lessons to remember in 2026.
some things are for the love of the game
Hi everyone! Of wisdom and wander is an exploration of thoughts and quests for meaning. This is a space for reflection, and I hope you’ll join me in your reflections in the comments. I’d love to hear from you.
I’m a sucker for a good year in review. I love seeing the Instagram carousels with photos encapsulating January to December, and my Replay 2025 playlist on Apple Music has been on rotation leading up to this fateful last day of the year (you didn’t ask, but my top artist was Jon Bellion as per usual, especially after the release of Father Figure1).
I usually become reclusive toward the end of every year, partly due to the holidays and partly due to contemplation. I look forward to uninterrupted time to journal and think about how the year has changed me.
Personally, 2025 has been full of many transitions, from becoming a nationally ranked poet to traveling internationally for the first time to living on my own. I recently told someone that this is the first year I’ve experienced a deep sense of pride and accomplishment in things that I truly wanted to do. It’s been a year of firsts, and I’ve truly loved the ride.
There’s something beautiful about rising from the ashes of a year that decimated you mentally and emotionally, which is how I’d describe 2024. I wandered through that year aimlessly, unsure of what I was seeking. Maybe some sense of myself coming back? My authentic laughter, my creativity, or some familiarity that felt like rediscovering my identity. In 2025, I feel like I took the big steps to rediscover myself, and although it’s not a perfect image, I see her coming back. If you’re waiting to see yourself come back, I hope 2026 is the year you view yourself again with all clarity.
Without further ado, here are some lessons I learned this year that I’m taking into 2026:
Your accomplishments do not exist with technicalities or caveats
I can easily give people their flowers, but when someone hands me a bouquet of my own, I instantly wonder why they’re giving it to me. It feels wrong to accept it, like my work isn’t worth the beauty of the tulips or the sweet smell of the roses. I say, “No, I just barely made the goal,” as if I still didn’t make the success happen. I say, “I only received this opportunity because someone else turned it down,” as if I’m Doctor Strange, and the idea of alternate multiverses and timelines matters. It doesn’t in our world. In our world, I got an opportunity, and I succeeded.
If you’re anything like me, you assess the flowers on your doorstep and believe someone made a mistake in delivering them to you. I’m telling you they didn’t. People don’t give flowers for no reason, and no matter the reason why you’re a success, the point is you’re a success. Stop adding extra thoughts to a statement that’s already complete.
Your accomplishments should never be downplayed or discarded, especially by your own standards. It’s one thing to want more, but it’s another to dismiss or not recognize the effort you’ve made.
You succeeded, point blank period.
Date someone genuinely curious and passionate about you
This summer, while on a cruise around the Mediterranean, my sister and I discovered so many songs because we refused to pay for the cable package - we weren’t paying that $300. In place of cable, Royal Caribbean had a few free channels, which included a channel of all music videos. One of the new songs I discovered was “Actress” by Grace Kay.
I resonated with this song so much, especially in the woes of online dating:
Girl next door and I know all the lines
Meeting all my friends, yours will never be mine
We dance, I let you lead
Follow
Lay down, I’ll meet your needs
Follow
Girl meets boy, it’s the same every time
Fit into your puzzle when you don’t fit in mine
Earlier this fall, I was planning to write a post asking why men aren’t curious anymore. Conversations with men on dating apps seemed like Grace Kay’s song: they just wanted an actress who simply fulfills her role. Just be curious about him, fit into his puzzle, and his idea of what his ideal woman is. Without my questions, the interactions would be heavily one-sided. But in the same way anyone desires, I want someone to be curious about me too. I want to tell someone about my goals and dreams in the same way I want to know about theirs. I want something reciprocal. I want something real.
It’s important to date someone curious. Date someone who doesn’t want to assert their own assumptions or opinions of how love should evolve onto you, or allow you to just slip into a role they created for you. Rather, date someone whose first thought is to ask questions and reflect on the words you say. Someone who remembers. Someone who thinks about the conversations days later and comes up with follow-ups.
My greatest inspiration of love this year was watching the Satisfied documentary from Tony award-winning singer Renee Elise Goldsberry from Hamilton. The documentary followed her journey being the only mother on the cast during the original run of Hamilton, and her fertility journey that preceded the phenomenon of the show.
Truthfully, Goldberry’s husband was the shining star of the documentary, not because he’s particularly extraordinary, but because he actually upholds the standard of being a good man. The film crew asked what his favorite song that he had ever heard his wife sing on stage was, and while he talked about the songs, he began to tear up thinking about how beautiful her voice was and how proud of her he was.
We’re so enamored with men who are passionate, curious, and interested, but when they like you, that’s how they’re supposed to be. This is the norm, not an exception to the rule. Date as such.
Wear the bikini
While we’re on the topic of the Mediterranean, I wore my first bikini on the cruise this year at the grown age of 26. Many factors play a role in why I had never worn one: self-esteem issues, the modesty messages of religion, and just the ramifications of being an overly sexualized Black girl who never got a chance to just enjoy being in her body. All these reasons together form a lack of appreciation for my body when I should love it just by virtue of being mine. The stipulations society puts on bodies have nothing to do with our actual bodies. We were always just meant to exist, but there was always some level of shame or fear attached to my limbs.
I was never comfortable enough with my body to be in anything but a one-piece swimsuit, until now. In case you needed the push to wear what you want to wear and feel confident in, here’s your push. Wear that thing. It’s more liberating than you think, and I promise you look GREAT.
It’s okay to process slowly and silently
Anyone who knows me personally knows I’m always moving a mile a minute. When there’s a task that needs to be done, I struggle to wait to complete it. It must be done, right that second. It’s become a running joke (no pun intended) at my job that I walk fast and work quickly.
The same can be said of how I process emotional situations. They rush by me so quickly, I barely notice that I haven’t fully analyzed my thoughts surrounding them. The past year has taught me the areas where my communication skills can grow, which feels embarrassing to say as a writer and author. If anyone should be good at this, it should be the slam poet. I stand on stages and share intimate thoughts, yet I don’t know how to tell someone I love in real time how their spoken words create the broken poems I write. I weave nouns and verbs into concepts, but I struggle to weave emotions into regular conversation without feeling like I’m dappening the mood.
Realizing this, I lean more into being quick to listen and slow to speak. I’d rather fill the moment with my presence than with words I’d later regret because they weren’t thoughtful. Our society is uncomfortable with silence, but I’d argue we need more presence, moments where we’re not jumping to an assumption of what people mean or holding onto defensiveness. These moments of quiet don’t feel awkward anymore. They feel meaningful because preserving community is meaningful. Community is worth the pursuit of our thoughts, preparing our clarifying questions to repair our relationships, which leads me to my next lesson…
Hard conversations reveal true community
You’ll know you’re in a healthy community when you have your first emotionally charged conversations with them. If they receive it well, offer their perspective while not undermining yours, and hold themselves accountable, they are people you want to be around and grow alongside. If they don’t, you’ve seen firsthand the development (or lack thereof) of their character. If there’s a common phrase I believe wholeheartedly in, it’s, “if someone shows you who they are, believe them.”
However, remember this when the shoe is on your foot (and it will be). A healthy community calls you to be just as accountable to the level to which you hold others accountable. You cannot demand the grace you actively withhold from other people.
Talk/write about it until you can’t anymore
I started competing in poetry a year ago with a poem about my deceased father. It wasn’t the first poem I had written about him; he was by far the most difficult relationship I had in my life, which made him the muse of many poems. His passing affected me in more ways than I expected, so much so that I couldn’t write about anything else for a year. I felt like a one-trick pony in the world of performance. Variety is indeed the spice of life in this instance, at least for an unpredictable panel of judges who might not want to hear about my dad for three rounds of poetry.
I learned an important lesson, though. Talk about it until you can’t anymore. Write about it until it feels like the final words are on the page. Write about the same person and the same difficulties in different metaphors. Talk about it with therapists and trusted individuals who will let you say your peace until you can’t speak anymore on the matter. The more I live, the more I realize how much of life truly is perspective. It’s essential to your healing to explore those perspectives to pursue new understandings.
The sooner you realize life is unfair, the more peace you’ll have
I’m currently practicing the art of radical acceptance in my current work situation (read more below).
Admittedly, not being considered for a higher-level position at work felt debilitating for my confidence. I pride myself on being a high achiever, so “failing” to secure an interview automatically made me question everything. Is this the field I’m supposed to be in? Does my job not believe I can acquire the experience they say I lack? Will I be stuck here at this salary, doing this job that already feels thankless?
Coming into work has an aftertaste of frustration now, but the frustration only eats away at my own satisfaction. A new person is hired. There are still tasks to be done. Rent is still due on the first. The jobs I’ve applied to are still on break for the holidays. In this in-between, I have to accept that life is unfair to obtain the peace I need to withstand the space between the present and future.
My two statements have been:
I accept that there are no opportunities for growth at this organization.
I need to release the idea that everyone is going to treat me fairly.
Holding onto your frustrations only hurts you. The sooner you realize people might never acknowledge the full scope of your perspective or how deeply they affected you, the sooner you permit yourself to move forward.
Some things are just for the love of the game
This last lesson is derived from a late-night conversation with my slam team this year. We were discussing what each of us wanted to gain from the national competition that summer. As we went around the circle, I soon realized that winning the competition actually came with a cash prize. I had no idea money was on the table. I said, “I thought we were all doing this for the love of the game.” Which was true in the end.
If you take nothing from this newsletter, take this: do things for the love of the game. Do things without the promise of gaining something in return, monetary or otherwise. Pursue those hobbies that ignite your pre-adulthood soul. Shake up your routine. Be the fresh air that reminds people to breathe. In the end, life is meant to be enjoyed. Please make sure your enjoyment is a priority in 2026.
Hi everyone! My name is Laraya (pronounced La-RAY-a, not La-r👀-a). I’m a self-proclaimed wanderer, overthinker, and existentialist regularly consumed by finding meaning in everyday life. I historically struggle to label what my writing is for new individuals, but lately, this statement has been particularly healing: I’m just a human having human experiences.
Until next time, Laraya 🧡
Lock in friends. If you haven’t listened to Jon Bellion yet, tune in to Father Figure, an album solely about a man who loves his family.
Love this! Glad 2025 was (mostly) good to you!