Every year I tell myself I should start writing this post earlier so I don’t have to rush at the last minute, but every year I fail to do so. Next year, perhaps. I find trying to do a review post meaningful for myself, because I tend to believe that nothing much happened and the whole year went in a blur, but going through my documented archives may prove otherwise.
This year I had a system in Obsidian. I would write the day’s highlight in my daily note, then a weekly highlight would be chosen from that week’s daily highlights which would be recorded in my weekly note, then from my weekly highlights I would choose a highlight to represent a month in my monthly note, and finally the yearly note would contain all the monthly highlights. This way, I can quickly scan my yearly note to have a rough gist of what happened that year. I’ll take the opportunity of this post to test if this system works.
losing a friend
The best and worst day of 2024 both happened in May. I lost my friend, and managed to accomplish the one-pull up I aspired to do when I started 2024. Till now I am not sure if I have come to terms with that loss, and what it actually means to me. I feel like it is locked in some chamber I may not access for the rest of my life, and I know there will be more of these chambers forthcoming in the time to come.
one pull up & strength-training
I have since improved my pull-ups since I did my first unexpected pull-up, but till date I have not been able to do a strict pull-up. I’ll still take this as a win considering I have only strength-trained for a year. My progress has not been linear, and is often derailed by travel and sickness. I think I’ve become more accepting of setbacks and ill health this year. My body has done a lot for me despite not being in the best of condition for various reasons, and when I am lucid I feel very thankful that on most days I am still able to walk around painlessly and breathe deeply. Despite the uneven progress, this is the first year in my life I feel physically strong. It is not just about fitness, but the breaking of the preconceptions of myself.
Mid this year I also joined a gym that has branches peppered all over Singapore, so I had some fun checking out different locations.
606 days covid free
I count the number of days I have been covid-free on Obsidian. I am not one of those people who regularly test even when they have no symptoms, so I cannot account for asymptomatic infections. However, my biometrics are sensitive to any form of stress, and I am 98% certain even if I had asymptomatic covid it would show up on them —recently I had a tooth infection which messed up my heart rate pretty badly — so as far as I know I have been 606 days covid free.
Considering the state of the world where there are now perpetual waves with people confidently walking around infected, and that I still travel, go out pretty frequently, go to the gym, I think this is quite a miracle for me. I don’t expect magic out of my mostly one-way masking and covid protocol.
dysautonomia vs migraines
Prior to covid I would get a migraine each time I experience too much stress. Post-covid the migraines lessened considerably, and instead now I get an elevated heart rate. Because of my regular aerobic activity my normal walking and standing heart rate is in the 70s to 80s, but when I suffer an episode it goes to 130s without exertion. I also have trouble maintaining electrolyte balance in my body. It is quite disturbing to know that my body is unable to perform its autonomic functions at times, but I am just glad it is not worse.
am i actually autistic?
After very belatedly realising I may have adhd in 2023, 2024 is the year I started to consider if I could be autistic. So many things started to make sense to me. I started to become more self-compassionate towards my lifelong sensory difficulties instead of thinking I am a wuss.
103 months together
Without my partner I am not sure who I’ll be and what I can do, because she gives me the stability and sense of safety I need in my life. I can’t begin to describe what it is like to have someone who knows me intimately for the last 8 years – the fact that she knows so much of me and yet she still loves me. I could endure so many difficult moments because she was there unflinchingly with me. She is my world, and my inspiration.
matcha obsession
Since having a very delicious cup of matcha latte over in Hong Kong I have been having a matcha obsession. I’ve basically tried all the matcha lattes available in Singapore, and went to try different matcha lattes in Chiang Mai.
creative journey
Early this year I started out strong: completing my first ever travel sketchbook for my japan trip, plus we attended a risograph workshop. I also documented my mom making kueh lapis. This is probably one of my favourite pieces of the year – used holbein gouache for the first time:
Three-quarters of the year in I briefly flirted with vector digital art:
But thereafter I lost momentum. It is difficult to maintain a creative spirit amidst everything that is going on, including my own chronic health struggles.
56 posts written
…including this one and 14 photoessays.
significant posts
- to develop compassion is to develop thinking in systems
- when goodness is not so good
- am i actually autistic?
- the compression of our experiences
- living life like a solo rpg player
8 notes written
…not including instagram and other miscellaneous posts. In feb I declared that I was going to really microblog, but it turns out even stream-of-consciousness notes require considerable focus too. However, it did give me the space to write about stuff I wouldn’t have typically written as a blog post, such as “life is all about novelty” – a note that was written very casually but has significant implications on my life. For some reason some things just don’t feel like a blog post but they end up having some weight on their own.
I also created new categories for notes, like “place“, and “sketchbook“. The former is for me to document places I like, and the latter is to document pages of my sketchbook that I may not post on instagram. As usual I lost momentum, but who knows what the new year may bring?
travel
I was fortunate enough to travel to hong kong, south korea, and chiang mai this year.
ran 368km
…vs 619km last year. I didn’t run as much this year compared to last, mostly because I exercised more in moderation this year exercising every alternate day instead of potentially every day, and half of my exercise time goes to strength training. There was also some down time due to health issues. After running mostly 5km the entire year I started increasing mileage around September, and managed to hit 8.6km in October.
6,479,889 steps walked…
vs 5,870,982 steps walked in 2023. Despite running less I did try to get my steps in nevertheless. A lot of these are done walking in place in front of the TV post-meals for at least 30 minutes.
55 books read
Some of these are art books, but art books are also books right? There have been long stretches when I had felt too mentally exhausted to read, so I am glad I still managed to average a book a week. I feel like my ability to read a book without falling asleep has decreased as I age. It could also be that I seem to have run out of truly great books to read, or I just don’t have the patience to try to discover them anymore.
other notable mentions
- streaks: 1736 days of bullet journalling, 1178 days of morning pages, 371 days of obsidian daily notes, 601 days of 5000 steps, 153 days of 10,000 steps
- got featured on people and blogs
- 8 movies logged on letterboxd (probably watched a couple more but forgot to log), again the first movie was only logged in May
this website
- mostly worked on some bugs and fixed some incompatibilities
- homepage photo thumbnails was using a plugin to fetch photos from instagram’s api, now it is fetching directly from the website’s notes section.
- made a custom instagram archive page
did I set accomplish my aspirations for 2024?
Apart from one pull-up, I wanted to:
- improve my psychological state
- cultivate my creative spirit
- and have an uneventful year
This is why aspirations have to be achievable. I don’t think I managed any of those. Maybe it is better to stick to fitness goals.
overall sentiment
I struggled a lot with myself this year – something that is obvious if we look at some of the posts I’ve written. At the final day of the year, I feel like I am still struggling, but less. I think considering that I may be autistic is a big part of easing some of that struggle, and the other part is contemplating on the psychology of my suffering. But sometimes I feel my consciousness is a bottomless pit: there is always something deeper, darker, and more complex to work on. I think trying to know oneself is a dangerous journey, sometimes I cannot cope with knowing too much of myself, or anybody.
2024 is about learning how to live in a world that is slowly (or rapidly, depending on who you ask) getting destroyed. It is like the fire is burning but I have to learn how to somehow find ways to live despite everything is burning down around me, while most other people are either unaware or in denial.
I can’t help but feel like each year that passes now could be the last good year. I didn’t know 2019 would be the last pandemic free year, and I don’t know when will be the last year when there is still abundant food and water in most places.
I guess it is entirely reasonable to struggle in these conditions, and I foresee more struggling, but perhaps there is a way I can struggle with grace. Is this my wishful thinking?
Nevertheless, despite everything I still managed to live quite a bit this past year, I must at least acknowledge this. I’m trying to live as much as I can before the fire gets nearer.
I still wish I was a better friend to the friend I had lost. This haunts me every single day since she was gone. But this is what it means to live with loss and grief – and I accept it.
note: This is an unedited post written within a day, so please pardon me for the unwieldiness.