Growth Beyond Obstacles

I walked into 2025 carrying stitches, exhaustion, and a kind of hope I wasn’t sure I could hold yet.

It had only been two weeks since my VSG surgery, and my body still felt like borrowed space. Every movement required intention. Every sip of water had to be measured. My abdomen was sore and swollen, my emotions sat right at the surface, and beneath it all lived the quiet fear that I had just made the biggest decision of my life.

But I had also made the bravest one.

January didn’t arrive with fireworks or resolutions. It arrived with survival. The world didn’t slow down just because I was healing. The calendar kept turning. Responsibilities kept coming. And I had to learn, quickly, how to exist inside a body that no longer followed the same rules it always had.

The mirror showed me a stranger.

Not because I had changed so much yet — but because I finally knew I was going to.

I spent those early weeks relearning everything. How to nourish myself. How to rest without guilt. How to listen when my body whispered and when it screamed. How to sit with discomfort instead of running from it. How to trust that this painful, fragile, uncertain beginning was not the end of me, but the foundation.

I didn’t feel strong.

I felt small. Tender. Raw.

But I also felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time: hope that wasn’t attached to a deadline or a “someday.” Hope that lived right here in my chest, breathing alongside the pain.

By the time winter melted into spring, life refused to slow down.

My days became a balancing act: full-time work, a part-time job, MBA classes, therapy appointments, early morning walks, protein shakes, hydration goals, late-night studying, trying to be present in my relationships — especially the one with the man I love and the future we’re building together.

Some mornings I woke up feeling unstoppable, like I was finally becoming the woman I always knew lived inside me.

Other mornings I stared at the ceiling, already exhausted, wondering how much longer I could keep this pace without breaking.

Growth, I learned, is rarely pretty.

It’s choosing discipline on the days when you want comfort.

It’s showing up when no one is watching.

It’s continuing when quitting would be easier.

There were days I cried in my car. Days I doubted myself. Days I felt behind in every area of my life. But every time I thought about stopping, I remembered the girl who lay in that hospital bed in December and whispered, “This has to change.”

And still — I kept moving.

Spring tested my commitment in ways I didn’t expect. Healing is not linear. There were setbacks and plateaus and moments where nothing felt like it was working. There were weeks where exhaustion sat heavy in my bones. There were nights where my mind ran faster than my body could keep up.

But I kept choosing myself.

Not in big, dramatic ways — but in the quiet ones. Drinking the water. Taking the walk. Opening the textbook. Logging in for work. Going to therapy. Telling the truth about how I felt. Letting myself rest when I needed it.

Those choices didn’t look heroic.

But they built me.

By the time summer arrived, something in me had shifted.

My body was stronger. My mind was steadier. My heart was braver.

Summer brought sunlight and sweat and a challenge I never would have believed possible just months earlier: my first 5K.

Training for that race was humbling. Some days I felt powerful and unstoppable. Other days I cried on the sidewalk, bargaining with myself for just one more step. There were mornings my legs felt like lead and my lungs burned and every voice in my head begged me to quit.

But I didn’t.

July 4th arrived in blazing heat, on almost no sleep, with every excuse in the world sitting heavy in my pockets. And I crossed that finish line anyway.

Not fast.

Not flawless.

But forever changed.

I remember standing there, sweaty and shaking and proud in a way I had never felt before. A stranger told me my loose skin was proof of how far I had come. Another said they finally saw peace in my eyes.

And in that moment I realized something quietly monumental:

I wasn’t just losing weight.

I was shedding the years I spent in survival mode.

By mid-year, the weight of everything I was building pressed hard against my chest. Hormones fluctuated. Hydration became a daily battle. Exhaustion crept into places I didn’t know existed. There were nights I lay in bed wondering if I was strong enough for the life I was creating.

But something had changed.

I no longer quit on myself.

Even when I was tired.

Even when I was scared.

Even when I didn’t feel ready.

I showed up.

Fall arrived softly, with cooler mornings and quieter nights, and taught me a different kind of strength. I learned how to communicate without exploding. How to set boundaries without guilt. How to love deeply without losing myself. How to sit with uncertainty instead of trying to control everything.

Somewhere between the late-night study sessions and the early-morning walks, between the tears and the quiet victories, I became someone I trusted.

I stopped shrinking.

I stopped performing.

I stopped abandoning myself for peace.

Now I stand at the edge of this year barely recognizing the girl who walked into January. The woman leaving 2025 is steadier, braver, softer, and stronger than she has ever been.

2025 wasn’t gentle.

It broke me open.

It healed me.

It built me.

And I will carry everything it taught me into whatever comes next.

A letter to 2026

Dear 2026,

I am walking into you carrying everything 2025 taught me.

I arrive not as the girl who once begged life to be easier, but as the woman who learned how to stand when it wasn’t. I arrive with scars that no longer shame me, with boundaries that protect me, and with a heart that finally trusts itself.

2025 broke me open in the quietest ways. It stripped me of comfort, certainty, and old versions of myself that no longer fit. It taught me how to listen to my body, how to choose discipline when comfort called louder, how to love without losing myself, and how to stay when leaving would have been easier.

So when I step into you, I am not asking you to be gentle —

but I am asking you to be honest.

Challenge me. Stretch me. Grow me.

But also allow me to rest when I need to, to breathe when the weight feels heavy, and to celebrate the woman I am becoming.

I promise I will not abandon myself in you.

I promise I will continue choosing courage over fear, progress over perfection, and faith over control.

I promise I will keep building the life I once only dreamed of.

I do not know everything you hold — but I trust the woman who will walk through you.

And that is enough.

With hope,

Kaylee