In an era of immediate results, people my age are falling back in love with the old ways of doing things, which says a lot about how disconnected we are from our current reality.

Some days, I will sleep for 48 hours straight.

It’s all too easy for me to spiral. Whether that be in worry, dread, or despair, I used to feel like my life was dictated by the next bad thing that was going to happen to me.

When I enrolled in Queen’s in the spring of 2022, I expected to graduate in 2026—exactly 70 years after my late grandmother did. I

I learned too late that selflessness can become a slow kind of violence. I used to think love meant shrinking myself and my needs. Disappearing. I made space for everyone else and swallowed my own needs so theirs could breathe. I wore exhaustion like a badge of honour and called it kindness. I said yes when my body begged for rest. I stayed quiet when something hurt and convinced myself that being needed was the same as being valued.

At the end of 2025, I reflected on the past year—as many do. As I looked back, I realized that I was struggling to remember all of the little things that I’d done. So many events, facts, and anecdotes that I know were important or exciting to me at the time, but are now just a distant memory.
I knew I’d lived a lot of life, but I didn’t feel like I’d appreciated those moments, nor properly taken them in. It felt like I’d wasted my time, energy, and money on what could now only be recalled as a blur.

I used to think being in a relationship meant being everywhere in someone’s life. Knowing who they were with, what they were doing, how quickly they’d answer—I didn’t question that assumption much. It was how relationships around me worked. If you weren’t constantly in touch, something was probably wrong.

They say we’re a mosaic of the people we love—and there’s no one else I’d rather be made of.

I don’t know if the Kaplan MCAT prep bundle actually weighs fifteen pounds, or if I’m just not that strong. Either way, when I set those seven books on my desk at the start of summer, I felt the weight of them. Physical weight I could measure. The rest—the weight I’d carry through June, July and into August—I couldn’t have anticipated, even though I should’ve.

If you’re a first-year student getting ready to move into an off-campus house, you’re probably hoping for a kitchen that’s functional. Well, I got a kitchen that isn’t—and three years later, it’s the best thing that ever happened to me.

There’s a fine line between doing your best and achieving perfection.

I grew up in a family that loves to cook (and eat), and I don’t think that’s ever left me.

Curiosity is easy to praise in theory but harder to justify in practice.

Most people say university changes you—but no one talks about how lost you can feel when it doesn’t go the way it’s “supposed” to.

I thought I hated sports; it turns out I hadn’t been watching the right ones.