When I thought about doing a year-end wrap-up post, initially I didn’t think I had anything to say. If I did a year-end photo carousel for social media it would be about 3.5 seconds long. I took hardly any photos in 2024, and had very few adventures. I have seen a lot of people writing about how hard this year has been, but for me, 2024 was the year I lost a half a year of my life. 2024 was the year of too many emergency room visits, countless tubes of blood drawn, hundreds of pills taken, of ultrasounds, MRIs, CTs, EEGs and EKGs, of too many tests and too few answers, and then of surgery, and the loss of 50% of my thyroid. It was the year I had to take a leave of absence from work, and when I progressively lost the ability to do all the things I had long taken for granted: take a walk, run an errand, drive a car, make dinner, sit upright in a chair for more than a few minutes, shower standing up—and then, just as slowly, learn how to do all those things again.
But 2024 was also the year that we accomplished our goal of packing up our pets and our house and our lives and moving across the country to California, something that for a while we weren’t sure if I was going to be able to do. It was the year I got to be an in-person aunt to an adorable little person. It was the year I discovered just how fragile our human bodies are, but also how resilient they can be.
I am looking forward to so much in 2025, namely being able to travel again; it’s been so long. Also, I don’t know if “looking forward to” is the right wording here, but at some point soon I am hoping to once again be gainfully employed; “funemployment” starts wearing a little thin after about three weeks, and it’s been three months. And of course, continued good health.
Thank you for reading, and I am wishing you all of the best in the new year.
Love,
Rachel