123: Looking Back Gently

Dec 27, 2025

Dear reader,

It is December, and I find myself looking back at this entire year and so utterly grateful for everything it has held within it.

At the start of the year, I wrote down seven goals on a piece of paper, and propped it up on my desk. Every morning, invariably as I’m hunting for something that’s right before my eyes, I look at the list, and think of what’s left.

I’ve now struck off 6 out of those 7 goals. But my mind insists on obsessing over the 7th undone item. The one that was potentially the hardest to do. And this tendency to focus on what’s left, instead of celebrating every thing that got done, is erasing my joy.

So, I’ve spent these last few days reminding myself that perhaps, it is okay, to not do everything we set out to.

In 2025, I wanted to submit my work a 100 times. And I did that, but I can’t, with all my heart, say I recommend this.

For it is frightfully disheartening to watch the rejections trickle in. And as much as the acceptances have made my heart run wild and have kept me going, the string of rejections has been awfully hard to bear. I had a four-month long window between acceptances in the second half of the year, and it has kept me awake and in despair. Late at night I’d ponder over questions I don’t have the answers to, and sometimes wake up at four am, just so I could refresh my inbox. Not ideal.

It’s also another kind of heartbreak to have a poem you love get rejected repeatedly. One of my favourite poems has been rejected fifteen times now, and I don’t really know how to make it any better. So, I’m just letting it sit in my poems folder, hoping that time will point me in the right direction.

I know the saying goes if you don’t try, you will not succeed. And it is, to some extent a numbers game. That much is true. But maybe the answer is to not have a numerical goal post.

I find, with any kind of absolute quantitative goal, I am obsessed with getting to it. I leave myself no breathing room, no leeway, no margin for error - nothing. It is something I need to get better at, but that kind of pressure is wholly unnecessary when pursuing something creative.

I’m also attempting to be braver about celebrating myself.

So, as 2025 fades out, I want to share two pieces that were published this month with you. A really tender poem in The Turning Leaf Journal and a haiku and interview in Humana Obscura.

From the **Humana Obscura Winter 2025 Edition**

Here’s hoping for 2026, I have the good sense to set my goals in a way that leaves me some wiggle room. Because the thing with life is, you’re always going to need some.

And maybe growth can be identifying your own limitations, and accounting for them in the first place, instead of trying to turn into a whole new person you do not recognise. :)

Books I’ve Loved in 2025

I read some gorgeous books this year, but here are my standout favourites-

Orbital by Samantha Harvey - an exploration of awe for this planet we live on and the tenderness of being alive, through the lives of six astronauts over a single day as they orbit Earth.

The Anthropologists by Ayşegül Savaş - this book raises questions that a lot of people want answers to: what does it mean to be a young couple living in a country that is not yours? what is home? what do we really want?

The Universe in Verse: a collection put together by Maria Popova - pairs essays on scientific concepts along with poems and this book is pure joy for anyone who has a keen interest in learning about this world we live in.

Instructions for Travelling West by Joy Sullivan - these poems have broken me and put me back together and turned me into a jar of envy because I wish I could write as eloquently as Joy. Her poems on womanhood and her childhood are somehow full of a desperate ache but also a sturdy hope.

They Gather Around Me, The Animals by Kunjana Parashar - this book of poems is filled with tiny moments and little creatures that spark awe and I’m constantly astounded by her ability to observe not just what is present but more importantly what is fading.

The Wedding People by Alison Espach - explores the idea of what a life should look like, and the dissonance that exists within all of us because we are too afraid to say our desires out loud. This book asks you to be yourself, to accept yourself—which is perhaps the hardest thing any of us can ever do. (Content warning: this book contains both infertility and suicidal ideation)