24 thoughts for 2024
The new year is a perfect time for (self) reflection. Although I hold little hope for a miraculous and much better 2025, I’m not mad about the lack of optimism. Maybe that’s the best thing 2024 could have taught me. It doesn’t have to get better before you see pockets of light - there is still beauty in the breakdown.
Here’s 24 musings from my year, following the calendar:
24 THINGS I LEARNT IN 2024
January
1: If you don’t have your (physical and mental) health, you have next to nothing
2: I still think Fleetwood’s ’97 performance of Silver Springs is unmatched.
February
3: Love is so much more and so much better when it doesn’t just come from a romantic partner.
4: Sometimes the best days of your life are sharing a strawberry ice-lolly with someone you’re obsessed with on a cold February afternoon.
March
5: I hate to be a Debbie-downer, but when they say it can’t get any worse - there is always an option for it to do so.
6: Did M&S actually get good, or are we getting older?
April
7: Building foundations is very quiet, unsexy, boring work.
8: Easter is still my favourite holiday.
May
9: Camping with friends should be a quarterly wellbeing requirement.
10: I’m still rather bad at inner critic voices when it comes to personal failures.
June
11: Yoga retreats won’t cure your burnout, but they will allow you to access space so that grief or pain or joy can visit. If it knocks - go there.
12: I travelled alone and met two girls at the airport and instantly thought they were going to be amazing company. They were. And they still are. As we spent the week together, others in the group asked “How do you all know one another?” And pointed at us. I laughed, they’d been best friends for a decade, I was just tagging along after 1 day. It was an instant friendship-spark, and I wondered if I said this about a guy how many eye-rolls I would get. Sometimes there’s undeniable connection and magic. In friendships, in romance, in the way a stray daisy dances with the wind. Can we put the sceptics to bed?
July
13: Writing over traumatic memories with incredible people is a beautiful and painful experience.
14: When you play the player do they still think they’re playing?
August:
15: Some dreams when they materialise, aren’t so great after all. But some are better. Paris is always a very good idea.
16: If you trigger someone just for existing without any malice, it is not your responsibility to change. It is their work to do.
September:
17: I think my drug of choice is catching eyes with a guy at a bar while ‘I can’t hear you’ by The Dead Weather plays on repeat in my head.
18: Ordering 6 Sambucca shots for two on an idle Tuesday is a silly idea before a big meeting. I am not 25 anymore.
October
19: Rock bottom is a really nasty place to be. You can really taste the end of your own tether…
20:..but it always shines a light on the deepest kindness. Keep your heart open.
November
21: I wonder if sex and fun can co-exist with finding a long-term partner, or whether you have to be sensible/mysterious/nonchalant? Spoiler: I couldn’t be further away from all of those things.
22: Watching my daughter fall asleep as I stroke her forehead is hands-down the most incredible feeling in the world.
December
23: If you ever wondered why you never feel good enough, go home. Literally go and spend time there.
24: I realised I didn’t need to put ‘have (more) fun’ in my intentions for 2025 and I thought to myself, after having the hardest year of my life, I’m feeling very proud. I have cultivated and gone seeking for joy during the rawest of circumstance. Perhaps in the darkest light, our fight for the good stuff gets stronger.
Thank you to absolutely everyone I had the pleasure of being with in 2024.