2024: A Challenging, Frustrating Year

It’s hard to believe that December is already halfway over. These last few months have felt excruciatingly long, yet looking back on them now, they seem to have passed by in the blink of an eye. Since I finished my book in late-September, my time has primarily been divided among reading, conceptualizing my next project, and trying to get a handle on my persistent–and ever-perplexing–health issues. There’s a lot of uncertainty in my life at the moment, and I feel like I’m suspended in time, biding my time while I wait: for answers; for my writing career to take off, or at least gain a little momentum; for my ideas to take shape and direction; for my body to start making some semblance of sense again.

My family isn’t really celebrating the holidays this year, though it’s impossible to be totally disconnected from the pervasive festive spirit. Even inside our nontheistic house, presents for my mama’s coworkers crowd the living room and holiday cards from family and friends are dispersed across the kitchen countertops. Looking at the cards, I can’t help but be reminded of my social media days, of scrolling past post after post of my smiling, sociable peers and wondering what I was doing wrong and if I was “failing” life. It speaks to the society we live in, I believe, that we feel compelled to share only our joys and successes–the vacations and weddings and graduations and promotions–and conceal our sorrows and hardships, as though to be transparent about the fact that life isn’t always sunshine and roses would be to admit weakness and imperfection–in other words, to admit that we are human.

But perfection is no longer as standard I aspire to reach, and 2024 has been a more challenging year than I could have ever anticipated. What began as the year when I would finally conquer my mental health challenges quickly morphed into a disorienting, exhausting cataclysm of chronic health issues: excruciating joint pain in June, severe chronic fatigue and brain fog in July and August, dizziness and GI issues in the fall, all resulting in a series of doctor appointments: rheumatology, cardiology, psychiatry, gastroenterology. Consequently, I experienced a resurgence in the same mental health issues I was so keen on overcoming, notably depression and disordered eating.

Politically, 2024 has been a frightening trainwreck, eerily reminiscent of 2016, the first year I truly began to pay attention to politics. But whereas my sixteen-year-old self was distraught and confused by Trump’s victory, at twenty-four I’ve outgrown much of my adolescent naivety, and what I felt on November 5th, more than anything else, was deflated and hopeless. In the weeks that followed the election, I became very cynical toward humanity and defeatist about the future, as a way of coping with my underlying grief and anxiety. While my negativity has softened since then, I don’t feel very good about the world I live in or where things are headed, though I’m trying not to focus too much on this and instead stay in the present moment.

I’m an innately glass half-empty person; in my mind, the negatives typically outshine the positives, and the worst-case scenario invariably seems the most probable. When I reflect on 2024, it’s with a feeling of weariness and frustration, though the year hasn’t been all bad–far from it, in fact. Though my writing career didn’t advance as much as I hoped it would, I wrote–and finished–a young adult novel that I’m extremely proud of, which will go out on submission in the new year. Our house in Vermont, which we obtained–improbably–at the tail end of last year, is almost ready to be moved into, and we plan to relocate to the peaceful Green Mountain State by the summer, if not sooner. I received an Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis in March, which helped to explain certain aspects of my past and present as well as allowed me to be more understanding of myself and my limitations. I finally achieved my multi-yearly objective of getting off social media and TV, and have read many incredible books. (Stay tuned for my annual Best Books post in the coming weeks.)

I’ve resolved not to make any resolutions or set any goals for 2025 and instead will to continue to take each day as they come, the good and the bad. I will continue to focus on what’s in my control and to practice gratitude for the wonderful people in my life–most of all my parents but also the empathetic, proactive doctors who are doing what they can to help me find answers and reprieve. I will continue to write and read often, and to find joy in nature, games, and my pets. And I will continue to work on not being so hard on myself and other people, and to not feel the need to explain myself because my life isn’t in the place where I thought–or hoped–it would be in my mid-twenties. Such is life that it is vastly unpredictable, often unfair, and rarely pans out as we imagined; but adversity fosters strength and character, and to be open about adversity–I believe–brings us closer together in our disconnected society.