2024
01/01/25 00:05
This YEAR. I feel like it’s been a bit shit for everyone, right? Good lord.
I’m ending this circus of a year in a very different place – physically, mentally, emotionally – than where I began it. I’ve had my mind and heart broken, I’ve been humbled, I’ve been elevated, I’ve cried so, so much.
I’m not one for resolutions; I think they’re a really efficient way to set yourself up for failure early in mid- to late- February, so you can spend the remaining 10 months of the year feeling like garbage such that on December 31st you decide to do something about it, so you make a resolution…. No, this is one toxic cycle from which I’ve somehow managed to disengage. So instead of false promises of how I’m going to be a New™ and Improved™ Izzy in the year ahead, I’m going to reflect on some lessons I’ve gleaned from the year behind.
In no particular order:
Personal growth is great, and I’m incredibly grateful to have learned the lessons I learned this year. I genuinely feel that this different place is a *better* place than where I started. Having said that, I’m begging the powers that be to make 2025 even just a fraction easier. I’m all for learning – yay, learning! But to quote the exquisite Lili Von Shtupp, “Let’s face it, I’m tired.”
So in these waning hours of 2024, I find myself curled up with my cat and a distinct lack of resolutions. No plans to see the year out with any kind of fanfare, just this moment of (mostly) sober reflection, with my computer and my cat, and a desire to just make it through 2025.
I’m ending this circus of a year in a very different place – physically, mentally, emotionally – than where I began it. I’ve had my mind and heart broken, I’ve been humbled, I’ve been elevated, I’ve cried so, so much.
I’m not one for resolutions; I think they’re a really efficient way to set yourself up for failure early in mid- to late- February, so you can spend the remaining 10 months of the year feeling like garbage such that on December 31st you decide to do something about it, so you make a resolution…. No, this is one toxic cycle from which I’ve somehow managed to disengage. So instead of false promises of how I’m going to be a New™ and Improved™ Izzy in the year ahead, I’m going to reflect on some lessons I’ve gleaned from the year behind.
In no particular order:
- I’m stronger than I give myself credit for. I feel like I got hit with so much this year. Everyone did, I think, honestly. But I’ve never considered myself a particularly strong person – I’m anxious, often unsure, filled with stress. Yet I got through everything that happened this year. Not unscathed and certainly not unchanged, but I got through it.
- I don’t have to be unhappy. It seems like it should be a no-brainer, but I spent a long time being unhappy because I didn’t think I had the right to not be. I thought it was a failing on my part that I wasn’t content with what I had. This was the year I finally got it through my head that sometimes our needs or wants change, and that’s just a normal part of becoming who you are throughout life. It’s ok – hell, it’s normal – for your priorities shift as you get older, for you to look at life differently as circumstances chang
- I’m not always the main character and it’s not always about me. Says the woman writing about herself on a site about herself that she pays to maintain so she can write about herself. But hear me out. There were a few times this year where I placed my own feelings about a situation above the feelings of another person, because I valued my own feelings more. The fallout from this was one of the biggest wake-up calls I’ve had, and led to some of the deepest introspection I’ve ever done.
- The more often I step out of my comfort zone, the bigger my comfort zone gets. I realize that could be taken to some pretty unsafe extremes, but my comfort zone in recent years has been uncomfortably small. So I won’t be doing anything truly wacky anytime soon. But I realized this year if I say yes to just one or two more things, or strike up a conversation with one or two more people, the more opportunity there is for magic, for connection, for general spiffiness.
- I don’t have a 5th one. I was hoping I would, because 5 just sits better with me, but I think those 4 other ones are the biggies.
Personal growth is great, and I’m incredibly grateful to have learned the lessons I learned this year. I genuinely feel that this different place is a *better* place than where I started. Having said that, I’m begging the powers that be to make 2025 even just a fraction easier. I’m all for learning – yay, learning! But to quote the exquisite Lili Von Shtupp, “Let’s face it, I’m tired.”
So in these waning hours of 2024, I find myself curled up with my cat and a distinct lack of resolutions. No plans to see the year out with any kind of fanfare, just this moment of (mostly) sober reflection, with my computer and my cat, and a desire to just make it through 2025.
