2025: Life audit

Life is incredibly overwhelming—especially as a senior in college who doesn’t know how to relax in the worst job market since the Pandemic. Though, it is December and everything is better than it was last December. Everything is okay. Everything is good. This is a "Life Audit" to remind myself what happened this year and how my assets have grown—in my personal, friendship, romantic, academic, career, and all the other aspects, life.

In the 2025^th year of the Common Era I was an individual human being, and this is a review of that year. The year I was twenty-one, kept myself busier than probably healthy, and accomplished goals I had only dreamt of. This was my year of closing circles not meant for me, and in the meantime, I dove into circles even bigger, even more profitable. One of those circles being myself.  

Closing my Circle 

I made a lot of friends in college. So many so that younger me would have thought I was some popular chic that ran the school, but I was just being me. I found that being me wasn’t so hard anymore. After years of being around these people where we are all constantly growing and changing, I poured my heart out to some too fast and let others go too early. Now, I am on my fourth trip around the sun with these people, and I have found the ones who have stuck. My best friend I met when I was 15 and the rest are all written in my “Future Bridesmaids” note on my phone ranging from 2-4 other girls I met throughout college. I have maybe 20-40 other friends I speak to on a weekly basis, but with closing your circle comes prioritizing who gets to see the best of you, and the worst of you. I was giving too much and being taken advantage of in the process. I was friends with people who were hurting people I loved, and that was a line. I truly believe that if you are friends with everyone you are not a friend to me. There is a study out there that says you can only have 5 close friends and 15 friends in general at one point in your life and that is something our society does not support. We are told to befriend everyone. No, we should be kind to everyone. Only truly let your guard down around the people who put the same energy into you as you do into them. 

Saying no as Saying Yes to Myself 

This year, I needed to start putting myself more into myself than other people. I started to say no to things so I could say yes to myself. Well, I did a poor job at this one because I had the busiest year of my life, but at least that’s the mindset I have now. I overworked myself big time. The first half of the year I truly never sat down and when I did, I crashed hard. It didn’t help that I was fighting for things and people who were against me, but I should have known that the worst version of myself is always the one who doesn’t spend enough time with herself. I was taking extra classes to give my senior year some room to breathe (thank you past me!) and taking on roles that took over my life. I can’t just be involved, casually. This year, I just had to be the president of not just my sorority, but all of them, and be the editor of a campus magazine, and organize extracurricular events, and TA for some of them, and decide to start a freelance business. It’s like I’m addicted to the adrenaline rush of saying I did it. Every time I get a good grade, I still text my mom like my allowance depends on it. I don’t know why but I let the pressure I put on myself define me. So, I am going to start saying no. I had a relationship fall through this year that could have worked, but my heart just wasn’t in it. I knew that if I gave my heart up to be there, I would have lost myself. I couldn’t lose myself when I felt like I was grasping at the end of the rope to keep myself present. This was revolutionary for me. It was the first time I consciously put myself first in a real-life situation that affected other people. It hurt in the moment, but I knew if I didn’t put myself first, I would have brought us both down with me. 

I Refuse to Let my Figs Rot 

When I started saying no to things as simple as watching TV shows in the living room with my roommates, I found myself exploring the depths of myself that I often forget I have. The fig tree metaphor from Sylvia Plath’s, The Bell Jar, explains this well. 

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.” 

This quote encapsulates the incapacity of indecision. There is an entire world, and beyond, of possibilities of what I shall do with my life—how am I to pick one? My interpretation of this quote is that you do not have to pick just one. We are ever changing and constantly reinventing ourselves. We are blank slates to everyone we meet. I refuse to let my figs rot by pondering which life to choose. Right now, I have two half-finished paintings on my bedroom floor, but I do not want to be a painter. I am creative, so therefore I am painting. I am writing right now, but that does not mean I write every day. I also worked my boring customer service job but that does not mean that is my career path. My figs are my books, my notecards with scribbled red cursive penmanship, my CDs in my car, my guitar strings that need to be replaced, my coffee rings on my nightstand. My figs are constantly growing more branches, so I will not wait until they are complete; I will grow with them. The second half of the year, I started watering my fig plant more. I read 20 books this year. I wrote many essays that I plan to publish one day. I went back to the version of me that I have always wanted to be. 

My Year of Transformation 

2024 was the year I just went out there and lived. I lived so carefree and experienced life like there were no consequences. In 2025 reality hit me a bit more, but nothing that I couldn’t handle. This year, I worked so hard. Every month brought a new pressure, but I never saw it as that—I saw it as an opportunity. I stopped living with my mom for the first time in my life. I had my second real breakup. I worked two jobs this summer (one being my dream internship). I took many classes. I had too many titles in my email signature. I grew up and shit got real. I published an essay about my family that they all read. But these are all such blessings. In 2026 I will be entering my last semester of college. I will be a teaching assistant. I will be a graduate of two majors. I am talking to companies about landing jobs. I call my parents to talk about wine. I am turning 22. I meet my coworkers for dinner and order scallops. I will move out of my university-issued apartment. I will be okay. I did not feel so secure in the unknown last year at this time. Last December I was grateful for the past, now I am excited for the future.  

I just finished reading Eli Rallo’s, Does Anyone Else Feel this Way? and it is centered around the quarter life crisis. I am in my quarter life crisis, and this blog post is the epitome of that. Happy New Year and I hope you learned as much as I did this 2025. 

Love,

Emma Claire Ritter

P.S.

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