Some final things from 2024
Reframing my word for the year and some ideas for reflection
For several years, I’ve chosen a word for the year to gently guide my decisions and outlook: vitality, practice and patience, to name a few.
This year, I chose the word serious.
As I reflect on 2024, it’s the first time I’ve felt like my word for the year didn’t quite fit.
I can now grasp something Pamela Barclay (who has chosen a word for over 30 years) told me: it's important to consider the light as well as the shade.
While I set out to devote more time to my writing, my new book ideas, and my desires, I found myself taking other things like money, success and stability far more seriously.
This led to scattered to-do lists, conflicting ambitions, and feeling distracted.
Maybe that’s what the year was always going to be. I could define the year as a stack of half-hearted attempts, or, I can choose to define it as a year of serious trying.
Trying to meditate. Trying new writing styles. Trying to find a new job. Trying to find a new literary agent. Trying to cultivate community in a new city. Trying to make a new life work. Some things I had more success than others, but the important thing was I kept trying.
Even a seemingly ill-fitting word has a lot to teach us. It can serve as a guide for the year ahead, and shape what’s next.
For 2025 I’ve chosen the word studious (if you’re curious, I’ve previously shared my process for choosing a word for the year here for paid subscribers.) I want moving into this next year to feel like opening a door to a library—quiet, focussed, immersed in improved thought. I want to create a syllabus for myself. I want to reflect on what I encounter each day. As Virginia Woolf said, “I need silence, and to be alone and to go out, and to save one hour to consider what has happened to my world.”
As the year comes to a close, I hope you too can have a moment to consider all you’ve encountered and learned, and what kind of door you want to open next.
Behind the paywall below, I’ve compiled some of my favourite things for end of year reflections. Many thanks to all of you who supported this newsletter throughout 2024!
