2025: The year of the wood snake

Why isn’t anyone saying ‘2026 will be my year?’

Now that we are in the first month of 2026, I keep looking back at 2025 and wondering how we all survived it. I really believe it was the worst year anyone could have experienced. It felt dull, heavy, personal, but also shared. It was not just my life that felt out of place. Everywhere I turned, someone else was going through something just as painful or confusing.

The year kept piling on things I never expected. In one week, my cousin gave birth, my aunt fell down and fractured her arm and my neighbor’s mom ended up in the emergency room. I think it’s safe to say the people close to me somehow found their way to the hospital. My friend’s mom suddenly had liver failure. Another friend had parents who got divorced. I lost people who I thought would always be part of my life, and the way it all happened felt cold and sudden. Every time I thought things might settle, and I could breathe, something showed up and knocked the happiness out of me. 

What made it even stranger was how many people were dealing with the same kind of emotional collapse. I went on TikTok and ended up in a rabbit hole of people talking about how bad their year was. If you search up “2025 will be my year,” you will know what I mean. Long term relationships of three to seven years were ending. People were losing money or struggling to find stable work. Close friendships ended for reasons that made no sense. People were dealing with traumatic events that left them afraid or completely changed. It felt like the internet was one big support group, and every video sounded like something I had already felt. 

As weird as it sounds, the symbolism behind the year actually explains a lot of what happened. According to Chinese mythology, 2025 was the year of the snake, specifically the wood snake. In that sense, the snake represents deep transformation. Not the soft kind people post about online, but the painful kind that comes with shedding. In mythology, the snake is a symbol of rebirth, hidden truths and uncomfortable growth. When a snake sheds its skin, the process leaves it vulnerable and exposed. It is forced out of what once protected it. That energy felt exactly like 2025. It pushed people out of old versions of themselves, even if they were not ready. It made many people experience grief, inner work, personal changes and vulnerability; hoping that 2026 will bring peace and stability for what was lost in 2025.

2025 was also the final year of the nine-year numerology cycle, known as Year Nine. Year Nine is known for endings, closures and emotional release. It is the year that erases whatever has reached the end of its purpose. Relationships end, jobs change, friendships fall apart, and people are pushed to confront things they have been avoiding. It clears space to allow for new beginnings. 

2026 is marked as the year of the fire horse, allowing for intense energy, passion, independence and rapid movement. If the year of the snake was about ending, maybe 2026 can finally be about rebuilding.