2026 will be the Year of Dreams
A note from the start of a year when I began asking whether my dreams were real.
Being born in 2000 makes age math embarrassingly easy. Every January, the calendar turns and I quietly consider myself a year older and, hopefully, a little wiser.
Last night, I welcomed 2026 from bed, alone and crying. A week earlier, my apartment had been full of friends. At midnight, I was thinking about every choice I had made and everything I had kept postponing. It was not the beginning I had imagined, but I did not want that moment to decide what the rest of the year could be.
A different January
Still, 2026 feels different.
I am closer to 30 than I am to the beginning of my twenties now, or at least it has started to feel that way. I am also halfway through my first year of living in the greatest city in the world. New York has a way of making every ambition feel possible and every minute feel expensive.
I came here with dreams. Some were practical, some were unlikely, and a few were too big to say out loud. This is the year I want to take all of them more seriously.
Dreaming bigger
There is a lot I want from life, and I do not want to settle for less simply because less is easier to explain.
I keep asking myself what would truly make me happy. Is it the job I have always wanted? A trip to an F1 Grand Prix weekend? Seeing a World Cup match this year? Somehow securing tickets for The Odyssey in IMAX 70mm at Lincoln Square?
Honestly, all of that would make me very happy.
But lately, I have started dreaming about something much bigger. It is something I have wanted for a long time without ever letting myself believe it might actually be possible. I cannot say much about it yet. I can say that I finally understand a little more clearly why, out of every country in the world, I came to the United States.
Hint: I think I finally know how I want to retire. xD
To dreams
I have a good feeling about this year. That does not mean it will be easy. There will probably be the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. There will be discoveries I cannot plan for and days when standing strong feels like the only thing I can do.
Whatever comes, I want to be there for it.
To dreams. Happy New Year, 2026.