As an in-state student with the privilege of a car on campus, I tend to go home pretty frequently on weekends. I like being in Boulder, but sometimes I need space to breathe. It’s how I cope; it’s just my nature. Within each road trip my destination– no matter how familiar– always appears slightly different, though the journey always seems to remain the same. 2024 is coming to a close and to be quite frank it was the worst year of my life, and in a shocking turn of events: I’m glad it was.
For me, 2024 was laughably tragic, and while I want to say I’ll try to finish strong (a mantra ingrained into my well-being [thanks Dad]), I think this time I’ll let the year softly roll to a long-anticipated end. I’ve always thought that everything happens for a reason, and this year tested whether or not I should still believe it does. Somedays truly felt like at any possible moment a comical anvil would fall on my head. I’d joke with friends playfully about my everyday big and small misdemeanors but find myself vulnerable some nights asking why me? Nothing ever felt fair, and it wasn’t– life rarely ever is, but getting caught up in a world of deserved deprivation gets no one anywhere. As I write this now, a survivor of my own worst horrors, there’s not many moments this year I’d care to re-live nor are there ones I’d care to redo. In 2024 I don’t think I’ve ever learned more.
There is a first for everything; you’re never done taking baby steps. As a former Montessori hands-on schooling method child, to learn it is to live it, and reading from a book or listening to a lecture never got me anywhere. I was taught long division with test tubes and beads and principles or grammar with matching cards. Confrontation was no different for me, a lesson in life far more daunting than my “when to use there their or they’re” flashcards. Having a conversation in your head and replaying your words over and over doesn’t save a friendship or your well-being– it only brews resentment (towards yourself and others). While I’m still figuring out the motions of what it means to self-advocate; I’ve watched my attempts in doing so salvage the relationships in my life that mean the most to me, and the one I hold with myself progress, leaving the state of stagnant misery behind for the better.
In 2024 I took baby steps through the loss of a close loved one for the first time. The cyclic nature of time is funny in the way we return to the Earth as vulnerable as the way we came. And while it feels unfair to lose someone who’s lived a life so full while yours is just beginning, it taught me the importance and beauty of missing someone. To miss someone, as I see it, is synonymous with holding them close. When you miss someone it’s because you love them, and while some days are harder than others–especially through the motions of deep-cut grief– you should never let the warmth of their memories go cold; instead, let them embrace you with their comfort. Experience the pain wholly—it’s so beautiful to love that much.
Patience is my word of the year. I am notoriously impatient, but such an attribute does not pair well with a broken ankle. I walk (thankfully) out of 2024 with a completely reconstructed ankle (16 screws and three plates, but who’s counting anyway), and in the almost eight-month recovery period I’m still in, I’ve learned it’s okay to give myself some grace. My suddenly fast-paced life was yanked from right out under me and I watched my friends’ lives go on as mine took a very painful halt. I was overwhelmed by unimaginable pain and frustration when it took me an extra 20 minutes just to be able to brush my teeth. Out of everything in my year, it was this that felt the most unfair. Things heal with time and so did I. At a certain point I realized being bitter and pushing everyone away because of my condition was not going to get me anywhere. In slowing down I found that life is still liveable and the way of the world should not affect how I walk (or crutch) through it.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and what doesn’t kill also makes you softer, and what doesn’t kill you makes you more apt to find purpose in the unfair. I still don’t know much about the world; in fact, I still know nothing and I’m not sure I ever will. When I inevitably drive the same 50-minute route back to my hometown in two weeks for the holidays, I know it will look vastly different from what I’ve expected in years past, but I’m excited.