![\"\"](\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/SF2T_difficulty.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
It\u2019s that time of the year in which I begin to look back on a year as a whole, and determine whether or not it was a \u201cbad year\u201d or just another year.\u00a0 Not to sound too pessimistic and nihilistic than I already to and serve as just a reminder, but the idea and fantasy of \u201cgood years\u201d seems a bit outlandish and not really within the realms of reality, at least when you look at the type of person I am and the state of the world currently.<\/span><\/p>\n So when I try and reflect on 2024 as a whole, I don\u2019t have much good to say about it.\u00a0 Frankly, with a few exceptions and caveats to coming unsurprisingly overarching blanket statement, 2024 was not a particularly great year.\u00a0 Other than the obvious results of the presidential election and the inane bullshit that led up to it, there weren\u2019t any epic catastrophes that I was really aware of, but the rest of the year just felt like a death by a thousand cuts kind of year, where there was just way more negative bullshit that nicked and jabbed all year long to lead to where I\u2019m feeling beaten and exasperated with life and the state of existence now at the end of it, than had there been a lot less.<\/span><\/p>\n The thing is, above all else, I\u2019ve been pondering on whether this was just a down year, or rather just symptoms of being in my 40s, where it seems like the difficulty of life jumped exponentially, from where it was in my 20s and 30s.\u00a0 There\u2019s not a day that goes by where I don\u2019t think to myself, when did life become so difficult to where it feels like every single task in every single day begins to feel like pulling teeth?<\/span><\/p>\n I have this conversation occasionally with my sister and some of my similar-aged friends, but I\u2019m curious to whether or not this is just a rough patch in all our lives collectively, or if this is something of a rite of passage for all people who hit their 40s, and things just start taking a turn for the worst more often than not.<\/span><\/p>\n Being in your 40s means everyone\u2019s parents are now well into their twilight years, and in the landscapes of our lives, death\u2019s presence grows and occupies a larger space than in our younger years.\u00a0 I think about if every generation goes through this, which they most undoubtedly do, however, the generations of now and tomorrow live in a way more connected world where information is immediate and accessible, so the news, usually bad news, travels quicker, and it\u2019s way easier now to be exposed and be aware of it all, more than it\u2019s ever been in generations past.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n If it\u2019s not everyone\u2019s parents creeping up towards the end of life, it\u2019s our peers, friends, acquaintances, names and personalities that occupy similar crews, groups, circles, and just people in general that are dealing with ailments and issues that begin to crop up more frequently than ever, once people hit this middle-of-life stage.\u00a0 Cancer, cancer scares, tumors, growths, physical deterioration, mental deterioration, A and B, B and C, all of the above; this year more than others, I\u2019ve personally witnessed more of these categories here and the paragraph above than I ever have in a single calendar year, and it\u2019s hard to disambiguate whether or not it\u2019s just a rough year, or just life in our 40s.<\/span><\/p>\n As someone with tremendous empathy for others, probably almost to a detriment to my own well-being, the shit that affects others, impacts me a ton, and as much as I\u2019d like to harden my heart and shrink my world even smaller than it already currently exists, and try to no-sell everything, it\u2019s easier said than done.\u00a0 When I see the people in my immediate little world going through tough times, they often bring me with them, whether or not they want or I want.<\/span><\/p>\n As for myself, the year has been challenging from top to bottom because of a myriad of issues, many of which seem to just be a continuous carry-over from the years prior:<\/span><\/p>\n And then on top of that, are my own personal experiences dealing with some of the aforementioned things, like health scares, fucking cancer showing up in the lives of people I care about, and the emergence of dealing with the mortality of my own parents and other family members.<\/span><\/p>\n Recency bias also dictates that I hit a deer with my car and had to file an insurance claim for the first time since I was like, 16, which really sucked and was unexpected.\u00a0 I had a vasectomy a few weeks ago, which was planned, but the ensuing emotional conflict as well as the aggravation of physical discomfort was not something I had counted on occurring.<\/span><\/p>\n Work has becoming an escalating stressor as the year progressed, and as the bullshit has increased, my rose-colored glasses have dimmed more and more, and I\u2019ve begun to really understand and acknowledge why my company has a pretty high employee turnover rate.\u00a0 Previously, I\u2019ve always had this kind of toxic, \u201cwell it\u2019s not as bad as my previous job situation\u201d where I was under a thunder-cunt who really had it out for me, but just because my current bullshit wasn\u2019t as nuclear as my prior bullshit doesn\u2019t make any bullshit less, nor should be entirely acceptable, just because of comparison\u2019s sake.\u00a0 Let\u2019s just say that I\u2019ve been opening my LinkedIn digests and alerts more now, than I did when I was in a less tumultuous workspace.<\/span><\/p>\n Although I\u2019m not going to argue that as a whole, 2024 was pretty rough, it wasn\u2019t without its bright spots.\u00a0 The cruise that mythical wife and I took in the summertime with Virgin was pretty incredible, and genuinely felt like a real vacation, as short as it was.\u00a0 For a brief few days, I got to sleep in, eat great food, workout and read books and actually relax, and see a little bit of new shit in Key West and Bimini, and if there\u2019s anyone who could be a poster boy for the importance of self-care, it\u2019s me.<\/span><\/p>\n And then there are my beautiful, perfect children; as much as they can aggravate the piss out of me at times, and parenting sometimes feels endless, thankless and the primary source of a lot of my angst, my kids are the reason I will always work, be more mindful of my own health and what gets me up in the morning every day.<\/span><\/p>\n I still stop and just watch my kids when we\u2019re together, and there\u2019s rarely time where I can\u2019t believe that they\u2019re already four and three years old already.\u00a0 I still remember when they were tiny little nuggets of humanity that always had to be held and carried and fed and changed, and now I\u2019ve got two little mobile monsters that destroy the house on a daily basis and don\u2019t listen to the things their parents say and cause mischief and mayhem.<\/span><\/p>\n But they\u2019re both becoming little artists, and I\u2019m floored when #1 can write her own name, draw pictures from memory, and seeing #2 go from scribbling lines on a sheet of paper to where she can now stay within the lines of a coloring book way better than I could at the age of three.<\/span><\/p>\n As much as I imply parenting to be hard and tiring, my kids bring me more joy and happiness in the grander spectrum, and as much as this year-end reflection might read like a giant box of despair, dejection and depression, my girls always have the power to blast it away with brightness at a moment\u2019s notice.\u00a0 They are better kids than I am a father, and it\u2019s the pursuit of closing that gap that is one of the few things left that give me any drive.<\/span><\/p>\n So regardless of whether 2024 was a bad year or this is just another year of being in my 40s, good riddance all the same to the year.\u00a0 Not that I anticipate 2025 will really be any better given some of the circumstances swirling around now that are undoubtedly going to carry over, I can still have hopes and dreams that things will turn upward sooner rather than later.\u00a0 Come on now, I\u2019m not that much of a dead heart to where I can\u2019t still have that.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s that time of the year in which I begin to look back on a year as a whole, and determine whether or not it was a \u201cbad year\u201d or just another year.\u00a0 Not to sound too pessimistic and nihilistic than I already to and serve as just a reminder, but the idea and fantasy … Continue reading The year-end post, circa 2025<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,17],"tags":[36,79,100,193,101,37,123,83,133,110],"class_list":["post-50338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","category-photos","tag-angst","tag-cashmoney","tag-comparison","tag-dad","tag-holidays","tag-job","tag-new-years","tag-observations","tag-old-man","tag-tradition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50338"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50340,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50338\/revisions\/50340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n
\n