Goodbye 2025. Please Be Gentle, 2026.

2026 is just around the corner and I don’t know what to expect.

As a Bangladeshi Millennial, looking towards 2026 gives me the feeling I used to get before riding a roller coaster in my childhood. I fear it’s going to be a horrifying ride, but I can’t skip it now because I’m at the front of the queue and the next turn is mine.

The next year has many elements to become a good year but the stakes are too high. There’s a future we all are hoping for, but the fear remains that it will be too good to be true.

We should be really happy that 2025 is at last ending. Not that any other years before this were too remarkable.

One of my friends was saying that I’m still stuck in 2019. Aren’t we all still stuck there, though?

Aren’t we all promising to improve, to start anew, to live a little more the next year?

2020, 2021 seems like a foggy horror movie scene.

2022-2023 took all our energy just trying to go back to normal. We tried so hard and failed so badly that there are some new normals now. 

2024 gave us new hope but took a lot more than we expected to lose. We lost friends, family, sons, daughters, fathers, brothers. We lost a part of our national soul in July. Did we get a new country? No. More problems resurfaced. 

2025 could have been a year for changes. It could have given us clarity for a better future. Instead, it became a year of nightmare. 

Most nights I lie awake, spiraling in my head about the uncertain future. I can’t fathom what lies in front of us. My anxiety peaks to the point where I feel like I'm trapped under a big rock called Bangladesh.

I was supposed to be living in my country not squashed under its problems.

As if we were not already drowning under all the uncertainty that 2026 is bringing with it, now I am constantly checking if my body is shaking because of iron deficiency or if the earth is literally shaking from yet another earthquake. 

Now that I look back to 2025, I feel more suffocated, afraid and angry.

These emotions are not constructed like an intellectual civil citizen of our country who sits down and thinks about all the issues and discusses at a talk show or in a gathering or writes down constructive articles. 

These are raw emotions that burn down my throat and sit on my chest. I can't spit out the words that rush to my mind, but they add another layer of bitter thoughts that leaves an aftertaste in my mouth. 

If I just start to count all the incidents of 2025 that come to my mind, you’ll know why I am saying 2025 is a prolonged nightmare.

The Milestone tragedy, and fires in Mirpur, Chittagong EPZ , and Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, and an earthquake that rattled the whole country wasn’t enough;  we got the gruesome Mohammadpur murder, the failed attempt of rescuing a child from a borehole, and more.

Osman Hadi is dead and the lynching of Dipu Chandra Das has been added to the list.

Do I need any more examples to explain why I feel how I feel about 2025? I'm sure I've missed a lot. You can keep adding in your list, I'm sure we all have one by now. 

Am I confident next year will be any better? Not really. 

From my childhood, I have never seen an election year to be uneventful. I’m not expecting anything different this time. I’ve learned my lesson.

My political vision is as blurry as my eyesight. Economics wasn’t my favourite subject ever. So, I am not going to pretend as if I understand any of these things.

What I understand is, the market is not middle-class-pocket friendly. I count my pennies more than my dreams and the Bangladesh job market is not a joyride for any freshly graduate. 

Which comes to my next question. What was the reason that started the July protest again? I don't remember any of the students asking for a position in Parliament. At least not initially.

I remember them asking for a fair chance to get a job. A fair chance to compete to earn a better future. Right now, I don't see any changes in the system.

Yes, I know. Changes take time. In more political verse, reform takes time. The amount of time I read and heard the term "Reform” in 2025, it has almost lost its meaning. And I can tell you as “a mango public” or aam jonota,  I'm not the only one. 

So I do what we are best at doing. I close down all social media and ignore everything as if nothing is happening around me. We don't move until the fire reaches us. We shut down our senses and pray for a miracle. A miracle that everything will go back to normal. That we will open our eyes and everything will be fine. 

The world is already at war, take it literally or not. The only safe place for us should be our own country. But we are not even safe here. 

Recently at lunch break I asked one of my interns what his plan for his future was. He said he doesn't know. If you ask me, I wasn't surprised at all. Even I can't see much of a future ahead.

The best I can hope for is to end 2025 without further incident and have a normal, simple, non-eventful 2026. 

This New Year's Eve I will wish for a boring rather than a happy new year. 2025, you had your chance and you have ruined it all.

Goodbye my friend, and fare thee well. 

And my earnest heartfelt request to the new year: Can you please come with a cheat sheet? I don’t need an 80+ mark, just a pass mark is fine.

Please be gentle with us, 2026. 

Shanim Tasnim is Senior Editorial Assistant, Counterpoint.