19/12/2024
Haven’t posted on this account all year…
2024 was tough. Honestly, I’m not particularly happy with my health or physique rn…but also, let’s talk about seasons of life.
On the one hand, I totally get the “no excuses” mindset. On the other hand, I am trying to come to grips with the fact that not every season my fitness will be a top priority, and that’s okay.
I know that the following will seem partly braggy and partly very woe-is-me. However, I am typing this caption for my own catharsis.
The good “social media worthy” parts of 2024:
1) two incredible trips to NYC!
2) two cruises!!
3) many other smaller trips, some of which I got to spend time with amazing long-distance friends
4) concerts, concerts, concerts…including Niall Horan close up and last minute face-value Taylor Swift tickets!!!
I fully recognize that all of these things are IMMENSE blessings.
And yet, I wish I could focus on them more…this year has been one of the hardest years of my life.
In April, my future grandmother-in-law and my finance’s family dog passed within about two weeks of each other. Then, I hit a couple of different stressors in some of my close relationships that kept the first half of summer pretty stressful. Right as they were beginning to resolve and things felt peaceful again, I got the extremely unexpected news that one of the closest people to me had cancer. “Good prognosis,” cancer, but cancer nonetheless. It shattered my world. As this was all going on, I was expected to be reading for my PhD qualifying exam. I felt so lost, distressed, and depressed. My personal life was in pieces while I was trying to manage one of the most stressful times to-date in my professional life. There was no escape from the stress. The end of the year continued to be par for the course…I almost feel silly bringing a para-social relationship into the mix of all of this, but One Direction was* my life in high school. Yet when Liam Payne died in October, I felt mostly numb. It felt like just one more thing piled on this crap storm of a year. Then, my great uncle unexpectedly died in a house fire. I didn’t really know him nor will I claim to, but I felt awful… (continued in comments)
