Looking back and moving forward, pt 2
This year has been an absolute rollercoaster in a way that I predicted, and yet still was woefully unprepared for. Last year when reflecting upon 2023 in my journal, I vividly remember being extremely anxious about the upcoming year. 2023 had been, and honestly still remains, the best year of my life and I knew that high would have an expiration date. If life is good all the time, it’s not really good right? I went abroad to Paris, which had been a dream of mine since childhood. I lived in NYC for a summer, and I had my first semester as just a student, and no longer a student athlete, during my senior fall. While of course the year had its duller moments and occasional bouts of feeling down (mostly when I was trying to figure out my career path, a dilemma still plaguing me a year later), overall, I felt unstoppable. It felt like everything was falling into place but at the end of the year, I had a sinking feeling that the season wouldn’t last.
The last semester of school contained some of the most entertaining, chaotic, wholesome, emotional moments of my life and I’m so endlessly grateful that my college experience ended the way it did (even if I was running into Olin graduation after an ill-timed bathroom break to adjust my dress). It’s times like this that I’m grateful I am someone constantly taking pictures and keeping random bits and bobs for my scrapbook wall. When my memory is fading in 50 years, I’ll have a lot to look back on and be fond of.
What is to become of my professional future has been the all-consuming topic of my existence, and it’s felt like my personal and social growth has been dependent on what job prospects have looked like at the time. At moments, I’ve sat happily in the peace of having no obligations and balancing going to the gym and bopping around downtown as ways to fill my time. I’ve done a lot of thinking, a lot of writing and reading, and even more thinking. I came out of school knowing what I wanted, then transitioning to being willing to take anything and now I’m at a strange impasse. I know how I want to feel next year, but I don’t know how to get there. As someone who likes to plan out major plot points, and then wander and have fun along the way, going into the year with no plan or prospects is no longer even terrifying, but more so exhausting. It hurts my head to think about. Having to constantly “pivot” and rethink and attempt to figure out every possible avenue is discouraging and draining and leads to more existential breakdowns than I’d like to admit- but I have to keep going! That’s really the only choice, and someday I’ll look back at the latter half of this year as a “weird time where I was struggling but also still having a bit of fun”.
I think instead of having a monthly goal, I’m going to have a word every month that I focus on. An energy or a vibe or headspace I want to live in, grapple and challenge myself with, or exude. I will say, however, that the monthly goals have been great for habit building this past year, and I’m excited to see them become more established in the new year. I’m not exactly sure what I want for 2025! Just going to try and remain optimistic, pray when things get shitty (and when they’re not) and lean on friends and family along the way. I’m reviving my In-n-Out list only to kickstart 2025, but I don’t think I’ll keep a consistent updated list until I’m at a point where life is objectively a little more interesting.
Sending all my love! Happy New Year.
My top 10 favorite posts of the year (weekly reports not included because I love all of them)
6/21: I would live in Scottsdale if it meant my friends and I could be together again
9/26: Jil Sander, you will always be famous to me: MFW S/S25 Recap
10/23: Perhaps I do like the west coast… my week in California recap
12/4: My top 10 albums of 2024
In-n-Out but not the Burger Chain: 2025 Kickoff Edition
