Carolina Confidential

I didn’t walk out of 2025 lighter.
I walked out of it steadier.
Not because the weight disappeared.
Because I learned how to carry it without dropping everything else.

This year didn’t arrive with fireworks (although plenty were set off—ugh, PTSD) or leave with a clean ending (though I find myself cleaning up all the same). It came in quietly and stayed longer than expected. It asked more than it announced. It took up space in ways that didn’t always make sense in the moment, and by the time I noticed how heavy it had become, I was already too far in to set it down.

So I adjusted my grip and kept carrying.

There were days this year that felt solid. Grounded. Days where my feet were on the floor and I knew where I stood. And then there were days that felt like walking through wet cement—every step possible, but none of them easy. Exhaustion didn’t always show up as collapse. Sometimes it showed up as repetition. As doing the same things again because they still needed to be done, even when I was tired in places sleep doesn’t reach.

2025 taught me that heaviness doesn’t always come from chaos. Sometimes it comes from stillness. From living inside a truth that doesn’t make noise but never leaves the room. From waking up and realizing that something fundamental has changed, and the world didn’t stop to acknowledge it. Life just kept moving, and so did I.

I learned this year that you can be grounded and grieving at the same time. That stability doesn’t mean ease. That routine can be both an anchor and a reminder. I learned how to stand in the middle of something unresolved without rushing it toward closure just to feel better about it.

There were things this year I didn’t talk about. Not because I didn’t understand them. Not because I was pretending they weren’t there. But because some things don’t get lighter when they’re explained. They just get louder. And I needed quiet more than I needed witnesses.

This year asked me to show up anyway.

To work.
To love.
To laugh when it came naturally and sit with silence when it didn’t.
To keep my hands busy and my footing sure, even when my thoughts wandered back to places I didn’t invite them.

I stopped waiting for relief in 2025. Stopped waiting for the moment where everything would click into place and feel resolved. I learned that some years aren’t about fixing. They’re about living around something and still choosing to be present in the parts of life that ask for you.

That’s what made this year exhausting.
Not the doing—but the holding.

And still, there was grounding here. Real grounding. In routines that held. In people who stayed. In mornings that came whether I was ready or not. In the quiet knowledge that I didn’t disappear just because something important changed shape.

I didn’t come out of 2025 healed.
I didn’t come out of it clean or finished.
I came out of it still here.

Still standing. Still moving. Still choosing which parts of myself get spoken and which are allowed to remain quiet without being erased.

If this year taught me anything worth keeping, it’s this:
You don’t have to make peace with everything you carry.
You just have to carry it honestly.

So I’m not closing 2025 with celebration or regret. I’m closing it with acknowledgment. Of the weight. Of the grounding. Of the exhaustion that proved I was present the whole time.

Tomorrow will be another day. Another year. Another step.

But tonight, I’m allowed to pause.
Not because the load is gone—
but because I carried it all the way here.

Until next time,
Stay safe. Make good choices. And as always, stay kinky My friends.

~Dray Orion