Okay, let’s start this with a terrible admission. This might just be what gets me cancelled, but I have to speak my truth. I've never read 'A Tale of Two Cities.' Please don't come for me, literary bros. That’s not even the worst of it. The worst is that I’ve never read the book, but I absolutely live by a quote from it, and I think about it several times a week. I know, I know, I should find out what the quote means in the greater context of the novel. I won’t go and get it tattooed onto my skin without knowing more about it, but for now, I’ll continue to dwell on that single line of text, and that line is:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

I may not have read the book, but I've lived that sentence. I am currently living that sentence, and perhaps I always will be.

2024 was…erm, rough

At the end of 2023, I moved out of my apartment with the intention of slow travelling for a while. Basically I wasn’t about to go full “gap year” and explore new places with a huge backpack. I wanted to immerse myself in new destinations at my own pace.

I didn’t have many set plans, except that I’d dogsit at places for free accommodation (and furry company) while continuing to work freelance. It had been a tough year, especially for my mental health, and culminated in a nice prescription of antidepressants. But I was feeling hopeful. I was excited to finally travel, something I had been putting off for years, and to continue growing in my writing career.

Ha.

At the end of the year, my stepfather was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour, which later turned out to be glioblastoma, the most aggressive form of brain cancer. Instead of jetting off to Australia or the U.S., I moved into the spare bedroom at my mum’s house. I began juggling this burgeoning writing career with cooking, groceries, and caring for my stepfather, whose condition was quickly worsening.

That was pretty much the first half of 2024 summed up. Then, in June, I left for a girl’s trip to Greece, and as I waited for my connecting flight in Athens, I received the call that he had passed away.

The rest of 2024 couldn’t be as bad as that, naturally, but it wasn’t easy. It involved a lot of helping my newly widowed mother, battling my depression, and trying to keep my head up. Life was just feeling a bit hopeless, especially when my family got some more bad news.

Brief moments of joy

It’s tempting just to label 2024 as a shit year. Perhaps shelve it beside 2020 in the records. But it would be a disservice just to wipe away that entire year, as I've come to realise that my darkest moments, not only this year but in previous ones, were interrupted by brief moments of joy, celebration, giggles, and friendship.

The year I graduated from university was the year I lost my father. The year I struggled with my depression so heavily that I started medication was also the year I started freelancing and wrote my first piece for Betches, who would become my main source of income.

There is no good year and bad year, as there are always moments of both. Things will forever be the best of times, while also the worst of times.

2024 will forever be a year punctuated by illness and grief, losing someone too soon, but it wasn't only that, as life is never that simple. It was a time of swimming in the blue waters of Kithira. It was a time of crying in my car for the length of a single Taylor Swift song. It was seeing the same Taylor live in concert (twice!) and sharing that moment with my best friends. It was feeling so overwhelmed and lost in my work, and regularly debating just quitting it all. It was being contacted by incredible authors and influencers to work with them. It was a year when I read 87 books (sorry, bragging) and a year when I suffered heavily from mental illness. I've been lonelier than ever and happier with my own company. I’ve felt more free and weightless, and yet weighed down by all of my responsibilities. I’ve felt so certain about my future, and also completely lost in it.

I can’t name a single entirely good year in my life, nor can I name a single entirely terrible one. Instead, I can mention good days and bad weeks, successes and losses, steps forward and leaps backwards.

My hope for the new year

All of my friends keep telling me that 2025 is going to be my year. I’m too scared to hope that they’re right, but secretly, I cling to this wish. Well, it’s not quite there yet. Right now, it’s a mess of trying to move to a new country, helping a family member in need, and losing my biggest client to freelance budget cuts.

Some more bad things may happen, and they probably will, if I’m honest. But along the way, good will also happen, even if it’s just moments, holidays, wins, or a gorgeous sunset when you need it most.

I'm privileged enough to get to write every day, and it might not be in the way I thought, and it might exhaust me to a point I’d never reached before, but I love it. I debate leaving the writing game on a weekly basis, but I don’t think I could cleave apart that slice of my soul if I tried. So I’m here, and I’m typing.

I won’t place my bets on 2025 being ‘my’ year, or a ‘good’ year. That’s not to be pessimistic or even the dreaded label of realistic — we all hate that one person. Instead, I think it’s a matter of opening your eyes and recognising that there are no good years or bad years; there are no years that are yours or someone else’s. We’re all here, trudging through, climbing hurdles at different points, and doing our best with the cards that were handed to us. Instead, all I hope is that 2025 will have more best of times, and less worst of times, for us all. And perhaps, I’ll finally get around to reading ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ this year.