2024 Reflection
Thank you 2024 for all that you taught me.
I’m sitting in my mom’s house in California, in the rocking chair that she used to rock me in as a baby, bathed in winter sunlight. For the past three years, I’ve ended the year in the area where I was born and spent most of my nearly 30 years. It feels fitting to welcome the new year on these lands, even though I'll be returning to my life in Europe mid-January. Straddling two worlds and cultures is starting to feel like my new ‘normal,’ but it is not without it’s own stickiness.
Much of my future feels like a giant question mark, both exciting and daunting. Where will my partner and I live in three years? Where will we start our family? What will our lives look like? These questions like to dance around my mind, especially when I don’t feel grounded. For now, I have learned to live with the unknown of my life’s path. It’s not that my future wasn’t unknown before, but now it feels like I am forced to face it more candidly and more often, and so I do.
This past year was one of turbulence, unlearning, letting go, and stepping into the new. I experienced heartbreak but also a deep renewal of love. At times it felt like I was disintegrating and at others like I was rising up from my ashes. Yes, if you’re wondering, I’m going through my Saturn return haha. But amongst all of this upheaval and grief and intensity I learned so much. I wouldn’t trade the pain and mistakes of 2024 for anything. They turned out to be my biggest and wisest teachers, helping me call in the person I want to become.
Here are some things that this past year has shown me:
1- Sometimes, internally, summer feels like winter, and that’s okay.
2- Discovering the work that your soul has been called to do on this planet gives you the energy and drive you’ve been lacking.
3- Cutting your hair short doesn’t make you less feminine.
4- It’s okay if periods of awareness are followed by days, weeks, or even months of slipping back into old patterns. When this happens it is helpful to guide yourself back to your center and the physical sensations in your body.
5- Cancelling plans is liberating and an act of self love.
6- Making chai from scratch is easy and delicious (I just boil black tea, ginger, and cardamom on the stove and then add milk and honey).
7- Healing from injuries and illness take time, be gentle with your body and trust in it’s ability to heal itself.
8- Non-monogamy is a fluid practice, and it’s okay if your relationship shifts between being open, less open, closed, or anywhere in between. Feel into what is right for you and your partner(s) and be open to change.
9- Love bombing is not the same thing as love.
10- Making music is a beautiful way to process grief.
11- Scabies is fucked up, avoid at all cost.
12- Insight and intellect are two different things. One comes from within you as a deeper knowing and the other is just a good idea.
13- Tapping into love and letting go of ego are two skills that are needed now more than ever.
14- A protein-rich breakfast is a game changer. My favorite breakfast, introduced to me by a dear friend this year, is two scrambled eggs with sautéed red onion and zucchini, completely smothered in lots of TajÃn.
15- Respecting when it’s a ‘no’ for you and setting firm boundaries is sometimes scary but always worth it.
16- Already Free by Bruce Tift is an amazing book and I think the world would be a better place if we all read it.
17- Find the blessings in the discomfort, they are there!
There are so many more realizations and lessons that came out of 2024, it really did feel like ten different years crammed into one. That being said, I think the biggest takeaway was learning that no experience is entirely good or entirely bad. If you can uncover the treasure buried in the mess, life not only feels more manageable but also more magical.
So many juicy things came out of 2024, I can only imagine what lessons and blessings this next year will bring. Wishing all of you a meaningful closing of this year and a beautiful beginning to 2025!