to halfway. I just... stopped. I don't even know what happened. Life became so busy. School intensified. Deadlines stacked. One day I was diligently recording every transaction like a responsible adult, and the next day I was back to my chaotic "money comes, money goes, who even knows" system.

But you know what? I'm not even mad about it. Because while I failed spectacularly at that one specific goal, I accidentally succeeded at approximately seventeen other things I didn't even know I was working toward.

2025 was the year I took my fitness more seriously, which means I became one of those people. You know the type—the ones who talk about the importance of fruits and hydration and moving your body unprompted, who suddenly care about what they eat, who actually understand what "macros" means.

I became her. I am her now. Not the her her,but at least .I'm not even sorry.

I started actually caring about what I put in my body instead of operating on the "eat whatever, whenever, consequences are future me's problem" system I'd been running on for years. Revolutionary concept, I know.

I discovered that moving your body regularly makes you feel less like a sentient blob of exhaustion and more like a human being with energy and agency. Wild, right? Turns out all those insufferable fitness people were onto something, and I hate that they were right but also I love that I feel this good now.

Here's something we all know about being a people pleaser: it's exhausting. It's soul-crushing. It's a slow death where you smile and say "yes, of course" while internally screaming.

I used to be that person. I've always been vocal though. Never really the "suffer in silence" type, but I realized I was still people-pleasing in quiet, draining ways. The "yes" person. The "I don't want to cause problems" person. The "it's fine, I'm fine, everything's fine" person while nothing was fine.

2025 was the year I said no. Like, actual no. Not "maybe later" or "I'll think about it" or "let me check my schedule" (knowing full well my schedule is free but I just don't want to). Just no. Clean, clear, unapologetic no.

And you know what happened? The world didn't end. People didn't hate me(this is what I like to believe). The sky didn't fall. Some people were upset, sure, but those people were upset because I stopped letting them take advantage of me, which means they were never really my people anyway.

I became "a little bit more wicked" as I called it, but actually I just became someone with boundaries. I became someone who understood that being kind to myself sometimes means being less accommodating to others. I became someone who realized that my peace of mind is not a sacrifice I'm obligated to make on the altar of other people's comfort.

Revolutionary? No. Necessary? Absolutely. And it saved me.

2025 was also the year I decided to actually care about medical school instead of just surviving it. Which, considering I'm in my first year of clinical rotations, was probably good timing because you can't just coast through clinical postings the way you can coast through lectures (not that I was coasting through lectures, Dad, if you ever read this).

I was juggling pathology, pharmacology, clinical postings, and exams that never seemed to end. There were moments of burnout where I stared at my textbooks and genuinely could not process another word. Moments of doubt. Moments I questioned my capacity.

But I read. Like, actually read. Not the panicked skimming you do the night before exams while consuming dangerous amounts of caffeine and questioning your life choices. I mean intentional, deliberate, I-actually-want-to-understand-this reading. I showed up. I survived the rigors .I learned how to study differently, smarter, with intention.

I also read 200 novels in 2025, which was my target, and somehow I did it while also being in medical school, which should be impossible but I'm built different (I'm not, I just have severe FOMO about books and no self-control in bookstores).

I read books on finance because apparently watching my money disappear wasn't enough, I needed to understand the theory behind why I'm broke despite working constantly. Knowledge is power, or in my case, knowledge is knowing exactly how I'm financially irresponsible, which is a start.

Outside school, I bore responsibilities that didn't pause for exams. I worked. I freelanced. I wrote. I designed. I showed up in leadership spaces. I organized, planned, and strategized, especially with projects like TEDx, which is still pricking me mentally and emotionally in ways I didn't expect.

But here's the big one, the thing that makes me tear up even now: 2025 was actually also the year I finished memorizing the Quran properly.

Do you understand what that means? Do you understand how long I've been working toward this? How many times I wanted to quit? How many times I felt like I was too slow, too forgetful, too distracted, too everything?

Spiritually, 2025 was honest. I fell off at some point. I struggled. I questioned myself. And then, slowly, I returned.

And then I finished it. I actually finished it. Me, the girl who sometimes can't remember what she ate for breakfast, memorized 114 surahs, 6,236 verses, over 77,000 words of divine revelation.

I finished it at midnight. I cried. Like, ugly cried. The kind of crying where you can't breathe and your face is a mess and you don't even care because you just accomplished something you've been dreaming about for years.

It was the hardest thing I've ever done. It was also the most worthwhile thing I've ever done. Every moment of frustration, every tear, every time I had to review the same page seventeen times because it wouldn't stick, it was worth it.

Alhamdulillah. That's all I can say. Alhamdulillah for the ability, the opportunity, the patience, the teachers, the quiet moments in the morning when it was just me and the words of Allah. Alhamdulillah, Allah made it easy. I'm still in awe of that version of me who didn't give up.

2025 was also the year I finished the first draft of my first book.

My FIRST BOOK. A whole book. That I wrote. With my hands. Using my brain.

I've always had this dream of finishing a book before a certain age, and I did it. I actually did it. I had a deadline I set for myself, and I met it, and I'm still in shock that I'm a person who finishes things she starts because historically, I am not that person.

I finished it at midnight (apparently I do all my significant life things at midnight, which is very dramatic and on brand). I cried. Again. Different kind of crying than the Quran crying but equally emotional. The kind of crying where you realize you're actually capable of more than you thought you were.

The book isn't published. It's not even fully edited. It's a messy first draft that probably needs seventeen rounds of revision. But it exists. It's real. I made something from nothing, took an idea and turned it into 50,000+ words, created characters and conflicts and a whole world that didn't exist before I wrote it.

That's insane. That's actual magic. I'm a magician and I didn't even know it.

I also read all of Khaled Hosseini's books in 2025, which was beautiful and devastating and left me emotionally wrecked for weeks.

If you've read Hosseini, you know. You KNOW. That man doesn't write books, he writes emotional destruction disguised as literature. He writes the kind of stories that make you question everything you thought you knew about humanity, about love, about sacrifice, about what it means to be alive and flawed and trying.

I cried. Multiple times. For different reasons. Sometimes because the writing was beautiful, sometimes because the stories were heartbreaking, sometimes because they made me think about my own life, my own choices, my own capacity for both cruelty and kindness.

Those books made me retrospective in ways I didn't expect. They made me look at my life and ask uncomfortable questions. They made me grateful for things I'd taken for granted. They made me better, somehow, just by breaking my heart and putting it back together slightly different than before. They forced me to reflect, to sit with pain, to understand humanity better.

2025 was the year I became more free. Not in the "quit my responsibilities and run away to a beach" way (though that sounds nice), but in the "stopped overthinking every single thing" way.

I learned to exist in the moment instead of constantly monitoring whether the moment was good enough, memorable enough, worthy enough. I learned that some of the best moments are the ones that would make terrible content—the quiet ones, the ordinary ones, the ones that matter only to you. I learned to exist in the present moment instead of constantly chasing the next milestone.

I became more goofy. I let myself be ridiculous. I did things that past me would have thought were too childish or too weird or too much. I laughed at my own jokes even when nobody else did. I danced in my room for no reason. I spoke to myself more in public than I did in 2024.

I allowed myself to feel things I normally wouldn't allow. Joy without waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sadness without immediately trying to fix it. Anger without apologizing for having it. Excitement without tempering it with "but what if it doesn't work out."

I gave myself permission to be human instead of trying to be perfect. Revolutionary concept again, I know.

Here's one thing about growing up: you realize that past you did the best she could with the information she had. She made mistakes, sure, but she made them while learning, while trying, while figuring things out in real-time with no manual and no guarantee of success.

2025 was the year I stopped punishing myself for not knowing things I couldn't have known. I forgave myself for the times I chose wrong because I didn't know what right looked like yet. I forgave myself for resting when I needed to rest. I forgave myself for being human, imperfect, inconsistent, trying my best.

I gave myself credit. Actual credit, not the grudging "I guess I did okay" kind, but the real "look at what you've accomplished despite everything" kind.

I looked around at people my age, not to compare, but to gain perspective. There are people my age who aren't even thinking about their future, who aren't working toward anything, who aren't trying. And here I am, doing stuff, growing and learning and trying despite being tired and overwhelmed and sometimes wanting to give up.

That's progress. That's growth. That's something worth acknowledging instead of dismissing because I'm not exactly where I want to be yet. That deserves credit.

2025 was also my first year of clinical postings, which means I transitioned from sitting in lecture rooms trying to stay awake while professors drone on about pathophysiology to actually being in hospitals, seeing patients, doing procedures, being the medical student everyone tolerates while I'm learning not to kill people.

I entered the operating theater. I saw surgeries. Real surgeries on real people with real blood and real organs and honestly it was terrifying and fascinating and I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about it but I showed up and I didn't faint so that's a win (the first time , I was almost carried out of the OR). Medicine stopped being abstract and became human.

I did hands-on procedures: cannulation, catheterization, NG tube insertion. I put needles in people's veins. I put catheters in places I'd rather not describe. I did things that would have made first-year me absolutely pass out from anxiety. I also got to start learning suturing.

And I was good at it. Like, actually good at it. Which is wild because impostor syndrome has been my constant companion through medical school (throughout my life) , whispering that I don't belong here, that I'm not smart enough, that everyone will realize I'm faking it.

But when you successfully cannulate a patient with difficult veins on the first try, when you insert an NG tube correctly, when you assist in theater and the surgeon actually acknowledges you did well, impostor syndrome gets a little quieter.

2025 made medicine real. And it made me realize I can actually do this.

Despite my spectacular failure at tracking my income, I somehow achieved a level of financial freedom in 2025 that I've never had before.

Not "I'm rich" financial freedom. More like "I can buy groceries without checking my account balance first" financial freedom. "I can handle an unexpected expense without having a panic attack" financial freedom. "I can occasionally treat myself without guilt" financial freedom.

It's not much by some people's standards, but for someone who grew up watching money stress destroy peace of mind, it's everything. It's security. It's options. It's the ability to say no to things that don't serve me because I'm not desperately dependent on every opportunity that comes my way.

I did that. Past me built that for present me, and present me is so grateful.

2025 was also the year I planned a lot of big things. Things I'm not ready to talk about publicly yet because they're still in that fragile stage where speaking them out loud feels like jinxing them.

But they're there. Seeds I planted in 2025 that I'm hoping will grow into something beautiful in 2026. Projects I started. Skills I'm building. Dreams I'm working toward quietly while everyone else is watching the public-facing version of my life (or no one).

That's the thing about growth, the most significant parts often happen underground, invisible, unimpressive to observers. But the roots have to go deep before anything can grow tall.

2025, I hosted my first graphic design class against all the fears I harbour. I had 25 students which I believe wasn't bad for a start. I did some beautiful things and also messed up at times but hey,who said a first trial has to be seamless.

2025,I let myself like someone for the first time or maybe I didn't let myself,it was just a spiral of events I couldn't control. But I let myself grow on thr fact that it's neither haram nor is ut a betrayal to whoever my future husband is going to be. All that really mattered was not thr feelings but the resultant action which I can assure you was nothing.

2025, I let myself bask in the comfort of all I have worked hard to earn without the constant fear of “what if the money finishes?”. And it didn't finish.

2025,I played in the rain a lot.

So here I am, two weeks into 2026, looking back at 2025 and realizing it was simultaneously the hardest and best year I've had so far.

It was the year I finished memorizing Quran. The year I finished my first book. The year I started clinical rotations and discovered I'm actually capable of doing medical things without killing people or throwing up on them. The year I set boundaries and stopped people-pleasing myself to death. The year I took my health seriously. The year I read 200 novels and cried over Khaled Hosseini and learned and grew and became more myself than I've ever been.

It was also the year I failed at financial tracking, struggled with consistency, occasionally felt like I was drowning in responsibilities, questioned whether I was doing enough, compared myself to people I shouldn't compare myself to, and had moments where I wanted to quit everything and become a hermit in the mountains.

Both things are true. That's exactly how it is with growth, it's messy. It's not a straight line from point A to point B. It's zigzagging and backtracking and sometimes going in circles before you realize you've actually been moving forward the whole time.

In many ways, 2025 was the year I became that girl, not in an aesthetic sense, but in a becoming-myself sense. It was messy. Exhausting. Transformational.

And now it's 2026, and I have that same optimistic delusion I had at the beginning of 2025, except now I'm also armed with the knowledge of what I'm actually capable of when I stop doubting myself long enough to try.

2026 is going to be better. Not because I'm making grand resolutions I won't keep or setting impossible standards I'll fail to meet, but because I'm bringing forward everything I learned in 2025. The boundaries I set. The confidence I built. The skills I developed. The person I became when I stopped trying to be who I thought I should be and started being who I actually am.

2026 is going to be the year of completion, finishing what I started, following through, showing up consistently even when it's hard. It's going to be the year of refinement—taking the rough drafts of 2025 and polishing them into something I'm proud of. It's going to be the year of expansion, taking up more space, speaking up more, taking risks I would have been too scared to take before.

Or maybe it won't be any of those things. Maybe 2026 will surprise me with challenges I can't predict and victories I didn't plan for. Maybe I'll fail at some things and succeed at others. Maybe I'll end next January writing another retrospective about how I didn't accomplish what I set out to but somehow accomplished something better.

Either way, I'm here for it. I'm showing up. I'm trying. I'm being kinder to myself when I fail and celebrating harder when I succeed.

That's my 2025 wrap. That's my life update. That's me, two weeks late and slightly chaotic, telling you that growth is messy and beautiful and worth it even when it's hard.

Alhamdulillah for all of it, the failures that taught me, the successes that surprised me, the ordinary moments that made up an extraordinary year.

And if this was what 2025 could do, I know, with certainty, that 2026 will be even better.

Here's to 2026. Here's to becoming. Here's to the audacity of trying again ,champs.🥂🤍

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P.S. - If you made it this far, thank you for reading my essay-length life update. I promise next time I'll be on time. (I probably won't, but it's nice to pretend.)

~I forgot, this was also the year I had my white coat ceremony, and this day , I had loads of fun with my friends.

Ok,bye!