2025: The colour pink, guided meditations & mirrors

I catch myself in the mirror these mornings and resist the urge to say, “Well, well well… who do we have here?”

I search my eyes for something, and I don’t know exactly what that is. I look at myself some moments expectantly, other times reassuringly, but mostly the way you might look at a child wondering what or who it is they might become. An absentminded gaze, the heart not weighed by any one thing or feeling in particular.

I’m back in Down Under—again. Here, on a warm, lazy coast. Another chapter, another pause before whatever comes next. I feel I’ve returned from two such different lives, Thailand and Spain, places that existed like parallel universes to each other, and to me.

If I sat down with myself three years ago, I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Three birthdays, three continents, six countries—if it were served as a meal, I’d be full. Satiated. And yet, there’s always space for something more.

A lot happened in between. Love and loss, learning, unlearning, courage, bravery, sangria. Exploring new places and returning to old ones, sitting down with past selves and realizing that remembering is sometimes more important than chasing the next best, new thing.

The last time I was in Australia, it was a brief intermission—a stop between Spain and Thailand, spent on Mullalone (I wrote a love letter to Mullalone here), on the mid-north coast. Now, I’ve landed in another pocket of this massive country I haven’t yet settled in, another place to get to know.

I’ve been living in an endless summer. Even Thailand’s wet season never dipped below 30 degrees, and from the Mediterranean dreams of Spain to the golden coasts of South Africa, the sun has been beaming down on me, warming me from the inside out for a long time now. The kind of heat that settles into the bones, that makes its way into the way I move—slower, softer. And now, I’m taking some time to just be. To unpack, to settle, to float in the Pacific, pretending I’m still holding hands with the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, too.

And yet, I feel homesick—even though I’m home, in a way. But that feeling has never really left me, that deep pull, the longing for something, somewhere, that can’t quite be named. Saudade, the Portuguese call it. The ache for something that has already passed, or something that may never be again. It’s in the spaces between, in the places I leave and the ones I return to. It lingers, always.

But if there’s one thing I know now, it’s not to take the in-between, the limbo, for granted.

I actually might have the belief (at this stage, anyway) that 2025 is meant to be a year of stillness and fire, of watching the world soften as I shift perspective, and change my mind about a few things.

I am always reminding myself of how we must learn to depart from certain eras of our lives with a gentle sort of ruthlessness.

This can look like any one or two or a hundred things. How we transmute and transform is nothing to apologise for or be ashamed of.

I am the force that moves me forward, and for me that may look like spending more time pausing—hands open, eyes closed, the weight of my own thoughts loosening as I press play on a guided meditation, slipping into another world when this one fails to hold me. Maybe that’s the secret I’ve been circling all along: that there are always more doors, more dimensions, more places to go when I surrender to the quiet. I used to think motion was the answer, but I see now that stillness is its own kind of movement, its own rebellion.

I’m also turning 30 this year, how beautiful is that 3? and 0? I’ve always loved odd numbers, and we all know 3 is lucky. It’s my Saturn return, and I welcome it with open arms.

I have an anticipating feeling that 30 is going to feel like stepping into a room where my younger selves are already waiting, nodding at me as if to say, yes, finally.

I’ve always loved Joan Didion’s advice about staying on nodding terms with who you used to be, and for me it’s part of also becoming someone my past selves never imagined, but always silently, patiently, hoped for. I refuse to stay past closing hour, and I will always belong wholeheartedly to myself first.

I mustn’t rush to the next adventure. Because I won’t always be with this version of myself, in this space, with these people, in this exact moment. And so, I will slow down, and I will be with her.

2025, it’s early days, but I have a feeling about you, and I’m watching you closely.

Hold me, take care of me, let me go and then welcome me back with open arms. Show me brilliance, I dare you. Tell me, “I told you so” too many times to count, and help me when I catch myself in the mirror to rather just lean in and kiss her.