And the Curtain Closes on 2025...

I'll keep this one fairly short, but had to sign off the year with a tremendous thank you to everyone who has tuned into the site this year. The community is small, and its a genuine honour to have you as a witness to the early stages of this writing journey.

A huge shout out is due to those who have sent me a text highlighting the typos and errors on some of my posts, (Lateefah, come and collect your flowers! Good looking out!) This is the honesty and attention to detail that will allow me to grow in my practice, and is all much much much appreciated.

Thank you Mayo, who hosted and promoted the first Miss.Understood writing workshop under The Lady Powerhouse CIC. A time was had! But more than that, your trust in my vision for this blog and brand have been instrumental to me logging on here to write and knowing that there is a community out there that will value what I'm bringing to the table.

Thanks to everyone who leaves a like and interacts with the pieces that resonate with them. Having a small community is a blessing and all, but it's hard to gauge just how many pieces are getting lost in the abyss - so a little like here and there goes an extremely long way. Pretty sure that most of the likes are from my mum, shout out to you girl!

Thank you to all my friends, who are my family, that let me brain dump, and allow me to poke and prod into their personal lives to gain new perspective, and try to retract from our conversations a lasting line that can be memorialised in some of my writing. I hope you see a glimmer of yourselves between the lines when I write things like "In a recent conversation with a friend..." And I hope I've made you ponder upon something that you've felt but couldn't quite verbalise, like "What does one pray for in a time like this?" Thanks for the hours of conversation that have helped me get to the bottom of, and in deeper understanding of what feels like a tangle of knots in my head.

And thank you to my lovely, supportive and patient partner Jesse, who after a long day of work, clocks in for unpaid overtime, of me asking "Is this post readable?" You have literally given me my flowers to celebrate every milestone, and have lovingly held me accountable.

Not sure how you are all seeing in the new year, but I wish you safety and warmth!

Aside from that, it would be great to hear what your plans are for the new year. Are you vision boarding? Are you starting the diet? Are you getting closer to God? Reading more books? Drinking more water? Are you finally going to go after that new job?

In a conversation about our differing views of marriage, Lateefah said that she "understands the human need for ceremony" and since she said it, I can't get it out of my head. I think my need for ceremony as a catalyst for change is bigger than I had realised.

I'm always the girl with the new year's resolutions, the vow to do better at a start date tbc, and if I'm being honest, I've had great success making change with a future date to mark it. Birthdays, new years, the blessed and transformative month of Ramadan and Eid.

With my grandmother's passing this year, I know to live everyday like it's your last, and not in an easier said than done, kinda way, I mean you feel the urge and you do it. You think the thought and you get the f*%k up. My mum said two days ago "[she] spoke to [her] mum on the Wednesday morning, and [my grandma] was gone that evening."

What an uncertain existence we lead.

And with all of that said, this year's ceremony around my grandmother's death, has led me to reflect on the finitude of my own life and the daily actions that shape my existence.

So if you are in need of ceremony, I toast both with you, and to you. May this new year bring you all of the happiness and hopefulness and peace and pleasure and health and wealth and clarity and success and contentment and breakthroughs and yeses to what you need a yes to and acceptance of the nos of the things that weren't meant for you. And I wouldn't write this if I didn't mean it, I wish the very very best for you in this new year, that we are so fortunate to see the beginning of. May we toast again at the end of it. (This message is limited to the people who have frequented this blog, and them ALONE!).

Cute little end of year carousel below. Give this post a little heart if you made it to the end.

Happy New year Bitches!