Happiest of happy New Years dear reader 🥳🎉🎊
Yes I know I am late with this, it being 26 days into 2026 (shout-out to the double 26 🤩), but it be like that sometimes 😅
We are 26 days into the new year and I gotta say I am LOVING the fuck out of 2026 so far 😍 I did a poll on my Instagram 13 days ago, checking how the new year is treating my followers and I am happy to report that 43% of you are loving it as much as I am 🤩
For the 38% who are neither here nor there about the year, as well as the 19% who are not having a good time so far, I really and truly hope it gets better for y’all sooner rather than later 🙏✨🕯️
Last year around this time I put up Karibu 2025, in which I wrote:
In December I kept joking, but also not joking, to my husband that there was no one in this world who was more ready for 2025 than I was.
2024 was, unequivocally, the best of times, it was the worst of times, and I could not have been more excited to Begin Again in 2025. As I wrote in the post:
But on a Wednesday in a café
I watched it begin again
That is the final lyric of the Begin Again (Taylor’s Version) chorus on the Red (Taylor’s Version) album. To know me is to know I speak in Taylor Swift lyrics, so this year beginning (again) on a Wednesday could not be more significant and symbolic for me. In fact, I even had lunch with my husband and his family at CJs on New Year’s Day so I really and truly watched it begin again on a Wednesday in a café.
And then 2025 taught me that not only does rock bottom have a basement, but that basement has a basement, and that basement’s basement has a basement, and on and on and on. Rock bottom is where you stop digging, and if you are not careful you can dig all the way to hell. There is sooo much to say about my 2025, but today is not the day for that.
For today the only thing you need to know is that last December, once again, I kept joking, but also not joking, to my husband that there was no one in this world who was more ready for 2025 2026 than I was, because this was my 2025:
Like, 2025 was so bad that for the first time in 10 years of doing annual reading challenges since joining Goodreads in April 2015, I did not read a single 5-star book 😭 The audacity of 2025 🤬
Small small jokes aside (though not reading a single 5-star book for the first time in 10 years is NOT a joke), 2025 was not all bad. It was just… mostly bad. Like, 96% bad. I began the year all suited up to have a great 2025:
But alas!!
And how is this for a plot twist… it was me who fired the arrow🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
So this is me trying, again — AGAIN — to have a great year. And I gotta say I am feeling verrrrryyy optimistic about 2026, because ever since I turned 38 on 3.8 I made the conscious decision to stop being my biggest enemy. To get the fuck out of my own way. To stop being the architect of my own chaos that I lived in. Hence the final third of 2025 was infinitely less of a dumpster fire than the initial two-thirds, but it does not change the fact that this was my 2025 in a snapshot:
And so far, 2026 is off to a rocking start 🤩 It kicked off with my husband and I ringing in the New Year watching Old Mutual Tower’s dazzling display of fireworks. I took a moment to fully immerse myself in the experience, noticing what I could see, hear, smell, taste, and touch, and anchoring myself in that presence while quietly sending out a prayer to the Universe to do its part to help me manifest all my Big Five (Physical and Mental Health, Career, Writing, Relationships and Finances) goals for the year.
After that, we came home and I slept for a couple of hours before waking just before 4 a.m. to watch the Stranger Things series finale. And while it was not a bad finale by any stretch (Game of Thrones and How I Met Your Mother, anyone?), it still fell short of my expectations in a way I am yet to articulate. All I know is that it is not because everyone’s stories ended happily, since I am a hopelessly romantic girlie and Happily Ever Afters are of importance to me. It just… was not a bad finale. But it also was not not a bad finale.
Later in the day, my husband and I had lunch with his family, keeping up with their tradition of always having lunch together on New Year’s Day.
And then, between the 3rd and 7th, we were in Watamu for our second wedding anniversary baecation spousecation, and to say that the trip was overflowing with magic would be underselling it. It was buoyant and incandescent and enchanted, setting the tone for exactly the kind of energy I want for the year. And just like the NYE fireworks, I took time each day to ground myself in that magic, noticing what I could see, hear, smell, taste, and touch, quietly sprinkling my 2026 Big Five manifestations everywhere we went.
We came back to Nairobi on the evening of the 7th, and on the 10th I joined We Run Nairobi for my first-ever WRN run, where I ran 10 km. I would not call myself a runner (YET!), as I only resumed outdoor running in August last year for the first time since before COVID. In August and September I was running 4.20 (😎) km, before taking it up a notch to 5 km in October and then 7 km in November and December.
My last run was on December 13, 2025, aka the eighth anniversary of my mum’s passing. I knew it would be a tall order to attempt 10 km on the 10th, given I had not run in a month and had only worked my way up to 7 km. But even before increasing my distance to 7 km, I knew my first-ever WRN run would be 10 km on the 10th. So I showed up, equal parts nervous and excited, and did exactly what I set out to do #POWERFUL 😙💪
Since then, I have been slowly settling into the new year, but even as I do, I am overflowing with optimism for 2026. Which brings me to my Word of the Year:
Yes I know ‘ntltc’ is not a word, so allow me to explain. My 2025 Word of the Year was self-love and boy, oh boy, did I NOT love myself last year🙆♀️ 2025 was, unequivocally, my rock-bottom year, and because of that I have decided 2026 will be my year of Ascension. By force, by fire!
And yes, I know I cannot say with any certainty that I have no tears left to cry this year, because sometimes life does not just hand you lemons, it squeezes them right into your eyes 🙄 What I am certain of is I will no longer be the reason for my tears as I am done being my own worst enemy.
Which is why my intention for 2026 is to curate a life that brings me JOY to celebrate in December *cue the Joy Bringers signature tune*. December is usually a difficult month for me, ever since my mum died 12 days before Christmas. But as Taylor Swift sings in invisible string:
Time, mystical time
Cuttin’ me open, then healin’ me fine
Time, mystical time, has made my grief easier to live with, moving December from devastating to bittersweet.
But December 2024 and 2025 were deeply depressing, and it is incredibly isolating being so depressed when the whole wide world seems to be having a marvellous time. Sana sana in Kenya where we take Drinkscember/DecemBAR very seriously and Hadi Kesho by Watendawili becomes the country’s unofficial national anthem. And even more sana sana, when you know you are the sole reason for your depression. Hence, in the letter to my mum on the eighth anniversary of her passing, I wrote:
I desperately need 2026 to come correct because I cannot, and will not, live through a third December in a row of grieving the state of my life while also grieving you.
I lived to see 2026 because of my sissy, my bestie, and my hubby. And to truly honour them, and the gift that is life, I want to live this year, and every year going forward, as fully and as passionately as I possibly can. Even when life squeezes lemons into my eyes. So that when the clock strikes midnight on December 1st, I embody every ounce of Pearl Thusi’s Hello DEZEMBAAAAAAHHH!!!!! TikTok, looking back on my year with JOY, not shame and regret.
Once again, happy New Year to you and yours dear reader 🎉🎊 Here’s wishing you a 2026 more prosperous and adventurous than your wildest dreams can imagine filled with good health, good times and good sex🍸 May 2026 be your best year yet, but not ever ✨
Lwile the Leo 