New Year's Retrospective 2024

[dorchadas]

New Year's meme time.


1. What did you do in 2024 that you’d never done before?
Got my name into the credits of a released video game--the 0.H version of Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead.

2. Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't do New Year's resolutions, so I will neither keep them nor make more.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No one this year.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Not close to me, though some friends lost people close to them.

5. What countries did you visit?
I did not go anywhere--travel with a toddler is pretty difficult.

6. What would you like to have in 2025 that you lacked in 2024?
We did get fewer trips to the hospital, so that was lovely. In 2025, I would appreciate less of a drain on our finances--from my calculations we're spending something like 25% of my pre-tax income on health care.

7. What date from 2024 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I spent a while trying to think of an answer for this and nothing came up, which I guess means the answer is that there isn't one!

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
See about about my name in the credits.

9. What was your biggest failure?
As with last year, not dedicating enough time to exercise. Considering one of the injuries I suffered (see below question), I'm definitely going to need to start doing more flexibility and core work, like yoga or something, if I want to avoid any more problems as I continue aging.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
One major one near the end. I caught the norovirus that's going around and ended up incredibly sick for a day and a bit sick for a few days after that. Nothing lasting, but it did end up cancelling all of our plans for New Year's (as well as sashagee's wisdom teeth being removed).

11. What was the best thing you bought?
A new iPad to replace my seven(eight?)-year-old iPad. I also bought one for sashagee and she's been using it for writing.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My and sashagee's parents for all the times they watched Laila so we could have a bit of time to ourselves, or time to go on dates, or time to recover when we were sick (such as when sashagee had her wisdom teeth removed).

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
I can't really bring anyone to mind. It probably helps that I've pulled back from paying quite as much attention to news in favorite of putting more attention on my family.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Into medical care for Laila and sashagee, just like last year.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Nothing.

16. What song will always remind you of 2024?
I actually barely listened to any music in 2024, to be honest. I mostly listened to podcasts. The closest answer can give is Aespa's "Drama" because Laila really took a major liking to it a few months ago and wanted to listen to it over and over.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? About the same
ii. thinner or fatter? About the same
iii. richer or poorer? Much richer thanks entirely to the stock market, so it's paper money. I'll have to draw on some of that to pay off medical debt, though, so who knows if those riches will stay around.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Taken Laila out for walks. The problem is that I'm always torn between walking around with her and carrying her. She's a big girl now, heavy and difficult to carry for long, but there will be a day that I won't recognize until it's gone, where I put her down and never pick her up again, and I want to put that day off as long as possible.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Read random time-wasting stuff on the internet. I have a bunch of specific RSS feeds giving me things I'd like to read, but the Plague Years knocked me off my habit of reading them and I've never really recovered from it. Maybe this year I can.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
We did nothing. We didn't even go out to our usual Erev Christmas dinner because we were sick.

21. Is there a particularly memorable meal you had?
No.

22. Did you fall in love in 2024?
No.

23. How many one-night stands?
None.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
Barely watched any TV at all, to be honest. I watched more of Fairy Tail with sashagee but not very much (we still have like 300 episodes to go).

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No one I know personally.

26. What was the best book you read?
The Dragonbone Chair. Not an original read, but still great. I did not read a lot of books in 2024.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
See above about how I barely listened to music. The music I listened to is just the Communion After Dark, Irish and Celtic Music Podcast, and Phoenix Radio podcasts, and I can't remember any specific songs I sought out from listening to them.

28. What did you want and get?
Lots of Laila cuddles and sashagee feeling better.

29. What did you want and not get?
A year with no health problems, once again. Even if there were fewer, there were still too many.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
The only film I watched was すずめの戸締まり (suzume no tojimari, "Suzume's door-closing", Eng: "Suzume"), so that has to be it.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 42 and we didn't really do anything at all. Might have finally hit the age where birthdays are just another day.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Less spending on healthcare. You can see the constant theme here.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2020?
Dad. Button-down shirts, dress or casual pants, boots or sneakers, in subdued colors (but still colors), mostly dark green, dark blue, grey, brown, or black.

34. What kept you sane?
The good days that sashagee had and how Laila was good for most of the year.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I have never answered this question because I don't follow celebrity culture, and that is still true.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Nothing. Even Trump winning didn't do it that much to my mindstate because it was pretty expected, honestly.

37. Who did you miss?
My friends, who I still haven't seen that much, and especially not as much after the summer. We continued the tradition of going to Shabbat brunch after Baby Shabbat but after the High Holy Days we haven't done that a single time. We'll have to pick that up again.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
I'm not sure I met anyone new, really. I don't get to many events where I'd have the chance to anymore.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2024.
גם זה יעבור. Gam ze ya'avor--"This too shall pass."

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
This one is hard. A lot of the music I listen to is sad, and I don't think that really fits this year. Maybe the closest is the song I always used to post:

And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass

And it's one more day up in the canyon
And it's one more night in Hollywood
It's been so long since I've seen the ocean
I guess I should

Maybe we should.

Happy New Year to everyone!