I can't remember when it was that I stopped scheduling this message to be sent at midnight. I used to think of this day as a pivotal point in my long life, a time I loved to summarize and pose questions, hoping that the version of myself a year from now would provide the answers.

However, I've regretfully discovered that a year seems to be getting shorter and shorter—so short that the speed at which my questions pile up far exceeds the speed at which I seek answers. Moreover, I've been thinking too much and living too little, so this past year, I've been trying to actually live.

Hahaha, the word "life" is a bit grand; in reality, it's just trading the smugness of watching the fire from the other side of the river for the courage to jump right in. In the latter half of this year, I chatted with my grandmother many times—perhaps more than all the times in my life combined. She told me how to judge the quality of coal, when to plant red beans so they can yield two harvests, embarrassing stories from my childhood, and about the chicken from the house behind ours that flew down from a tree and ended up getting crushed to death.

Occasionally, I look up at the clouds in the afternoon; occasionally, I look up at the stars at midnight. Emotions seem to be surging like a storm, but the days pass by unhurriedly. Living like this, I have the feeling of walking through life step by step, grounded by the strength to keep going.

Hello, twenty-five. Hello, life.