I’d like to say good riddance to 2024, but instead I’ll focus on gratitude

Four must be my unlucky number, because the worst years of my life have all ended in four: 2014, the year of major depression, and 2024, the year of suck. (I’m sure 2004 was bad, too, given that I’d just undergone a spinal fusion the year before. Thankfully, I don’t remember much of it.)

Still, I find myself leaning toward gratitude. There’s frustration, of course, and despair (another year gone by? Does time ever stop?), and a whole lot of dread for the winter to come. But more than anything, I’m thankful.

2024 was a hard year, between my near-death experience in Alabama and the resulting health issues, a continuing career crisis, and some things I’m not yet ready to talk about. It felt like a comic you might’ve read in the Sunday morning newspaper. Our oblivious hero walks out the front door, only to be bombarded by one unfortunate happenstance after another. It got to the point where all I could do was laugh — and cry on occasion, but only in the privacy of my room, with my space heater on full blast and the sun slanting brilliantly through the south-facing windows.

And yet I survived. Funny, isn’t it, how you experience one of the worst things you can possibly think of, only to look back and think, “Well, that happened.”

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Maybe one of these days I’ll be ready to talk about what 2024 did and meant to me. But for now, I want to close out the year with one of those corny gratitude lists. I know thankfulness is associated with Thanksgiving (and for good reason), but personally, I’m more inclined to feeling gratitude after surviving a hellish year. What better time to realize how lucky you are?

This technically happened in 2023, but I’m grateful for the medical professionals who saved my life last December. Yes, even the one who charged me for an eight-hour wait in the emergency room and a few squares of gauze. I’m alive today because of them, which is something I returned to time and again this past year — how stupidly grateful I am to be here, in this moment, this body, the dull gray of winter heavy in my bones.

I’m grateful for the medical professionals I added to my team this year. To think that, less than 12 months ago, I was seeing a provider with little to no understanding of SMA. Now I’m hitched to a pediatrician with a direct line to my complex care doctor, who dabbles in adult care. My neurologist works at an SMA center of excellence. I’m on the waiting list for several specialties, including occupational therapy and (surprise!) dermatology. This is the safest I’ve felt with a care team in years.

I’m grateful for my writing, which remains both fraught and an enduring lifeline.

I’m grateful for my family, my friends, and my faith. I’m especially grateful for my mom, who has weathered all sorts of family crises since retiring in 2023 with grace, poise, and a warrior’s tenacity.

I’m grateful for the caregivers who came to my family’s rescue in our time of need.

I’m grateful for my cat, who cries when she can’t find her baby — a nasty-looking pink slipper that probably needs to go through a wash cycle or three — and sprawls over my bed at night. I’m grateful for pasta, expensive cheese, and the spy show I’m watching with my dad. I’m grateful for technology, even when my desktop dies on a pedestrian Friday afternoon, sending me into what I can only describe as a panicked tizzy.

I’m grateful for winter. For gray skies, harsh winds, and an early bedtime. I’m grateful for shorter days, because it gives me an excuse to hunker down and focus on what really matters.

Most of all, I’m grateful for endings — and beginnings. I’m grateful for survival, and how the hard times make the good times that much more important. I’m grateful for sharpened clarity, renewed vision, and my industrious little space heater.

Good riddance, 2024, and thanks. What’s next?

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