Farewell, 2024. You certainly made your mark.

It’s the last day of 2024, and as I reflect on a year I’m not totally sad to see end, it can only be called The Year of the Paradox: Highs and lows, with highs and lows within those highs and lows. 2024, you were beautifully, agonizingly exhausting!

Of course the highlight of the year came in September when I married my most favorite human on earth, the best man I know, a high I will never fully come down from. Those four days of celebrations with family and friends were, without question, the best days of this nutty year. They would have been the best days of any year.

But then, true to form for 2024, that magical weekend was followed immediately by the worst day of the year, when we had to say goodbye to our sweet pup Hoover the Monday after we got married. Even that was paradoxical, as his passing was everything I could have hoped it would be – peaceful, at home with us, full of love. After his two terrible seizures this year (well, technically one happened in 2023, but only by a couple days, so I’m just going to go ahead and blame 2024), I feared his death would be traumatic in some way, and I will be forever grateful for how he let me know he was ready.

His last hurrah came the Thursday before the wedding when we had out-of-town friends and family to the house. Hoo had an absolute blast – he always loved company, and he was the life of the party that night.

After nearly 15 years of being my constant through immense changes, he got me through my wedding and knew his work was done. He was the best buddy till the end.

Although 2024 is ending on a high note in my professional life, it also brought months of what can only be described as job-related whiplash. Weeks of uncertainty regarding a regime change in our department culminated in a painfully brutal reorg that left 16 people unemployed – a full third of our department, including my boss and one direct report. I am grateful to have kept my job of course, but that day honestly felt worse than the day I lost my own job 10 years prior: Gut-wrenching. Awful.  

I won’t go into all the swirl that followed that day, but, again true to form for this batshit crazy year, I now report to someone who, if possible, is even better than the boss I lost. Whom I absolutely loved. My head is still spinning.

Other highs, in no particular order: seeing the Sharp Dressed Simple Man Tour. (It was an immense amount of fun at a time when I desperately needed some FUN!) A week in Texas with my parents for a newlywed party and my 48th birthday. A trip to Florida with friends. My husband retiring after a successful career – well earned! Sixteen weeks of personal training with BodyFit by Amy – I completed more workouts this year than in either 2023 or ’22. (Perhaps the only thing that kept me sane?) Giving the kitchen a small facelift. Election night.

Other lows, which now I see all have to do with parental aging: My dad’s melanoma diagnosis. It hadn’t spread, but one round of Keytruda (aiming to prevent recurrence) left him with every possible side effect and he thankfully said no more. At nearly 84, quality of remaining life trumps quantity. Also his MCI which of course will only get worse. It’s time for him to stop driving. He doesn’t agree. Aging is a blessing that comes with some curses.

Thankfully that’s more highs than lows after it all shakes out, although, those are some big lows. Sigh. But I will say, September 7 was earlier than I initially planned on for the wedding – I had October in mind, but the venue was booked. Having both Hoover and my dad healthy through the wedding – which they wouldn’t have been in October – well, for both I’m eternally grateful. Some things just work out as they should.