The Chapters Of Life

I’ve always treated my life like a book. Still being written, but pocketed into chapters. I’m not sure if other people are like me, but everything in my life is divided into folders, chapters, pockets, drawers, and even my notebooks (I currently own 5 Moleskine journals - each with its own purpose).

Every big stage or milestone in my life is marked as a “chapter” in my brain: high school years, my first job, the few years I struggled with depression (that one is mostly a blur), and countless other chapters that define the thirty-something years of my life.

Take my college years, for example. A new chapter began the moment I got my acceptance letter. I remember sitting in my desk, tears almost sliding down my face as I told my family that I got into college. Relief, joy, and disbelief all mixed up in my feelings. All the waiting, hoping, being rejected, suddenly made sense in that one moment.

Everything before that closed like as a previous chapter and carefully stored in my memory, alongside all the other chapters that came before. For four years, the “college chapter” unfolded with the highs and lows of life: late-night study sessions, new friendships that felt eternal, heartbreaks that hurt like a punch on the stomach, small victories that made me feel invincible, and countless lessons learned in simple ordinary days. It ended the day I walked across the stage to accept my diploma with the applause of my friends and family echoing in my heart.

Now, as I write this with just one month left in 2025, I take a break and ask myself: Where am I? What would I call the chapter I’m living right now?
The first word that comes to mind is:

“Healing”

Looking back on this year, I can confidently say it has been the toughest and most challenging of my life. I lost my job early in the year, and finding a steady one has been a struggle. Financial pressure has weighed heavily, and several new projects I started ended in failure. Professionally and financially, I have felt more lost than ever before.

And yet, despite the weight of it all, there are gifts I could never have imagined. Things that once felt distant, even impossible.

Through therapy (that I started exactly a year ago), I’ve finally found a sense of mental stability and assurance. Just a year ago, life felt meaningless, hopeless, and heavy, and I was drowning in depression and self-doubt. Now, I can breathe. My relationship with my parents has deepened in ways I never expected. I’ve nurtured my mental and physical health, noticing small changes that made me love myself a little more every day.

I’ve started living differently. Noticing the quiet beauty in ordinary moments, learning to let go of what I cannot control, forgiving myself and others, and understanding that I am not alone. I’ve realized that even amidst hardship, life can teach you lessons too beautiful to ignore.

So, yes. 2025 was financially and professionally brutal. I am still unsure of how I will navigate the next few months. But the growth, the perspective, and the resilience I’ve gained this year outweigh all the fear. Even if I could go back in time, I would choose this growth over stability, because nothing I’ve learned about myself this year could have been bought or earned in any other way.

These lessons give me hope. They remind me that even in the darkest chapters, there is space for joy. I can end this year with gratitude and begin the next as a different person.
A chapter where healing transforms into action, transformation, and, eventually, results.

So, I ask you: what chapter are you in your life right now?

If your life were a book, what would you call this chapter?