2025 In Review

The year of letting go (and holding on differently)

Happy New Year! I hope 2026 is off to a gentle start, or at least not already asking too much of you!

This year-in-review post is fashionably late. I debated skipping it entirely. But I’ve learned that I write as much to understand myself as to connect with you. And this annual ritual—however imperfect—helps me surface and metabolize what actually shaped the year.

That said, this one was harder to write. Not because it lacked material—if anything, too much happened!!!—but because so much of it resisted clean arcs or tidy meaning. It was a year of extremes: the highest highs, the lowest lows, all stitched together with uneven seams.

Let’s start with the fracture. (Literal, not metaphorical—though there were plenty of those too!) In June, I shattered my kneecap into more pieces than I knew was possible. Rehab has been long, relentless, humbling—and still continues… I’ve had to re-learn how to walk, bend, and trust my own body again.

And then came December.

I usually save the last two weeks of the year to recharge. Soft clothes, long meals, and time with people I love. But this year, that period began with the news that my uncle was terminally ill. He passed away on Christmas Day. The holidays collapsed into hospital visits, bedside vigils, family group chats, logistics no one wanted to handle, and five long days at the wake.

And yet, there was grace too. The kind that lingers in hugs, just sitting together in silence, late-night mahjong games, and shared bubble tea orders. The kind that reminds you: when everything else falls away, love remains.

I needed time. So I took it. And now, finally, I’m here, sitting with the strange, brutal, beautiful shape of the year just past.

This was the year I…

• … got promoted to partner, the final boss level in a professional services firm. The kind of milestone you chase for years, then realize is only the starting line of something else entirely. Now I’m figuring out how to lead with intention (or, as my boyfriend puts it: “Be a leader, not a manager.”)

Hosted a private dinner to celebrate with my favorite women

• … fell in love again after nine years of singlehood, the longest stretch since I was 14 (!!). He convinced me that it’s possible to be great at work, as a parent, and for myself. All my girlfriends kept asking why I listened to his advice when they had been saying the same thing for years. What can I say?! Love hits different.

  

  Enjoyed finally dressing up for date nights again! This was my birthday dinner at a very special restaurant that I nearly cancelled in favor of takeaway on the couch: Glad I let him convince me to go out!

• … made more time for friends. Casual lunches. Tuesday night catch-ups. Celebrating the small stuff. Community is the best compounding investment I’ve made.

• … published two reports on philanthropy (here and here if you’re curious!) and somehow ended up presenting across Asia and even San Francisco. (Jet lag: less glamorous than it sounds.)

  

  Realized it’s impossible to get a good photo while speaking…

• … fractured my knee cap into 6+ pieces. It redefined my understanding of health and humility.

• … took three months off work to recover. Spent the first two… working (oops). Paid for it with being hospitalized again. Lesson learned: you can't fake prioritization.

• … celebrated one year on Substack (122 posts and counting!), and made internet friends who feel like real friends: one even turned into an IRL bestie (I love you Usha!!!)! Most mornings find us communicating across three platforms at once: excessive, but also nourishing. The Style Substack corner works because it feels like community.

  

Style Lessons from a Year of Wearing (and Rewearing) My Life

1. Style comes from within.

This year, I stopped pinning and started paying attention. I took daily outfit photos—bad lighting, no makeup, occasionally mid-style meltdown—and studied them like the CSI team examining evidence at a crime scene. What worked? What didn’t? Why did I love something at 8:12 AM and regret it by lunch?

Eventually, the patterns emerged. Not from Pinterest, but from my own closet. Style isn’t an aesthetic. It’s a practice. Daily. Imperfectly. One grounded in real habits, real weather, real moods. With more weird proportions and bad hair days than the internet ever admits.

The mirror doesn’t lie. It just has no bedside manner.

If you’re interested, I recommend analyzing the outfits you like vs dislike, then review the pieces you wear the most. The patterns will surprise you!

2. Less is more. Fussiness is a superpower.

This was the year I let go of pieces that were “perfectly fine” but made me feel… diminished. A little dulled. Like I’d faded myself in the wash.

A review of my most-worn pieces was humbling. So many were functional but joyless. And that’s the problem with “functional” clothes: they don’t fall apart or offend. They just sit there, quietly lowering the bar.

Then Irene Kim (김애린) handed me a permission slip disguised as a question:
“What if you just got rid of them?”

So I did. Not in one dramatic purge, but in slow, awkward waves. Every round made me braver. I let go of “maybes,” “used-to-be favorites,” and “if only I wore it with a belt and heels” pieces. I stopped trying to salvage outfits that didn’t feel like me.

And the more I let go, the more I liked what remained.

I used to think more clothes meant more freedom. But all “more” gave me was decision fatigue. A smaller closet made everything easier. Fewer choices. More yes moments. No more mirror-based soul-searching at 8:17 AM.

Now, I aim to curate a collection, not maintain an archive. If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no—or at least a return to sender!!!

3. Just wear what you love. Again and again.

After the ruthless editing came the reward: peace.

I gave up trying to hit 100% wardrobe utilization (mad respect to Usha for succeeding!). No more “I haven’t worn this in a while” guilt. No more trying to “make it work.” No more silent resentment toward sensible trousers that drain my will to live. No more outfit guilt, period.

I didn’t build a Pinterest-perfect capsule wardrobe. I just ended up with fewer pieces, all (well, mostly) things I actually love.

Now I rewear the same jumpsuit, the same sneakers, the same black bag. And it feels like freedom.

It’s wildly efficient. Surprisingly joyful. Turns out, loving your wardrobe doesn’t mean using every item. It means loving what you reach for most.

4. Get dressed up. Every day.

Every day deserves some joy. Some flair. A little spark of you. Even if the plan is just emails and errands. Maybe especially then.

Play. Experiment. Wear the thing. (If you need ideas, Noelia Santana and I shared some below!)

If it flops, take it off and try again tomorrow.

They’re just clothes! But they can change your whole day.

Lessons from a Year That Didn’t Go to Plan (But Maybe Went Deeper)

1. Relationships are what matter most.

It’s a cliché until it becomes unavoidably true.

My uncle’s death cracked something open. Amidst the grief, we were together—really together—for the first time in a long time. We had a very traditional 5-day Chinese wake. Five days of mourning, remembering, doing the deeply unglamorous logistics of grief. Not just out of obligation, but out of love.

My daughter ran wild with all her distant cousins. The adults cooked, cried, told stories, played mahjong. People brought comfort food without being asked. Someone remembered everyone’s bubble tea order. The village activated itself.

And I kept thinking about something another uncle said: Why do we wait for moments like this to gather?

There’s no good answer. But I know now: I don’t want to wait.

But here’s the part I had to confront: To have a village, you need to be a villager.

Show up. Text first. Bring snacks. Make the plan. Grab coffee on a work day even when it’s not convenient. Be there not just in emergencies but on a random Tuesday afternoon.

This is something I’ve learned from Usha . She truly invests in community. Quietly, consistently. She remembers birthdays and snack preferences. She shows up when you’re tired. She messages when you’re sick. It’s care in motion.

I’m still learning how to do that. How to move from “I care” to “I’m here.”

I want a life where gathering feels normal, not exceptional.

2. Consistency > perfection.

Worst stats in years but trying to focus less on the gap and more on how I showed up again from Oct once I got the all clear to work out!

This one took months (and a few hospital visits) to learn.

Rehab is repetitive. Boring, even. And painful! The same movements, three times a day, grinding it out. For weeks, it felt like nothing was changing. I wanted to skip ahead to the part where I was back to “normal.”

But slow progress is still progress. On the last day of school, I wobbled down the hill to pick up my daughter, clinging to her like a newborn foal. Just six weeks later, I walked her to her first day of school down without thinking about my knee.

The trick? Shrinking the ask. Not “finish all my rehab.” Just do one squat. Start there. If that’s all I could manage, fine. But nine times out of ten, starting led to finishing. Anna Maltby called this the “one drawer” theory of exercise.

Consistency isn’t glamorous, but it works! One boring rep at a time. One tiny choice, repeated. And that choice compounds. Quietly. Powerfully. Until one day, you look up and realize: you’re not clinging to the railing anymore.

3. Priorities aren’t what you say, they’re what you live.

I’ve always said health was a priority. After my fracture, I doubled down: this time, healing would come first.

And then I spent the first two months of medical leave… working.

Emails from the hospital bed. Zooms from bed. Rehab sessions skipped in favor of slides. I told myself I was being responsible, resilient. I wasn’t. I was prioritizing what gave me quick wins over what actually mattered. (Strongly recommend “How Will You Measure Your Life?”!)

The result? I neglected my recovery enough to land back in the hospital. Again.

So I had to get practical. I started asking myself one very simple question: “If someone looked only at how I spent my day, what would they think my priorities are?”

Then I made the hard edits. I blocked rehab like a client call. I let emails wait. I measured success by what I protected, not what I produced.

Priorities aren’t in your intentions. They’re in your calendar. They’re in how you spend your energy. What you say no to. What gets done when everything else is loud. What you fight to make space for, ESPECIALLY when it’s inconvenient.

4. You have agency. Which means you have to choose.

Choosing to be sore now so I can continuing traveling the world until I’m 90!

Not in the motivational-poster sense. In the real, slightly inconvenient sense: you get to choose. And most days, what you’re choosing is your version of hard.

There’s no path without tradeoffs. No version of life that doesn’t ask something of you.
The question isn’t how do I avoid discomfort? It’s which discomfort am I most willing—and able—to live with?

Said another way: you always have agency. But that agency looks a lot like saying no. Alignment is less about knowing what you want, more about living the life that wanting requires.
No to the thing that flatters your ego but leaves you exhausted.
No to the opportunity that keeps you on the treadmill you swore you were getting off.
No to the blazer that jeopardizes your financial goals.
No to that third glass of wine that risks you missing your morning workout.

Not freedom from limits. Just the power to choose which ones you’re willing to live by.

5. Find joy daily.

Grateful for every moment I can get with this little monkey!

Not later. Not after things calm down. Not when the inbox is cleared. Not when the inbox is at zero or the house is clean or the to-do list is slightly less terrifying.

This year taught me that waiting for joy is a losing game. Life is too unpredictable. You have to carve out space for delight in the middle of everything else—in the noise, the mess, the ache. My dad and I finally booked that safari we’ve been talking about for years.

This thought experiment has stayed with me: You’ve got two peaches on the counter. One is flawless: golden, firm, the platonic ideal of a peach. The other is softening, bruised along one side, maybe a day from collapse.

Which do you eat first?

Most of us would grab the fading one. Use it before it turns, avoid the guilt of waste. Sensible. Efficient.

But then the perfect one sits there. And tomorrow? It’s not perfect anymore.

What would it mean to eat the perfect peach today?

To choose pleasure first, while it’s still bright and ripe. To stop letting joy rot on the counter, just because we think it needs to wait its turn.

Sometimes that joy is a cup of tea that you actually sit down to finish.
Sometimes it’s taking 5 minutes to hear a terrible joke from your kid that still makes you laugh.
Sometimes it’s the outfit that feels exactly like you.

The moments are small. Easily skipped. But stitched together, they make a good life.

By LR Knost

Thank you!

If you made it this far: thank you!!!

Writing here has been one of the most grounding things I’ve done all year. Somehow, this little corner of the internet has turned into a a lifeline. A diary. A mirror. A group chat with people who just get it.

I didn’t end 2025 where I expected. But I ended it stronger in ways I didn’t expect: more grounded, more honest, more willing to let go of what doesn’t fit. Physically, emotionally, stylistically.

This was a year of unraveling. Of pulling threads I didn’t want to pull. Of sitting with undone edges and learning how to stitch something new.

There was grief. But there was grace.
There was pain. But there was perspective.
There was beauty. But only because I was paying attention.

I’m not aiming for perfection in 2026. Just progress I can feel in my knees, my closet, and my heart.

Fewer clothes.
Fewer meetings.
Fewer things that drain me.

More joy.
More ease.
More of what feels like me.

So here’s to walking better—literally and metaphorically.
To dressing up even when no one’s watching.
To loving fewer, better things.

And to you, Substack friends who feel like real friends. Thank you.

Finally leaving you with this lovely poem Marina Mofford shared: May you lean into the potential of the new year.

I’d love to hear what this year brought you—quiet shifts, sharp pivots, unexpected joys. What did you let go of? What are you holding close? Leave a comment or just hit reply to this email! I’d love to hear your reflections.

If you like this, I loved these writers’ reflections:

Six Style Lessons I'm Taking Into 2026

end of year thoughts and reflections

My Year Without Shopping