Success Cake & Metaphorical Walls & Literal Growth

Lately, my TikTok "for you page" has been flooded with people doing success cakes alongside their friends. The premise: write something you've achieved this year on a note, slap that note on a toothpick, put said toothpick into the cake. Repeat until everyone has placed all of their accomplishments on the cake. Enjoy the cake with friends. Ruminate in your mightily successful and accomplished friend group.

I got to thinking -- what would I put on my metaphorical success cake? For awhile, I found myself in a bit of a funk. Life moved pretty slowly this year, sorta, and I just couldn't think of anything too pivotal that I would emphasize in a moment of celebration. How do you define a year of living into one or two notes that can fit onto a toothpick? What do you do if nothing particularly good stands out upon first thought?

To rewind, 2025 started out horribly. In January, I came home for what was supposed to be a single week so that I could escape the crowd that would flood my DC neighborhood on January 20th. I planned to go home, enjoy the long weekend, warm up by my family's fireplace, and spend time with my parents. Instead, I experienced tragedy after tragedy after family emergency after family emergency. My notes app from the week relays a relatively extensive list including but not limited to: 

• Grandma Nina went in for shoulder surgery (1/17)
• Dad's retina exploded (1/18)
• Trump inauguration (1/20)
• Uncle Dale suddenly passed away (1/20)
• Heating broke in house while the outside temp was a feels like of -10 degrees (1/21)
• Grandma Rose went to hospital for heart surgery (1/24)

For the first time in my entire life, the caretaking at home was solely on me, even is just for several days. I very much felt every ounce of my eldest daughter title. Fortunately, my mom was already with my grandma at the time to help her recover post-surgery, so I knew that they had each other for support in the wake of Uncle Dale's death. Unfortunately, this meant that I was taking on the brunt of watching my dad and ensuring he didn't make his eye worse. He, of course, immediately made it worse during a humble attempt to climb some stairs with one barely functioning eye and one non-functioning eye. This meant I was in charge of handling the cooking and cleaning and general adult duties for the week, alongside working my actual job. In retrospect, it wasn't as impossible as it felt in the moment, nor was I treated like anything other than a confused, grieving, stressed twenty-four year old. Our community really rallied behind us, bring us meals, figuring out that Doordash now delivered Bob Evans to our rural family home, and checking in on us daily. At the time though, with happening after happening, I kind of thought my year was already done for, and it wasn't even February yet. The two weeks I spent at home were a whirlwind, and I remember every single moment, for better or worse.

Damn shame it turned out like that because not even a month prior, I had done every single good luck ritual for NYE that I could find online. Rest assured, I will be skipping those rituals this year. Any excuse to avoid pork & sauerkraut is fine by me. 

Anyway, after the shit-storm that was January, I prepared myself for one hell of a year. And the year that I came to expect kind of just... didn't happen. 

Everything moved so, so fast those two weeks in January. Everything after? Unexpectedly mundane. I came back to DC, back to the office, back to my routine. Compared to the start of my year things started to feel uneventful. Which is fine, to a point. Months stretched on and seasons changed. My family experienced a few more losses and a few more additions. All in all, the year seemed to be on a steady incline. 

I welcomed Gilbert to my little family. 

I got a progression at my job. It's kind of like a promotion; except not; except yes it is; except it isn't that simple. 

I made an actual group of friends after three years in DC.

I grew existing friendships into a new year. 

I worked my way to my best physical fitness level in nearly a decade. 

And yet... when I think of what I would put on my success cake, I still feel slightly lost. 

In a year that started with a such a catastrophic bang, everything else post-January feels.... meh. Like the tone that was set early on negates everything good that happened afterwards. Don't get me wrong, I am so incredibly grateful for every step forward that I made this year. They all are assisting me on my way to the distant and final destination that I won't know about until much, much later in life. But for now, I find myself pushing off accomplishments until 2026. To me, my cake is much more easily defined as the promotion I am sure to get next year (I am manifesting this), or the studio apartment I am sure to rent next year (I am manifesting this), or the marathon I am maybe going to run next year (Chicago lottery results don't get released until December 11th) ((I am NOT manifesting this)) (((I already paid the lottery fee))). 

The tricky part with this plan, however, is that it falls solely on me. Multiple parts of my life have fallen to the wayside as I convince myself I have time. And I know, I know -- I do have time, in the grand scheme of things. But this January taught me quite the lesson in how suddenly life can sneak up on you. Pushing things off only gets you to a point. Eventually you run into a wall where you have to decide to act or give up. My goal going into 2026 is to reach that wall and act. It's taken me twenty-five years to get sick of giving up. 

So in the name of not giving up, and instead viewing this year's steps as progress, I think my cake should be just that -- the small instances that I took on the way to success. Getting a cat is just as much a personal success to me as starting a human family is to others. Getting a progression at my job is the first step towards getting a promotion. Saving money by remaining in my two-bedroom basement apartment with a roommate is key towards eventually living on my own. I would even venture to say that my family making it through 2025 together is an essential piece of my cake. Shockingly, we came out even stronger. I feel as though we are 100% more prepared, as a collective, to walk into the future. 

Nothing this year happened absent of growth. They were all pieces to a puzzle, toothpicks to a cake. In life, there will always be cataclysmic events outside of my control. There will always be parts to life that are slow moving. There will always be mostly-uneventful moments that eventually domino into a better life on the horizon.  

Let's just hope 2026 starts on a quieter note. 

Take a shot every time I wrote the word cake.

Kidding, don't do that. 

Lots of love, 

Sam

P.S. I know sometimes I may sound wise beyond my years but I do really need you all to understand that I am every ounce of my twenty-five years. I called my parents yesterday to ask if it was normal for my gas to be going down *slightly* faster than normal in my car. I am addicted to TikTok. I attended a spin class today solely because the theme was Kpop Demon Hunters. 

I appreciate you all <3