Carry Your Voice to the Next Year — Hello 2026
This New Year, I sang my own song on a small stage in Budapest — and then did something even more terrifying. I looked at the photos. No strategic angles. No mental Photoshop. No bargaining with my nose.
Just me, caught mid-sound, mid-joy, mid-life — and, for the first time, I didn’t flinch.
Singing my own song on stage at Lámpás Pub, welcoming the New Year in Budapest, Hungary
photo by Anna Joyner @diosanica_
How many selfies are rotting in your phone right now — the good ones, the almost ones, the delete-immediately ones? Most of us are probably guilty of having hundreds of them. Yet even if snapping a selfie is now as normal as having a cup of coffee, seeing photos of ourselves can be daunting. Still, there is something amazing about documenting our timelines in pictures. But even if it’s cool and we have many photos, how often do we really see a true, honest representation of our moments?
How many photos do you own that make you think: yes — this is how it really was, how I truly felt? Not how I want to remember it — because there is a huge difference — but how it actually felt.
Reality is hard to come by. I find that facing our own, however uncomfortable it may be, is not only refreshing but deeply human — and absolutely essential. If it’s done the right way, looking at pictures of ourselves can have immense healing power. Whether it’s the courage to face a moment of defeat with self-love looking back at you, or the joy of celebrating a moment when you just nailed it, sometimes we have to look at ourselves from the outside to put things into perspective.
As a photographer, I naturally think of my life as a timeline of images. However, since some of my best friends are photographers, I’m often confronted with — well — me, caught in various unexpected moments. And the way others see me is very different from the way I see myself in selfies.
It took me years to accept photos of me — images that everyone else thought were terrific. It took time to look beyond what I thought were my obvious flaws: how big my nose looked, whether I should have done my makeup differently, or why I had a belly. The nose thing, in particular, haunted me. It showed up before I did in every photo, like it had its own agenda. The list was long, and the time it took to shift my perspective matched it.
This New Year, finally — for the first time in my life — I felt complete harmony with what I was looking at. Looking at these pictures, the first thing I thought was: wow — how cool. So open. So free. And look — my nose is unique; it’s a cool picture. At that moment, I truly surprised myself and started writing this article.
Singing my own song on stage at Lámpás Pub, welcoming the New Year in Budapest, Hungary
photo by Anna Joyner @diosanica_
The woman in the photos — me — was free to speak, to sing, and glowing with joy. Being heard — being able to freely do what I love, singing my own songs, both literally and figuratively — came late for me. And I know just how many of us are struggling to get there, or to stay there.
These pictures encapsulate some of the biggest challenges I’ve had to overcome — and still continue to overcome. In my case, the act of making a sound after many years of toxic relationships that attempted to mute me — daring to make a sound at all — is pure joy.
Beyond this, finding the time and courage to step on stage as a single mum, as someone who does many things besides music, and as someone at least ten years older than the average newcomer, is the result of years of hard work and healing.
The road that led me here was as convoluted as it gets. Through several countries and cultures, heartbreaks and motherhood — through life being dismantled and rebuilt more than once. But here I am. And here we can all be, I firmly believe.
The location itself elevated the experience. Nearly three years ago, when I moved to Budapest, my very first outing led me exactly here: to Lámpás — a dark and dingy pub, with just the right amount of stickiness to feel authentic, and an extraordinary international community of regulars.
Singing my own song on stage at Lámpás Pub, welcoming the New Year in Budapest, Hungary
photo by Anna Joyner @diosanica_
I went to check out an Open Mic night — a place where musicians share their work, where the host holds the space, and where we listen to one another with respect while creating something unforgettable in the heart of the city. Watching the musicians that evening — many of whom later became close friends — I was only dreaming then. Maybe, one day, I thought, I’d stand on that stage.
At that point, I hadn’t touched music for over ten years. I had never sung in a pub; my background is classical.
Still, I had a quiet certainty. A desire to connect with people through my own songs — in a more intimate setting than the infinite, sacred heights of churches. I had no idea how I would get there. I only knew I belonged on that stage.
After years of practice, guitar and vocal lessons, and — most importantly — therapy, friendships, and life experience, I became a regular at Budapest Open Mic events. I often failed, sang out of key, and got scared of the big sound — three amps and a mic, it turns out, don’t forgive you the way church acoustics do. Every wobble gets a spotlight. Playing with others, often totally random people, is wonderful, but it’s a very different ball game from performing with a cappella groups and choirs after dozens of rehearsals — a steep, unavoidable learning curve. I had to accept the many beginner’s mistakes that were absolutely necessary, while at the same time learning how to be psychologically free enough to let sound leave my body without apologising for it.
Step by step, I got my voice back — and it’s more powerful than ever, not only on stage but in my everyday life.
Greeting the New Year after my performance in Budapest, Hungary
photo by Anna Joyner @diosanica_
With that came a deep warmth — the realisation that I’ve arrived at a place where I can finally stand in myself, here and now.
It feels good to be my age and to sing songs with real life experience behind them. There’s nothing left to imagine or fake. I am more than enough to tell these stories.
The best is perhaps that I just couldn’t wait to show the photos to my children. They are proud of me for being on stage. They enjoy my writing process too, even when it makes me cry — because it gives us space to talk, to process, and to make sense of the things we’ve been through together.
On stage, I represent all that I know and all that I am, and it feels deeply liberating to finally be at peace with it all.
Now, through the understanding lens of Anna Joyner — photographer, extraordinary human, and one of the best friends I could ever wish for — I have this moment forever. A moment that allows me to look at my joy, my youth, my becoming — and carry it with me into the next year.
The year couldn’t have started in a better way: a quiet, generous moment to honour the work behind me and lay the foundation for growth in the year ahead.
I wish you all a happy new year, and many moments where you get to sing your own song.
Over to you.
Do you like looking at pictures of yourself?
And do they truly tell your story?
