A Brutally Honest Inventory of Getting My Life Back

This morning I took a walk around the neighborhood reflecting on 2025, and let me tell you what a gloriously messy, unexpectedly brilliant dumpster fire of a year.

There was definitely a lot of change, some of it unexpected, most of it long overdue, all of it necessary as hell.

At the start of the year, I made a promise to myself that I'd do more cultural things in NYC, spend more time with family, and focus on the things I love to do... or at least remember what those things were before work swallowed my entire personality.

I am fortunate to be where I am and even more fortunate for the experiences I've had. Walking through my old hood, I remember the places where I had a few firsts: being a latchkey kid walking home from school, the first abandoned building we played in (seriously, how did we not die?), but I guess that's childhood: pure fearlessness and zero concept of mortality. By age six, I was riding buses and trains solo (no adult supervision, no GPS tracking, no helicopter parents losing their minds). This was before cellphones and the internet turned parenting into a full-contact sport. The rules were brutal in their simplicity: don't talk to strangers, don't accept anything from anybody, always know your surroundings. That survival framework made me who I am today with a softer side intact despite everything, drawn to arts, reading, and music, somehow ending up in fashion.

If you'd told high school me I'd work for fashion brands and live abroad, I would've laughed you out of the room. But here we are, living a life teenage me didn't even imagine. I believed I'd be dead by the age of 25, after losing so many friends my age.

Travel is my therapy, my reset button, my escape hatch from the suffocating routine. There's something about getting lost in unknown streets and cultures that soothes me in ways nothing else can. This year's destination: Mexico City. I hit museums, went on a hike where altitude sickness reminded me that Mother Nature doesn't care about my plans, ate food so good it ruined regular tacos forever, and explored galleries that made my brain actually work again.

Every time I come back from a trip, I feel refreshed, but how do you bottle that feeling and keep it alive in regular life? So I started making plans to actually explore NYC, the cultural center of the world. Then April happened: laid off due to a company merger. It stung like hell, but I'm oddly proud of the relationships I made and the confirmation that being open and collaborative beats playing corporate chess any day. Office politics still isn't my thing, I've accepted that I'll never been an expert player, but at least now I know how to navigate without bleeding out. I refused to let the layoff break me. If anything, it lit a fire under me to stop pretending I gave a damn about climbing ladders and start figuring out what actually makes me feel alive instead of just employed.

First stop on my cultural rehabilitation tour: Broadway. I've never been a musical/play kind of guy the last one I saw was "A Strange Loop" three years ago with its all-Black cast and storytelling so fire it should've been illegal. Before that? Right after Rodney King and the LA riots, which tells you everything about how long I'd been avoiding theater. I got tickets to "Sunset Boulevard" with Nicole Scherzinger as Norma Desmond, and holy hell...minimal set design, incredible cast, and Nicole's voice was so devastatingly good it made me question every life choice that kept me in fluorescent-lit offices instead of velvet theater seats. I got a Whitney membership, and my first exhibit was Amy Sherald (to my embarrassment I kept calling her Lisa). I went twice because the first visit rewired my brain so thoroughly I needed confirmation it was real. Then came an outing with my aunt Rita, my father's youngest sister whom I haven't seen since I was fourteen! four decades of catching up followed by one transcendent evening with Alvin Ailey Dance at BAM. They defied gravity and every misconception I had about dance moving me emotionally. After that, I caught "The Buena Vista Social Club" with cousins I'd literally never met until their father's funeral, despite him being super close with my mom. The show spans 1950s pre-revolution Havana and 1990s post-communist Cuba, following legendary musicians through political hell to their Grammy-winning redemption. Dialogue in English, songs entirely in Spanish, the audience losing their minds, the vibe so infectious it felt like we all transcended. We walked out with our spirits rejuvenated, and I realized with painful clarity how much I'd let work devour my entire identity instead of remembering who the hell I was outside the corporate.

My first arthouse/indie film in forever (non-superhero, which had become my default because escapism beats reality) was "Twinless," a dark comedy-drama that reminded me of "My Own Private Idaho" in all the best ways. Dylan O'Brien (still a puppy but shamelessly fine as hell) plays Roman, who meets Dennis at a twin-loss support group, only to discover Dennis is hiding a soul-crushing secret about Roman's brother's death. The film explores grief, deception, and the twisted, desperate lengths we go to for human connection.

Then there was "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style" at the Met Museum, examining three centuries of Black dandyism from enslaved people's imposed uniforms to hip-hop's triumphant aesthetics. I waited forty-five minutes in the pouring rain (my normal tolerance is fifteen), and it was worth every soggy, uncomfortable second. I walked away inspired and furious and in awe...Black people are breathtakingly, defiantly beautiful.

I finally caught "Porgy and Bess" at the Met, the opera I'd wanted to see in 2019 but life had other plans. Set in 1920s Charleston, it's a tragic love story between disabled beggar Porgy and Bess, a woman clawing her way out of a violent past, exploring addiction, poverty, and whether love can actually conquer our worst demons or if we're all just pretending. And I returned to City Center for Alvin Ailey's "Revelations," the masterpiece based on Ailey's Texas childhood, celebrating African American heritage through spirituals and gospel, a journey from devastating grief to hard-won joy that left me completely undone in my theater seat.

This year I also conquered swimming. I can now swim full lanes, which is massive considering any body of water used to trigger me into paralysis. I kept up with my routines: workouts, therapy, journaling, meditating (five years ago I was loudly insisting meditation was bougie nonsense; thank god my therapist refused to let me off the hook). I'm buying an apartment with my mom. She's at that age where she needs company and help. The purchase process has been soul-crushingly grueling, especially with holidays delaying closing like some cosmic joke. We're temporarily relocating until everything's set, which has been physically and emotionally exhausting in ways I didn't see coming. Thank god it's temporary, but NYC's real estate market is a blood sport designed to break you.

I started working on Vicky's magazine "Et Cetera," which has been equal parts exhilarating and disruptive, hammering home again that collaboration matters and ego is dead weight. And I read. I completed over 100 books this year, which shocked even me. Overall, I've reclaimed my passions: art, music, travel, reading, cinema. I'm done chasing perfection and accepting that control is an illusion we tell ourselves to feel safe. I learned that all things can be true simultaneously. I can experience contradictory, messy emotions and they're all valid, all real. I worked on regulating my emotions, not swallowing everything until I explode, actually communicating like an adult, setting boundaries and defending them like my life depends on it. And understanding these aren't one-and-done achievements but daily practices, ongoing negotiations with myself. This apartment move with my mom tested every boundary I thought I'd established and revealed how much work I still have to do. But learning to focus on the present moment actually doing that instead of just talking about it has been genuinely transformative. It's been a phenomenal year that I'm deeply grateful for, full of changes I didn't ask for and revelations I desperately needed. I'm lucky to have people in my corner supporting me through all of it, and I'm walking into whatever comes next with my eyes wide open and my expectations appropriately calibrated.

Things I Actually Accomplished in 2025:

Cultural Immersion:

• Explored Mexico City solo (museums, hiking, galleries, unforgettable food)

• Attended 8+ major cultural events in NYC (Broadway, opera, dance, exhibitions)

• Saw "Sunset Boulevard" on Broadway with Nicole Scherzinger

• Attended Alvin Ailey performances at BAM and City Center ("Revelations")

• Watched "The Buena Vista Social Club" Broadway musical

• Saw "Porgy and Bess" at the Met Opera

• Watched indie film "Twinless" at arthouse cinema

• Visited Amy Sherald exhibit at Whitney Museum (twice)

• Attended "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style" exhibition (waited 45 min in rain)

• Obtained Whitney Museum membership

  
  

Personal Growth & Skills:

• Read and completed 100+ books

• Learned to swim full lanes (conquered water-related trauma)

• Maintained consistent therapy sessions all year

• Continued daily journaling practice

• Developed successful meditation routine (after years of resistance)

• Maintained regular workout schedule

• Worked on emotional regulation and communication skills

• Established and maintained personal boundaries

• Learned to focus on the present moment

Professional & Creative:

• Navigated layoff in April with grace and perspective

• Started working on Vicky's magazine "Et Cetera"

• Practiced collaboration over ego

• Redefined identity outside of work

• Built meaningful professional relationships despite company merger

Family & Relationships:

• Reconnected with Aunt Rita after 30+ years

• Met cousins for first time at meaningful cultural events

• Started apartment buying process with mom

• Navigated temporary relocation with mother

• Survived brutal NYC real estate market

Major Life Changes:

• Got laid off and reframed it as opportunity

• Committed to buying apartment (in progress)

• Temporarily relocated during closing process

• Rediscovered core passions: art, music, travel, reading, cinema

• Shifted from work-defined identity to multifaceted self

• Accepted imperfection and let go of control

• Learned multiple truths can coexist simultaneously