Struggling to Move Forward
One month into 2025 and I’m still struggling to let go of 2024….
I know, I know. I am very late for a 2024 wrap up and a look ahead into 2025. Seems a bit out of whack, but doesn’t everything these days seem more than a bit off? I guess I am giving myself a wide berth. 2025 will not likely kick in for me until February.
Where to begin in reflecting back on 2024… To paraphrase Linus, “I never thought it was such a bad little year.” 2024 tried its best to move along full of hope and promise …and then we hit November. For me, the bottom dropped out of 2024 on the morning of November 6. It was not what I expected, and that would have to be reckoned with in 2025.
But before I get ahead of myself, let’s take a look at some highlights of 2024 (pre-election)— life take-aways from my third full year of retirement.
Winter 2024 (January and February):
Leaving the early winter of any December and ringing in a New Year often finds me at loose ends. It can take me almost all of January to emerge from the deep funk of: 1) the big holiday letdown, and 2) the darkness of winter. No, I don’t suffer the transition from the holidays to bleak winter well. January hurts. I don’t know any other way to say it.
In 2024 I had a goal of working internally to address my anxiety and depression. For the most part I was pretty successful with that, and I knew I had to begin the work in the tough winter months. Eventually, January and February began to feel like hibernation and that felt right. In the first months of 2024 I enjoyed a multitude of solitude and reflection. In 2023, I had made an effort to take solitary winter walks, bundled up against the elements. By 2024, I enthusiastically looked forward to them. January and February were filled with those walks. There was also lots of reading, including books with my little online Book Group — just three old friends who go back almost 40 years, who get together over Zoom to catch up and talk books. Most of these two first months of 2024 were devoted to the indoor pursuit of writing (this blog, Morning Pages, and our Women Rowing North writing group essays). My friend, Lauren, was still traveling to Vermont for work, so there was at least one dinner out together to brighten the winter. And as in every winter since I’ve retired, my trips to Phoenix Books in Essex saved my life during the depths of the darker months.
I do a lot more non-fiction reading in the winter and usually have a little routine (maybe I’ll write about in another blog post). Since I have retired, each February I undertake a “poet study” that I try to finish in April (Poetry Month). The first year after I retired, the featured poet of study was May Sarton. Reading her poetry and especially her journals, in which she chronicled the decades into her eighties, was such an education in aging women, the strength of the creative process, and the battle between craving solitude and feeling abandoned by the personal world you’ve inhabited for so long (now haltingly out of step with the your current reality). My Sarton study took two years. She was such a prolific writer, and there was so much to discover about her and her work the more I researched. Getting back to 2024, in February I became interested in Donald Hall after a trip to a bookstore. I noticed that he wrote essays on aging similar to Sarton’s. I let those life essays lead me to his poetry on his terms. He also led me back to the poetry of his wife, Jane Kenyon, whom I loved in the eighties. I read as much as I could find on her, and will probably continue to study her life and poetry in 2025, as some new-to-me books were acquired in the spring of 2024.
I feel I did my best to get through January and find things to love about February.
Spring 2024 (March, April, and May):
In 2024, I started looking at the seasons through the Meteorological vs. the Astronomical lens, and I have to say, it changed my perspective on the year. One of my goals in 2024 was to be able to shift my perspective to be more optimistic (Reader, you already know how that turned out). This simple shift did help me to get my brain into spring mode regardless of what the thermometer or The Weather Channel said. I will always love the pull of the moon, but breaking each season into three neat and tidy months has somehow helped me to enjoy and appreciate them more.
In March and April I acted on a blog idea that brought me so much joy! I went back and examined my reading life over the decades in a four part series. It was such a fun trip down memory lane, and I learned so much about the goals and dreams of my present self by looking through “my back pages.” The series also gave me the opportunity to celebrate the one year anniversary of The Precious Days blog.
The highlight of the spring had to be the total eclipse of the sun. What a tremendous gift it was to be alive in April 2024 to witness such a phenomenon. I will be forever grateful that on the afternoon of April 8, 2024, I was in my backyard, on my own deck, and in the path of totality.
In April and May, walks with my best friend since age 7, Brenda, occurred almost daily. It was so good to process the world in the fresh air. We made sure to do at least three miles with each walk. In early May we started a Bone Builders class together—a good thing for me with my osteoporosis. I also started volunteering at my local library in May. I have to say, looking back at 2024, this was definitely a highpoint, and I continue to look forward to my morning at the library each week.
By the end of May, spring began to feel like summer. We put out all the outdoor furniture and the garden Buddhas, set up my reading hut, and spruced up the backyard with annuals that complemented our gorgeous perennial gardens (thank you, husband). I was more than ready to greet another Vermont summer. But at the same time, political uneasiness was digging in as it became clear that the man who inspired the violence on January 6, 2021 was once again the choice of far too many people in this country to be the next president. I was losing hope.
Summer 2024 (June, July, and August):
Looking back, my intentions for 2024 to be more patient, more optimistic, and more relaxed would finally be given some space in the summer months. I began June full of optimism, but once again, the politics of the US knocked the rose colored stuffing out of me. So, I tried to go back to church after a decades-long absence. My childhood church had a contemporary reputation of being inclusive and accepting, so for the summer I attended every Sunday. But I didn’t find what I was searching for. There was kindness, but no feeling of authenticity or connection for me. That’s a topic for another time, and probably not for the blog.
My husband and I took lots of day trips to local beaches, some Vermont independent bookstores, and listened to Bluegrass in the evenings at Shelburne Vineyard at least once a month. Those are the kind of summer staples that fuel the soul.
Then on the July anniversary of the 2023 floods in Vermont, our beautiful state was once again inundated by flood waters in Addison, Orleans, Washington, Caledonia, Chittenden, Lamoille, and Essex counties. Then at the end of the month, some counties were hit yet again with flooding. Despite these tragedies for my state, by the end of July, hope for the country was once again in sight. I could feel the optimism surge. I felt joy.
But August knocked me down again — the remnants of Hurricane Debby brought horrendous winds to much of Vermont — we lost power for 26 hours, and we were among the “lucky” ones. Many lost power for days. Downed tree limbs wreaked havoc. The effects of climate change had seriously impacted the summer in Vermont with extreme weather for the second year in a row.
Despite what I remember as a hot, humid August and the extremes of the summer, I ended my summer of 2024 feeling there was so much to look forward to.
Fall 2024: (September, October, November):
In September, I went back to work—just a tiny venture. I just had a few guest hosting responsibilities for a professional development organization over the next three months, but it was so much fun and I really looked forward to it. In many ways, it was a glorious fall. In September and October my husband and I took lots of day trips to explore more independent bookstores, new restaurants, and the foliage in Vermont and beyond. I had lots of coffee dates with friends on gorgeous autumn mornings. My friend and I retraced childhood memories through the neighborhoods, kicking the leaves on afternoon walks. It was a beautiful fall — full of color and so much happiness. Then in November, it all fell apart.
And about December, 2024…
Thanksgiving was tough, and it rolled itself into an even rougher December. Without the familiar distractions of celebrating the Christmas season, the spiraling fear that comes from such profound uncertainty would have been even worse. Looking forward to the New Year…well, it just didn’t happen. In November, dread took up residency in my life and made it clear it wasn’t going anywhere any time soon.
And 2025?
I have small intentions. I will do my poet study this year on Anne Sexton. I am determined to finally learn to write a passable book review. I will push myself as a writer with some experimental things I feel ready to tackle. I will continue to work at connecting with people— I can let myself get too isolated.
Mostly, I will just keep moving my small world forward, incrementally. I am grateful for books, for writing (especially my WRN friends), for my close friends, who with me, mourn what might have been. They worry with me, support me, and drag me out of myself for walks, lunches, coffee, and life. Day by day, I intend to work at growing my joy and optimism, to push out the dread. And taking it one day at a time with me is my husband, my anchor. He helps me to see the everyday beauty in the world during ugliest of times. He pulls me forward into The Precious Days with loving kindness. And that, Readers, is all I could wish for in another new year, isn’t it?
