2024 felt weird, man. Summarizing a year like last year seems disjointed and messy. I've tried to write this post several times, but nothing is quite sticking. Instead of trying to trudge through and write the post I was hoping to write, I'm focusing on why reflecting is important to me.

• I want to be able to look back and take note of my personal growth, my evolution.
• I want to be conscious of negativity bias and make an effort to remember the positive moments.
• I want to use the lack of direction I felt in 2024 to set meaningful goals for 2025.

The transitions that happened in 2024 oscillated between life-affirming and devastating. I often felt like I was existing in a liminal space of uncertainty. In all honesty, I lost sight of who I am in some ways. In other ways, I found paths that I had been searching for.

Winter

Cold. Snowy. Somewhat lonely. This was a difficult season. I wasn't satisfied with where I was living, having moved in October of 2023, right before the winter season descended upon us. Living rurally, people can hermit a little during this time of year. I often felt anxious in my own home, which contributed to how I was feeling. Luckily, I was able to connect with a great group of people who lived close. We played games and ate food together. This sense of community, even thought I did retreat into hermit mode a bit, really helped ease the discomfort.

Spring

Spring felt like a welcome transition - both with the warmer weather and with the activities I involved myself in. The area I live is often threatened by wildfire and proactive fire mitigation is part of life. I participated in a "prescribed burn" on the property I was living. These burns are low-intensity are adapted from indigenous forest management practices that occurred before misguided fire-suppression policies were put in place. It was awesome. About 20 people from our little community, several people from outside of the region, friends of mine, and fire professionals came to burn about 3 acres of land. I learned so much and watching the fire burn helped thaw some frozen parts of me.

Summer

Summer gave me a lot to look forward to. I moved onto a large swath of land that friends had purchased in July, spent some time fixing up "The 79er" - a vintage (read: old) manufactured home on the land, and started tending to the large overgrown, abandoned garden area adjacent to the greenhouse. This move helped me start to feel alive again. The property was previously used to cultivate cannabis - our region is littered with cannabis grows, so this is not uncommon - and in exploring the infrastructure in place for cultivation, my dormant dream of growing food on a larger scale started to awaken. This both exhilarated and scared me, but the duality was expected and the opportunity I saw lit a fire inside me.

Fall

I love fall. I love the colors, the temperature, the winding down. My land-mates moved on to the land and we dreamt together the visions we had for the land - communion, regeneration, growth, healing. Feeling "at home" where I lived created so much space for me to engage in things that made me feel alive. Exploring the land freely, feeling a sense of autonomy in my living space, building relationships and trust with my land-mates - these all felt so good. I continued to tend to the land, expanding out into the old cannabis cultivation field we affectionately named "the rebar forest" since there are thousands of sticks of rebar protruding from the ground, left over from the previous operation. Although our to-do list continues to feel never-ending, each little thing we do toward our vision feels incredibly satisfying.

2025

I never tend to create "new years resolutions", but the transition into new year does encourage me to reflect and shift. My focus word of 2025 is trust. I want to trust myself more - trust my needs, emotions, dreams. Trust that what I feel drawn to is for me and resist the societal conditioning that tells me I'm not good enough, rich enough, capable enough to strive for things beyond the status quo. Trust that my values can inform how I build community around me, how I make money, how I use the time gifted to me through existing. My goal for 2025 is to look back and trust I did my best to care for myself to be able to truly thrive.

Cheers!