I start 2025 with both a sense of comfort and uneasy wish. These past holidays, I’ve never been more thankful to lean into well-known routines: breaking for Christmas; celebrating my partner’s birthday; dancing into the New Year with my best friend.
Farewell, 2024
2024 was a difficult year. We started the year with my partner ill at home, by my side, pining to get back to normal life while his body needed rest and rehabilitation. It took months before he was back on his feet. Then, we ended the year with my diagnosis – a minor, non-cancerous brain tumour – that I’ll hopefully live with for the rest of my life. But both were unexpected, unwarranted twists of fate. Both made us slow down, take stock, and find contentment in what we do have: our friends, our families, our (rented) home, our memories.
And 2024 was full of highlights too; from hosting Sustainable Fashion Week to my first time in New York, learning to sew to attending the Global Fashion Summit; I can’t complain too much!
To this end, I start 2025 from a place of gratefulness, with a wish for more stability. It’s taken me until my 30s to lean into certain traditions and rituals, and while I absolutely thrive as a freelancer and content creator, I’m wondering more and more about getting “a real job”. I am assured that the work I do has meaning; in fact, the reason I’ve stuck at this for so long is the joy I get knowing I am positively influencing people to live more sustainably across their wardrobes and lives. But could I be applying myself in a more meaningful way? Is it time to deepen my knowledge and impact? Let’s see what the year brings.
My 2025 New Year’s Intentions
Outfit details: Aleksander Revas Shirt via The Revivas (15% off: BESMA15), Angelika Jozefczyk Corset* & Trousers* via Wolf & Badger* (10% off: BESMA10), Sam Edelman Boots via Vinted.
While I continue to explore career options, I do have five more tangible New Year’s Intentions I’d like to set for 2025…
1. Become My Own Personal Chef
It’s no secret that I love to cook. Last year, I headed back to Cookery School at Little Portland Street to learn how to cook an array of Middle Eastern dishes, and I ended the year by teaming up with The Sussex Peasant to eat more seasonably. In fact, most of my Christmas presents this year were food related: chefs knives, litres of good olive oil, and my gift to myself – a striped linen apron* from Linen Tales. This year, I’d like to step up my cooking knowledge, and have set myself the task of working through Salt, Acid, Fat, Heat*, a cookbook I was given by a friend last year.
If you love to cook, I’d love to know your recommendations for stepping things up in the kitchen!
2. Learn Basic Arabic
Next, I’d like to return to language learning, and this time, get back to my roots by learning Arabic. I’m delighted to have recently discovered NaTakallam*, an online language learning platform that pairs refugees with language learners. My first class starts in mid-January, and I’m excited to have been paired with a teacher from Iraq, where my family is from. Not only do I get to learn the language, I also can learn some more of my heritage and culture (and maybe a Middle Eastern dish or two, too!)
If you’d like to learn a language this year, get 15% off at NaTakallam with code: NTK-BESMA15
3. Be In Nature More
I don’t think I ever feel as settled as when I’m in nature. It helps me to become really, truly present. I feel a sense of wonder at the way landscapes have settled, a sense of awe at the way wildlife lives free. So setting the intention to get out into nature more is a must for this year. I’m so lucky to live by the sea, and yet I rarely see it. And the South Downs are only a stone’s throw from Brighton. 2025 may become the year I unlock my inner hiker girl – we’ll see.
4. Cherish The People Around Me
I’d like to think I already do show love to the people in my life, and to that end, I’d like to build even more on those relationships this year. Having years-long relationships with friends and family members is truly priceless, and I’d like to really truly commit to spending more time and energy on the important people in my life this year. I’m also so excited to be my sister’s maid-of-honour this year, and it’s moments like this I can’t wait to celebrate and crystallise. I feel so very lucky.
5. Give Myself Time
Finally, a practice I feel I still need to do, even after almost a decade of working for myself: give myself time. And what I mean by that is: give myself time away from notifications, from work, from mindless anxiety. Working in the digital age is both liberating and arresting; I love being able to work anywhere, hate being constantly contactable, always on. I practice giving myself time while in the kitchen, in the bath, and on my yoga mat – thank you Wellicious for supporting me there. I intend to give myself more time to head into nature, and learn Arabic, this year.
What are your intentions for the New Year? I’d love to hear yours.
