2024 was easily one of the best and most difficult years of my life. I started it feeling on top of the world as I stared up at a billboard of my face in Times Square with my mom beside me. Then, in the span of a couple months, my entire world came crashing down. I couldn’t escape my own mind. I woke up to go to bed. I let my worst thoughts get the best of me. Every day I woke up felt like a burden placed on me by an absence of anything and anyone. Life didn’t feel worth living. I remembered as a kid being so upset about having to go to bed, and suddenly sleep was what I coveted… it was a quiet from these awful thoughts in my head, if only for a few hours. But eventually… inevitably, light cut through the cloud cover. I began to hike, to take myself out, to read. I treated “me time” as something to cherish rather than loathe. Chose to accept myself and my faults, my anxieties, and my fears. I started waking up early, sleeping in less, getting out more… and most importantly, I felt myself smiling again. Laughing again. Being me again. I can’t tell you the exact moment everything changed. It was not an overnight process. Even now, it’s still happening. This year has ended with a bit of those negative feelings rearing their head. Feelings of inadequacy. Feelings of loneliness and fears I’m not good enough or not cut out for this. But this time around, I know I will be okay. Happiness is not a permanent feeling, but neither is loneliness or sadness. And in the moments of silence between extremes, I’m learning to be content with myself and present in each moment. This year was difficult. I felt above the world, and watched it all come crumbling down. But I picked up the pieces, and started again. That’s all we can do. And it’s really something special to see that even out of a myriad of broken pieces we can make something even more beautiful than what we began with. Something perfectly imperfect. Ourselves. If you are going through something similar, I hope you find your way out of the hole. It’s dark… and it’s deep… and worst of all, it’s somehow both too damn quiet and too damn loud. But it’s not forever. There was a before, and there will be an after. And you will move forward. And you will be okay. Here’s to 2025 treating us well. Here’s to who we are. Here’s to every day we get knocked on our ass. Here’s to every day we have the chance to get back up.