It’s difficult to look at my 24 For 2024, especially when I noticed that the document I created to track my progress hasn’t been modified since January 3. Despite a regular calendar event, I don’t think I’ve actively reviewed this list all year. It’s definitely always lingering in the back of my head. Everytime I remember that my parent’s estates STILL haven’t been completely finalized. Everytime the clutter around my house depresses me. Everytime I notice the many things that have lingered on this list literally for years. It’s been there. I’ve also been really busy getting some of this stuff done, too, which is the win of it all, like getting fully employed and chipping away at my credit card debt, no small tasks there. Most crushingly disappointing was preemptively taking the closure of my parent’s estates off the list for 2024, feeling confident that it was so close to completion and should’ve been fully wrapped up by summer. Summer came and went and delays in the accounting process meant that we didn’t get a court date scheduled until November. With extremely short notice questions from the court to respond to, it was impossible to resolve before the end of the year and we are now waiting for yet another rescheduling. With any luck, we may actually have this all tied up by spring. I’m not putting it back on the list at this point, though I will be reporting some major celebration in the coming year when it finally does happen. So here’s the final reconciliation and my aspirations adjusted for the coming year:

24 For 2024: From Farm to Table

Words for 2024: Love & Happiness

This list has been far enough from my mind this year that when I sat down to revisit and reflect, I couldn’t even remember what my word for the year was. To be fair, it was greatly overshadowed by my word for Happier Labor Day, which would come to have more urgent meaning and presence in my life than I expected. Love and happiness still rain supreme, even if I wasn’t consciously remembering them as my words of the year, I do feel a sort of Zen tranquility that they really did shine through all year, influencing how I’ve moved through the world, how I’ve shown up in it, and how I’ve processed the people and events around me.

Get Your Body In Order

Yes and no. I can’t say I really did any of these things specifically, though the overarching goal of getting my body in order is a direct result of becoming gainfully employed in a way that built on the momentum I gained being on my feet in classes at Laney. Spring was my last semester there, and I signed up for a unit of credit to use the gym before class twice a week. Especially as I repeatedly read requirements for the physical side of my new profession, I knew I needed to get into a little better shape if I wanted to confidently say I could be on my feet for long periods and lift modest to heavy weights with confidence, so I was on the treadmill to warm up, rotated through 3 core machines, and cooled down on elipticals. I was feeling great and a little nervous about how to keep the exercise momentum going once I left Laney. Then I got an amazing summer job on a community farm and most everyday was a workout. Then I got hired into a food service job that keeps me on my feet all day and in pretty constant motion, from fine motor to gross motor, and I’ve been feeling pretty fit. There’s always room for improvement, though these aren’t really it given my current employment situation.

Walk or other outdoor movement at least 24 minutes per day

Carry the 30 lb. backpack weight on all short, quick neighborhood walks

Bike, hike, and camp at least one time each

Use a workout app at least 24 minutes per week

Get Your Finances In Order

Get hired doing something interesting and exciting for compensation you are worth

By far, my biggest win of the year! From a part-time summer job on a community farm Straight into a food service gig without missing a beat. It’s not my dream job, though it’s got a lot of potential to lead to something more interesting, and I love being able to independently pay bills again!

Pay down credit cards

I turned up the dial on this as soon as paychecks started to roll in, so I’m making more than minimum monthly payments most of the time. Still, progress is slow and with continued charges, mostly modest, my balances are still creeping upward and this has been a valuable check in. I’m still juggling the bulk of the debt from one zero-interest card to the next and some of my newfound income was diverted to high-yield savings accounts. I’ve been prioritizing paying down the smaller balances on the higher interest cards and with those paid down, I’ll be zeroing in on the higher balance cards. I’ll also be revisiting my monthly budget to adjust for shifting more into credit card payments, especially as my bring-home shrinks in the wake of finally enrolling in commuter benefits and supplemental retirement accounts. There are far greater problems to have than juggling debt and being able to save money, so I’m not feeling too bad about this. I’ll sure be glad to just pay it all down, though.

Pay off your student loan

While this ridiculous, looming debt is in limbo, being used as a political football, I still make small payments even though it is technically in forbearance at the moment. I am also now employed full-time with a higher ed institution and can continue earning credit towards PSLF. Eventually, this will be resolved, one way or another. The good news is that I locked in an extremely low interest rate many years ago and it’s been in and out of forbearance so much that interest accrual has not been too painful, especially with very modest voluntary payments, the balance is creeping ever so painfully down. Next order of business, get those paystub’s in order and start submitting!

Inventory/check in with your portfolio

because my SO is organized and very detail-oriented, and does clerical work for a living, I’ve discovered that he’s already done some of this work for me and I just need to update his spreadsheet. Teamwork for the win!

Write living will

nope, embarrassingly enough, I still have not done this.

Get Your House In Order

Hire house cleaning support

totally gave myself permission to do this, and for any number of reasons, it has still not been done.

Declutter, edit, or otherwise organize any space for 5 minutes every day

let go of this as a strict habit very early in the year and haven’t even really thought about it as I spent more and more time out of the house for work. Not likely to happen under my new work schedule conditions.

Sell your blind tech

didn’t even try.

Inventory, edit, and organize photos

definitely another example of the kinds of things I didn’t even really have time to think about in light of my new work schedule.

Purge jewelry

nope.

Have a blanket made from old t-shirts

just a head shaking horizontally here, followed by a face with tears of joy.

Sell/purge vintage items

nope.

Set up a craft/hustle work space in the garage

gotta clear a whole bunch of shit out of it first. #TheStruggleIsReal

Investigate and if available, acquire and install door attachments for hat cubby

oh, the home improvements I relentlessly aspire to!

Create better use of space over shelf in coat closet

and of course, also a no.

Creative Expression

It is not unusual for me to fail to achieve items on this list and either choose to roll them over for another year or decide that maybe something just isn’t for me. The big difference this year, however, is how this exercise is revealing the degree to which my new work life Has really made any kind of personal development extremely challenging. Reliant on public transportation, what might be a reasonable commute for those with vehicles, becomes more arduous a journey and consumes twice or even three times the amount of day. My part-time job at the community farm felt very much full-time When my 2 to 3 hours of daily commuting was added to the schedule, and I am now working a full 40 hour week, also with 2 to 3 hours of commuting each day. During my work week, very little of my time truly belongs to me, and I spend most of my limited personal time engaging in some form of regenerative self-care to balance for the significant drain on my energy and spoons created by long commute and days spent entirely on my feet. I’m not ready to let go of these aspirations, per se, though will definitely reconsider what creative self expression means to me in light of the current demands of my work life.

#Write24in24

not remotely.

Write your damn book

not even just a time issue, feeling very creatively stuck here, as well.

Post at least 1 blog post monthly

Posted only thrice this year, and that includes my 24 For 2024, and the third one was a celebration of the onset of summer. I very soon thereafter went to work on the farm, slid directly into my new job, and other than some semi regular microblogging, have done no real deep, creative writing.

Edit/revise Mojo List

That document hasn’t even been updated since September 2023, so, yeah…

Learn at least 12 origami well enough to execute without following directions

Nope.

25 For 2025

The content of my aspirations this year is not dramatically dissimilar to that of the past. I have, this year, given it a dramatic overhaul in presentation both to reflect a fresh approach that I am taking in light of my word for 2025 and to capture an overarching success. While much of the content remains the same, the aspect is very different as of this year. I have, in many ways, made great strides in achieving these things, even if not quite to a state of completion. The greatest difference for me this year is that, while in years past I have approached it more from stabilizing and recovering from a series of crises, I feel very much this year more stable and in a position to focus on maintenance and continued growth. I still have much work to do, and always will, lest I stop growing and thriving as a human. I’m just feeling really satisfied in this moment to be focusing more on the icing than the cake.

Word for 2025: Emergence

The most magical, powerful experience of 2024 was my part-time summer job at the Gill Tract Community Farm. It struck me like a bolt of lightning how all my disparate tendrils of passions and interests came together in that one place. Feeding people, food justice, social justice, Mindful environmental stewardship, community driven collaboration, and so much more are all an important part of the Gill Tract fabric. I also had the opportunity to work closely with the figure who is the heart and soul of the farm and the reason for its existence, credit that she does her best to turn right back around to the wider community of farmers and volunteers that make the farm what it is on a day-to-day basis, doing her best to work quietly behind the scenes and uplift everyone around her. The hierarchy is flat and power extends outward to every individual, and at the same time, Effie is and has been right there at the center Holding it all together. For the first time in a long time, perhaps ever, I felt so immediately welcomed, I felt valued, and tangibly felt that I was making valuable contributions right from the outset, while also learning, growing, and stretching into new knowledge, skills, and ways of thinking and being in the world.

Much of the work I did there, besides actual farming, was document development, helping the farm consolidate policies, knowledge, and best practices into centralized documents for easy access and sharing. I was also the first program participant in a workforce development partnership between the farm and Another nonprofit organization, a program they plan to continue leveraging to provide much needed talent and labor to help the farm grow and thrive. Of course, it was important for me to develop documentation related to this partnership, as well. One of those documents was designed to articulate and track goals. Summoning all my professional experience, I endeavor to make those goals as SMART as I could, despite my personal aversion to formal goal setting. The result was not perfect in my overthinking opinion, though it was pretty damn great anyway, if I do say so myself, and everyone who reviewed the document really liked it. in a final meeting for several of us to review the document together, I sheepishly offered an apology of sorts to hedge against any observations of gaps in the specificity, measurability, achieve ability, ties to reality, and/or time-boundedness of any of my goals.”On a personal level,” I announced as we all opened the Google dock,” I really struggle with SMART goals and find them more distracting than helpful in achieving anything.” FE looked up from her laptop, giving me her full attention, and said, “because this is not who we are! Have you heard of Emergence?” she laid out the short version for me and gave me the breadcrumbs to learn more. An author who writes on the subject, most of these books are, sadly, not in an accessible format. There is a podcast that I have yet to consume. The short version is that humans flourish and thrive much more when the world is aligned to allow them to follow their instincts and curiosities, rather than plugging themselves into a rigid system that mandates outcomes and how to get there. It lets go of envisioned or desired outcomes in favor of pursuing strengths and excellence to see where they lead. I’ve never felt so validated, I felt sudden relief of a lifetime of feeling like I can’t keep up with expectations, leaving me always feeling inadequate, instead of understanding that I simply have not found or been allowed to place myself where joy and alignment are drivers of success and thriving, instead of trying to contrive my own little quantitative boxes to cram myself into. I have only scratched the surface of Emergence and even this rudimentary understanding has been a paradigm shift for me in terms of understanding the world around me and how and where I fit. I can’t wait to learn about it and live it more. To get this party started, I have more or less stripped the SMART out of my aspirations, leaving vague destinations. I know what these destinations are, and trust my intuition along the way to evaluate whether the things I’m doing now are moving me to a place I want to go. It doesn’t need to make sense to anyone but me.

Body

yoga

The fitness classes I have free access to as university staff are just not within reach given my current schedule. Leaving space that those circumstances will very likely change. I also still have access to apps and could be doing this at home, and have at least signed up for aN online class sponsored by my employer that works reasonably with my schedule, I just have to get up and do it.

Prosperity

next career move

Make it through probation

Currently scheduled to end mid April. Successful completion of my probationary period means more job security.

Make the most of an uncertain summer

My contract is a nine month contract and I am not guaranteed employment over the summer. I won’t know exactly what this looks like until March and am contemplating how to make the most out of the many possible outcomes for my employment status this summer.

Keep scanning for the next opportunity

Pay down credit cards

Pay off your student loan

Update progress toward PLSF.

Inventory/check in with your portfolio

Write living will

Home

Hire house cleaning support

Declutter, edit, or otherwise organize any space whenever reasonable, even if you just One Minute Rule it

Sell your blind tech

Inventory, edit, and organize photos

Purge jewelry

Have a blanket made from old t-shirts

Sell/purge vintage items

Set up a craft work space in the garage

Investigate and if available, acquire and install door attachments for hat cubby

Create better use of space over shelf in coat closet

Creative Expression

Perhaps the most significant drawback of my newest career move is that I no longer own much of my time. During an average work week, I get 1-3 hours per day to myself, which I generally spend as morning transition time in bed, mostly doom scrolling, checking some email, sometimes paying bills, and also leisurely sipping the coffee my SO brings to my nightstand, snuggling my kitties, and psyching myself out for the rest of the day ahead. It’s just about the only me time there is. With a long commute, a full day on my feet, stress at work, and the late nights, and missing half my weekend and meeting up with friends, sliding into my Friday, a.k.a. Saturday to most of you, I feel pretty exhausted and have granted myself permission to bedrot all day Sunday to recover and gear up for another week. Monday, my Sunday, has become the wild card day that I spontaneously decide to continue rotting, get up and do some domestic adulting, or schedule those inevitable obligations of functional adult humans, like running errands and visiting the dentist. I’ve been doing only minimal housework, glaring at stuck, cluttered spaces, and not remotely engaging in actual hobbies or creative endeavors that I know would be good for my soul. And no, I haven’t been meditating,either, save my new practice of preparing a thermos of chamomile lavender tea during my last break and sipping it peacefully while cooling it with breathing practices on my train ride home. It begins the crucial wind-down process before I get home so I can quickly shower and go to bed before midnight. Still, these activities are vital to mental health and I’m now curious how I can integrate creative expression into some of these other aspirations? Something I can do from bed while rotting instead of doomscrolling? I have been thinking a lot lately about reconnecting with my lost habit of yarn crafting. Something I might schedule for a sliver of my prized time off? No specific aspirations here yet, will just follow my intuition when inspiration strikes, except for this first one here in the list. I turned 50 this year and I’ve decided this will be the big thing to honor the moment, an item I’ve been contemplating for the last couple of years that is finally coming into focus.

Tattoo!

Inspired by the grief of losing my mom and wrestling with everything that has come since, I have an appointment for a consult in just over a week and hope to start getting work done in the coming months.

Knit something

Write your damn book

Blog

Edit/revise Mojo List

Fold some origami

???

I have aspirations for a specific creative project that I’m just going to keep to myself for now.

Community

I’m not sure what this means yet, though as this little guidebook for my life continues to evolve, I see that explicit aspirations for my relationship to the various communities that nourish and support me is missing from this list. As I have done a deep dive inward over these past several years and started working my way out, I want this list to reflect that, too. Not to say that I am disconnected, per se, though giving my ties to community an active place in this list presents the opportunity to reflect and think about how and where I’m showing up and what that means to me. this feels particularly prescient given the time and energy demands of my new job and the limited capacity I have to show up for myself, let alone wider communities. my new schedule has meant withdrawing almost completely from my local NFB chapter, miss a lot of opportunities to spend time with good friends, and have a harder time showing up to participate in my neighborhood activities. in the week of the presidential election, looking ahead to certainly darker and more tumultuous times, I quickly decided that if I can’t give my time and energy, I’ll do my best to financially support organizations working for causes and values that will certainly be under strain in the coming years. By the end of this year, showing up for my communities looked a lot like year-end giving. Relationships and community are vital to mental health in good times, they are more important than ever to all of us as we stare down some serious sociopolitical upheaval, and more vital than ever for me personally given my constricted ability to show up.

Prioritize opportunities to show up for valued community, even if few and far in between

So there it is. I thought I’d be re-writing a slightly different version of the same blog like it feels every year, and this year is tangibly different. I’m hitting the half century mark this year and like many of my GenX compatriots, don’t hardly feel like the 30 I’ve always felt myself to be. America is charging full steam into fascism, something the little commie in me never thought I’d see in my lifetime, so pass the popcorn, this is going to be an interesting, and probably painfully long chapter in American history. Not everyone is going to make it, so please show up for your tribes, if not all of humanity, however you can, no matter how they voted. None of us deserves what is likely to come, not even the ones who voted for it. #FreeLuigi