2025: Year-In-Review

This year, 2025, was a reminder that memory is hardly ever enough.

It’s not that I didn’t document the year at all. I did. I journaled. I wrote things down. But I missed many moments. I started strong, writing twice a week, then once a week, then once a month, then sometimes only once in a quarter. I documented work obsessively. Those records are intact. What I lost were personal moments.

So when I sat down to write this post, the first thing I felt was frustration.

Frustration that so much had to rely on my very shitty memory. Frustration that I had to reconstruct growth instead of simply seeing it. I know I grew this year, personally and professionally. I’m certain of that. There’s proof in my head. But there’s also proof that’s missing. Difficult moments I’ve forgotten. Easy wins I’m overlooking because they felt unremarkable at the time.

The problem with not documenting isn’t that you forget everything. It’s that you forget selectively. And selective memory has a way of flattening effort. I wish I had more evidence, not for anyone else, but for myself.

Based on what I remember, and what I managed to capture, these are some of the things 2025 taught me.

On patience, context, and seeing yourself from the outside

This year, my role as a storyteller at work expanded. The scale of what I do changed quite a bit.

What surprised me most wasn’t the responsibility that came with it. It was the patience required to hear incomplete thinking without rushing to correct it. 

When I was strictly an individual contributor, my thinking was narrower than it is now. I saw goals and immediately asked how they would be achieved. If something felt unrealistic, I said so. Usually very confidently. Last year, but most especially this year, I heard people say those same things to me, and my reaction was immediate and ironic.

Someone would say things like, “But why can’t we just do it this way?” or “Why don’t we just move the deadline?” or “If we already know the goal, what’s taking so long?” And I’d think, wow, this is such an IC thing to say.

Then I’d laugh. Loudly. Because I recognized myself in it.

Sometimes, mid-laugh, I’d stop and wonder if this was exactly how I sounded to my managers and colleagues in much more senior positions. They must have thought I was bat-shit crazy. Or at the very least, deeply unaware of how much I didn’t know.

What those questions miss, and what I missed back then, is context. The invisible constraints. The decisions already made upstream. The trade-offs you don’t get to see. The fact that sometimes the answer isn’t “we haven’t thought of that,” but “we’ve thought of it and decided against it for reasons you’re not carrying.”

Even now, I’m not done crossing that bridge. There’s still a lot I don’t know. There are moments when I say things and you can feel the room at work pause, the silent question hanging there: what is she talking about? 😂

There are still decisions being made that I genuinely appreciate but don’t fully understand. And when that happens, I realize I’m standing in the same gap I once complained about, just on the other side of it.

Experience hasn’t closed the gap. It’s made me more aware of it. I assume I’m missing information. I don’t need all the context in the world. I just need enough to do the work, hit my goals, and keep things moving.

On choosing alignment over individual brilliance

One of the biggest things I built this year was a storytelling team, from the ground up.

Over several months, I read way too many applications across multiple roles. Many candidates were excellent on paper. Skilled. Confident. Clearly competent. There was one candidate I really wanted to hire. Their technical ability was undeniable. They were extremely gifted. But something didn’t align. They didn’t share some of the company’s core beliefs. More importantly, they didn’t show signs of adapting to the culture or the direction of the work.

After conversations with much more experienced colleagues about hiring and thinking long-term, the lesson became unavoidable: skill without alignment is not neutral. It becomes friction later.

When someone is a wrong culture fit, the problem doesn’t usually show up immediately. The work still gets done. The output can even be excellent. The tension shows up quietly, over time. In how feedback is received. In how decisions are questioned. In how much energy it takes to align on priorities that others accept instinctively. Small disagreements become recurring ones. Trust disappears, not because anyone is malicious, but because you’re solving the same problems from different value systems.

Once I understood that better, rejecting people stopped being an abstract hiring decision and started feeling like a responsibility. Either I absorbed the discomfort early, by saying no to someone talented, or the team absorbed it later, through confusion, friction, resentment, and stalled work.

Still, it was hard, especially when many candidates were good. When you have five strong people and one role, someone will be disappointed no matter what you do. 

I learned, and I’m still learning, to live with that discomfort. To remind myself that choosing well still meant choosing loss.

On discipline, avoidance, and the stories we tell ourselves

Outside of work, discipline was harder.

I didn’t meet many of the personal goals I set for myself. I snoozed workout reminders the same way every morning, with the same lie that I’d make it up later. I chose K-dramas or extra work over the gym. There were moments I put on fitted dresses, stood in front of the mirror, and yelled at the fat spilling out in places I didn’t want it to be. Loudly. As if shouting would rearrange it. As if my body had betrayed me, and not the other way around.

There was an entire quarter where I half-joked, half-pleaded about Ozempic. I mentioned it so often that I probably annoyed my close friends. At one point, I even whispered it into my husband’s ears while he was asleep, like a manifestation. Of course I didn’t get it. I’m broke. But wanting the shortcut felt easier than committing to the long, boring work of consistency.

Financial discipline didn’t fare much better. I spent too much money on Temu. Some of it was practical. Sneakers I actually wear. Jersey T-shirts that have since become some of my favorite things. Other purchases were pure noise. A coffee mug, even though I already own at least eight. A phone case with petals when at least twelve others are sitting in storage. Numerous swimming trunks when I can’t even swim (please don’t tell my husband 😂) . Small, unnecessary things that added up quickly.

I also said I was going to put myself out there more. Sit on more panels. Take on more workshops. Go out more. Say yes to events and trainings. Instead, I made excuses. Lagos traffic. Being extremely introverted. Wanting to protect my energy. All of those things are true. None of them fully explains the lack of effort.

What’s uncomfortable to admit is that I know how to plan. I set personal goals the same way I set work goals, with documents, breakdowns, and timelines.

Planning felt productive. Buying things felt like progress. Neither required me to do the uncomfortable part.

I didn’t do a great job here, and I’m not sure what the lesson is yet. Naming it doesn’t fix it. But pretending it isn’t happening hasn’t helped either.

On letting people in, and failing to keep up

Friendship surprised me this year.

I didn’t decide to be more open. I didn’t set an intention around vulnerability. I met people I felt safe with, and something softened.

The first moment of trust was small, almost random. I asked someone for advice about something I was dealing with. They didn’t have to help me, but they did. They were thoughtful, practical, and generous with their time. They didn’t judge me, at least not to my face. They took me seriously.

After that, conversation came easily. I asked questions without embarrassment. I shared uncertainty without trying to sound impressive. I’m deeply introverted, but this year taught me that vulnerability doesn’t always require bravery. Sometimes it just requires the right conditions.

If you’d told the version of me from last year that I’d walk up to people and ask for advice, she would have called you a liar. That feels like a solid win.

At the same time, I didn’t do a good job of keeping in touch with many of my old friends.

For a long time, proximity did the work for us. We lived close. We saw each other easily. Friendship didn’t require much effort. This year, people scattered across countries and time zones. Maintaining those relationships required intention I didn’t always show up with.

I started well. I checked in. I tried. Then, slowly, I fell through.

There’s something painful about realizing that care doesn’t maintain itself. I’m still surprised that I have friends at all, given how inconsistent I was. What makes it harder is the irony. I learned how to form new friendships this year while struggling to tend to the ones that had known me the longest.

I don’t have a neat lesson here yet. Just an awareness that friendship, especially at a distance, asks for effort. And that effort has to be chosen, not assumed. It’s something I need to do better. Consistently.

On making something just to prove you could

Poetry was the one place where consistency worked. And maybe one of the few places where I can say, without qualification, that I showed up for myself this year.

I’ve been writing poems since 2020 and stashing them away. Circling the work without ever committing to it. At some point this year, it started to bother me that I’d been attached to something for five years and still hadn’t finished it.

Around the same time, one of my coolest and insanely talented friends, Mariam Omoyele, started a 100-day art challenge. Every day, after long and exhausting workdays, no matter how busy or chaotic things were, she made something, she made art. Sometimes it was incredible. Other times it was unfinished. But she always created, and she always shared. 

Watching that did something to me. It wasn’t about the quality of the work. It was about the refusal to wait for the perfect conditions. I took a page from her book.

So I made my goal deliberately small and unromantic. Write every day for thirty days in October. No perfection. No polishing. No sharing. Just show up and write something, even if it was bad.

Some of the poems are terrible. Truly horrid. Some are decent, like this one. Most live somewhere in between. But all of them exist, which felt important in a year where so many things stayed suspended.

That consistency gave me a win. I’m putting together a collection now. One of my goals for 2026 is to write fifty poems. I have twenty more to go. I don’t know yet what they’ll become, or who they’re for. I just know that finishing them will make me feel cool as hell.

On seeing my brothers again

This year, I saw my brother Banggz, for the first time in about nine years. I also saw my other brother, Mo the Pro, for the first time in three. 

They don’t live in Nigeria anymore. They live in North America. It was Banggz’s first time back since he left after high school, and seeing him again felt surreal in a way I didn’t know how to prepare for. A lot of things contributed to us not seeing each other sooner. But when he finally came back, none of that mattered. 

It was just very good to see him up close. To hug him. To sit with him. To talk.

I was so excited to have the two of them around that I made them do the most ridiculous things with me. There was a Tiktok dance going around at the time to Shake it to the Max by Moliy. I nagged them to do the dance with me till they agreed. We did the dance together. Banggz edited and shot the video. It lived on my Instagram for a while before I did a social media cleanse and deleted a lot of things. I’m glad it existed, even briefly. 

Banggz is taller than me, but he looks exactly like me. Like my twin, just stretched out. I noticed how soft and emotional he is, like me. How easily he says “I love you.” How natural that felt.

Seeing Mo the Pro again was its own kind of joy. He is really fit yet he eats a lot. He somehow still has a snatched waist, which feels deeply unfair. Being with both of them reminded me how much time passes quietly, and how much of it you don’t realize you’ve been missing until it’s right in front of you.

I don’t know if there’s a lesson here. It was just beautiful. One of the highlights of my year.

I’m looking forward to seeing them again next year. That’s part of my 2026 goals. Not as an ambition. Just as something I want more of.

What I’m actually sitting with

Reading this back, it would be easy to think I’m presenting a composed version of myself. I’m not.

I’m still a mess. I made many mistakes this year. I didn’t do several things I said I would. I avoided some hard truths. I dropped balls. I disappointed myself in ways that don’t translate clearly into lessons.

This reflection is me forcing myself to stop and look honestly at the year. To notice what worked, what didn’t, and what I want to hold close as I move forward. Not because I’ve figured it out, but because I don’t want to keep moving without paying attention.

I’m tired. I’m clearer than I was. And I’m still figuring it out.

***

As I write this, I’m listening to Big Daddy by Tems. It’s been on repeat for almost three days.

I didn’t expect to end the year here. The last Tems song that really spoke to me was Damages. I didn’t know I’d find a new obsession, or that it would make me want to dance again. But here we are.

I think that matters. That even in a year filled with thinking, learning, failing, and trying to be better, joy can still arrive without warning. Sometimes as music. Sometimes in your body before it reaches your head.

I’ll take that with me too.