2024 was a lot.
I don't know where to begin in trying to distill down everything this past year held. Which probably means this is a valuable opportunity to take some time just to reflect on its events.
Personally, there was so much good in this year, including a lot of growth. It is such an awe-inspiring delight to see my kids grow and for their personalities to emerge more and more. I'm so proud of how our family is evolving, and I'm so grateful for the partnership I have with my husband. My work, as always, is really rewarding. Since our youngest child finally enrolled in daycare midway through the year, I've re-expanded my hours at work in a way that still feels sustainable, in part because I got to feel what it's like to do less than the maximum I'm capable of professionally for some time. Our family got to take an absolutely incredible trip abroad, and I got to travel to see some of my favorite people. It's been a really rich, fruitful year.
Globally, it's hard to feel anything other than heaviness. I've been wrestling with this dichotomy between the micro and macro levels of my life, and I still don't really know how to hold it all at the same time, how to make sense of how one very different little world is nestled within the other.
This seems like as good an opening as any to look back at the resolutions I made for 2024, and to set goals for the new year. My resolutions last year were:
1. Prioritize the things that make savoring life possible.
2. Watch at least 30 movies.
1. Prioritize the things that make savoring life possible.
My two-part version of what might be the most cringily-worded resolution I've ever made was to a) stay committed to recovery and self-care stuff, and b) prioritize my hobbies. In all honesty, for the first half of the year, this was pretty much impossible. Lack of childcare is just a crushingly immovable barrier for these kinds of endeavors, and unfortunately it took months longer than expected for a place to become available for our second child at the daycare our first child attends.
Once that was in place, it definitely made a lot of day-to-day life and work stuff easier, but it still wasn't enough for there to be space for any "bonus" stuff. Recognizing that reality is what finally pushed me to find and commit to having a babysitter come for a few hours every weekend, long after a neighbor with young children recommended doing so. Having guilt-free free time--self-determination time that doesn't come at the cost of my partner doing double duty for the duration--has made a huge difference in my overall mental health and the range of things I'm able to do on a semi-regular basis. It's been such a life-changing gift.
And so, in the past 6 months or so, I've actually made significant progress toward this goal. I've gone to see movies, met up with friends, started attending a book club with other parents in our neighborhood, read for fun, had quality time with Husband, and had some more time for writing. I've also finally taken meaningful steps in deepening my recovery work and committed to doing that regularly, which feels so good. There are still additional steps I want to take in that domain, but it's a huge relief, honestly, to finally start breaking through the emotional log jam that was stymieing my progress.
While I knew I desperately needed to fulfill this resolution when I made it, I wasn't confident I would actually be able to. I'm so grateful to be able to say that I really did succeed with this resolution. My life feels measurably brighter because of it--there have been many days when I've noticed that my ambient emotional state is just content, happy.
Recently I've been recognizing that so much of that is a consequence of discipline; quiet, consistent, reasonably flexible yet generally unwavering commitment to doing what needs to be done, over and over. Just as this is why there are flowers and wildlife to watch in my backyard, it's why I feel emotionally healthier now than I did just a few years ago. It's why my kids are growing in all sorts of beautiful ways and my marriage is strong. I'm just so genuinely grateful to feel the benefit of this routine, committed labor, and to know that that felt benefit is proof of not only my ability to improve my own life but also my interconnectedness with the greater world.
2. Watch at least 30 movies.
I also didn't write nearly as much as I'd hoped. In a way, the dramatic shift from writing the most posts I'd ever written in 2023 to the least in 2024 stings way more than the reduced number of movies I watched. I never even finished writing the 2024 round-up post! Even as I plan to retain the same movie-watching goal for the new year, I hope to write more in 2025.
So let's talk about goals for this year.
My resolutions for 2025 are:
1. Do sustainable, consistent, values-congruent things with my free time.
This includes doing things I enjoy, like building local friendships, connecting with long-distance friends, reading, writing, doing photography stuff, baking and cooking, taking walks, taking care of plants and animals, decorating our home, and I really do want to start playing VR again because I miss my cute minigolf game! It also includes doing self-care and recovery work, including reading, attending meetings, meeting with other people involved in recovery, and hopefully beefing up my recovery work through further connecting with other people also involved in recovery.
Finally, I also want to take my own advice by participating in regular activism centered on the things I care most about using a collaborative approach and, where possible, continuing to engage in mutual aid.
Taken altogether, I know fulfilling this resolution will actively contribute to my overall wellbeing.
2. Watch at least 30 movies, and write at least 15 posts.
I think I would feel really good about meeting this resolution, which based on how this year went seems reasonable yet still like a bit of a reach. Writing about movies is so grounding and enjoyable for me--I love being able to think deeply about what I've watched and share what I liked about them. Doing even a little bit more of that would mean a lot to me.
And with that, as my oldest child busts into my office to blast me with my hair dryer (who knows why writing regularly is such a challenge??), I will sign off.
Happy New Year, dear friends.
{Heart}
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