Embrace: 2024 recap

2024 marked a year of new breakthroughs and old challenges. 

In January, I rewrote my testimony, started a drop-in initiative called Creative Hours, and faced my fears by travelling solo to China. 

In February, I felt as if I'd blossomed into a new person. I carried my own weather for the first time, and walked through life with a newfound calm and confidence in Christ. I approached my work and extracurriculars with a new rigour, knowing I'm right where I'm meant to be. I realized I am whole and perfectly content without a partner, and that my current singleness is part of God's deep and providential love for me. My life became filled with a serene, quiet happiness. Perhaps I'm dying, I thought, or just getting old. Perhaps it's the power of a regular sleep schedule. 

In March, a chain of fateful conversations triggered some soul-searching as I realized my feelings for an old friend (L). Although I was unsure about how he felt, the Spirit emboldened me to approach him in search of truth and closure. 

On Easter Sunday, after a meandering conversation, God unveiled a new chapter of my life — my first relationship. 

April and May flew by as I juggled work, ministry and all the feelings and logistics of dating. Through many topical conversations L & I gained a strong sense of compatibility, and our hearts quickly grew closer. Such closeness triggered a resurgence of my anxious and avoidant attachment. It seems God used my turbulent moments to demonstrate His providence — in giving me someone who is unfazed by my fears and knows how to soothe each of them. Someone who loves me like Christ, and shows me that there's nothing I can do to earn his love. Slowly, by God's grace, my attachment style grew more secure. 

In June, I experienced burnout symptoms at work, took a staycation and tried ballroom dancing (foxtrot!) with L for the first time. 

In July, I transitioned to an oversight role at work and took part in a good friend's wedding as a bridesmaid for the first time. (Special duties included designing a fireball + performing an action-packed Naruto skit for the reception entry!) 

In August, I restarted my portfolio (version 3.0) after a long break. I began working through my fears and dissected this project into manageable steps, with more direction and hope. L & I co-read Created for Connection (the Christian edition of Hold Me Tight, a pivotal book on love & attachment — highly recommend). 

In September, L & I completed a co-written commemorative poetry anthology, and I tried my hand at co-teaching a paracord decorative knots workshop with a good friend. 

In October, I experienced a relapse of periodic social anxiety and depressive symptoms, and tried ectomorph weight training for the first time with the guidance of a physiotherapist friend. 

In November, L & I co-led our first newcomer Art Night event, and I finally decided to try prescription ADHD medication (promising, but inconclusive results). I pursued my interest in counselling psych by co-facilitating and attending a healing-discipleship small group program called Freedom Session (so far an equally intense and rewarding experience). 

In December, I planned for an ambitious 3 weeks of personal projects... then got sick for a week. This pesky illness forced me to recognize my workaholism and conditional self-love, and go into "sleep rehab". The record amount of sleep helped reset my mind, and I began to enjoy and find peace and purpose in rest. I learned about the brain's need for a balance of work and idle downtime, and restarted a simple bullet journal to focus on my priorities and make room for restful "mind wandering" time. 

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All in all, 2024 was a year of embracing: both the miraculous and beautiful, and the hard-to-swallow truths. I began to recognize my privilege, my ignorance about the world, my pride, and my lingering relational trauma. Echoing my doctor back in university, I realize some of my mood swings and ADHD symptoms may be resolved by working less, exercising more and improving sleep hygiene — all challenging habits for me. 

Thus, some "research questions" I'd like to personally investigate in 2025: 

• How might lifestyle factors (sunlight, sleep, exercise, diet) help restore baseline dopamine and improve symptoms of ADHD, anxiety & depression? 
• What does it mean to live in the "fear of the Lord"? How may I gain true wisdom? 
• How may I regain a balanced, biblical self-image and detach my self-worth from what I can produce or achieve? 

In 2025, I want to restore my capacity to do hard things (including focusing and resting) — not for short-term reward, but for long-term intrinsic joy. 

I pray that L & I will work well together, spur each other to grow intellectually and spiritually, and model God's love to those around us. 

I want to learn more about female ADHD, the menstrual cycle's role in dopamine and symptom management, and creative strategies to thrive with or without medication. 

I want to re-discover the truth of what my younger self wrote in 2013: 

"Life. Life is so beautiful...just stepping outside my door to a whole different world of moonlight and the soothing sounds of rain on rooftops...thank You for making us beings with feeling, so that we can feel pain but also know what a glimpse of Your beauty feels like..." 

"Wow...that was new. That was interesting. That was painful. That was frustrating. That was delightful. That was beautiful. Thank You God. Where are You taking me next? What's in the next page of my story? I can't wait to see." 

Life is indeed breathtakingly beautiful, but it takes unclouded eyes to see. Perhaps I can be perfectly happy, and still experience grief, anger, anxiety, and the full spectrum of human emotions — without letting them overtake me. 

In the calm and in the storm, I want to rest in the promises of God.

I wish you peace, and eyes to see life's beauty in new ways in 2025. 🌟