Reminiscing on my year at New Year's Eve has become one of my favorite traditions to do–– to reflect and appreciate 2024's triumphs, challenges, and moments of growth. One of the ways I do that is to scroll through all my 2024 photos to revisit cherished milestones, and this helps me recall the vast extent of all that has happened and how quickly those moments become memories.
Two of my main takeaways from this year (and it may or may not have something to do with being on the cusp of my 30s now, AH) is the importance of feeling gratitude for the present and [my internal] recalibration of what's important in life. In brief, I had grand goals for 2024 of large physical feats that didn't come to fruition because I opted to instead have the sweetest most heart-fulfilling moments with friends, old and new. More on this at the end.
So, as I write this with the ball drop looming in a few hours, I purposefully think about each of my months, reliving what happened, even for just a moment.
January
After popping champagne with my family for New Years, Uri and I escaped to the Adirondacks for a planned 6-day trip and 8-9 high peaks hiked. After hiking just one day and two mountains, my sudden sickness worsened, and we called the trip off. This was a disappointing start to the year but also not unusual for us to bite off more than we could chew in the 'dacks. We returned again later in the month to hike Seward Mountain with our friend Peter which was tough yet epic. For it being an unfortunately mild winter, we also managed to get some fun XC skiing in with friends in Osceola, NY. One of my highlights this month was also taking a Nature Journaling workshop, getting inspired to make more art this year! Notably, I also published two of my first journalistic profiles, one on Megan Guinn and another on Gemma Clucas, two super awesome ladies in science research.
February
In early February, Uri and I took a winter foraging class. With the mild temperatures and no snow, it wasn't as laborious as originally anticipated, and, not too surprising, there was very little to forage (though what we learned was still fascinating). Furthermore, we, along with our Book Club, attended two nights of the Banff Film Festival and acquired inspiration to do grand and bold adventures out in the world. We returned to the Adirondacks for our annual memorial hike for our dear friend, James––this year hiking Gothics. Later in the month, Uri and I with Ben and Kelly danced the night away to St. Paul and the Broken Bones at the State Theater.
March
Spring break came with sunshine and spotty weather: sometimes it felt like Spring, and other times a snow storm rolled through. Over the weekends in March, Uri and I began biking sections of the Erie canal, a car-free towpath that skirts the northern part of New York from Albany to Buffalo. It was a great way to avoid road salt corroding our bike parts while finding time to try to enjoy wintery mix. It was muddy, slushy, and cold, but it was very rewarding, and I even had a solo section from Syracuse to Rochester which was empowering. For one of my favorite holidays, St. Patricks Day, we had a proper celebration in Boston with my cousin Caroline and her husband Jeff. Overall, one of the best Marches I've had!
April
In early April, the Solar eclipse passed through New York. Uri and I made a bike trip out of it, cycling to a Warmshowers host on the Erie Canal and then setting up camp at the Montezuma Wildlife Refuge to watch the eclipse. We, with our friend Eve, watercolored and enjoyed listening to the wildlife calls (frogs mainly) change as the skies darkened and relightened. The next day, I began my PhD candidacy exam, a 4-day, 8 hours a day exam to test my knowledge of my field. Thankfully, I passed! The rest of the month was finishing up riding the Erie Canal (highly recommend), celebrating Earth week (also one of my favorite holidays), and releasing the latest issue of Unearthed, my campus's literary magazine (which I am an editor for). Uri and I also took a spring foraging workshop which was, unsurprisingly, more fruitful than the Winter workshop––we love coltsfoot!
May
Biking season started to ramp up in May. I took on the Finger Lakes Hill Challenge (biking the ~50 steepest hills around Ithaca), though have yet to finish it. In early May, a group of friends and myself had a ~70 mile "birding ride", counting over 80 species of birds during our bike ride! Hozier returned to Syracuse, and Eve, Uri, and I sang and danced for hours to this beautiful Irish human. Big life events for friends commenced, with our friends defending their degrees, graduating, and moving. This was the mark of some large social changes happening for us in Ithaca, but we held on to those precious Ithaca moments–– swimming, playing music (I listened and cheered on), and life felt more than all right.
June
June was for Bozeman. I had never been to Montana in the summertime, and it did not disappoint. The wildflowers were out, and I mountain biked for the first time (flipping head over handlebars more than once). Uri showed me his favorite hiking and biking trails, and for the first time, I saw Old Faithful in Yellowstone (no wolves this time, Mom). Field work picked up with some eddy covariance tower building. All in all, it was a great month to be outside.
July
Arguably the busiest month of the year for social events. The weekend of July 4th, Uri and I bikepacked the Vermont Brattleboro ride which was both very tough and very rewarding. The following weekend, I covered the Rooted women's mountain biking festival in western NY, publishing the piece in SHREDLY. The weekend after that, Uri and I went to the Grassroots music festival for the first time, enjoying full days of incredible music, dancing until late, and being surrounded by the most wonderful friends. The month was capped off with my family reunion in Pittsburgh. Months like this remind me that I am so incredibly lucky.
August
In early August, Uri and I took a big road trip to Indiana to celebrate our dear friends getting married––Roli and Chhoki. A festival-themed wedding in a state park, it was absolutely charming, and my heart was bursting at celebrating two of the best people I know (and I'm the proud matchmaker, success rate now 2/2, so hmu if ya single). Inspired by this lovely park, I had my bachelorette party in a NY state park that featured hiking, camping, and a lot of eating. Though it rained, we played boardgames and mushroom foraged (thanks Dayna for your expertise!). One of the coolest parts of the year was also the Waffle House ride––biking from Ithaca to the (almost) northern-most Waffle House in the U.S, in Pennsylvania. A near 200 mile, 2-day ride, it challenged us physically with the gravel terrain and elevation, but we had a blast with our friends Brian and Keith who are superb biking company.
September
The most anticipated day of 2024 finally arrived. The beginning of September was a stress blur because our wedding loomed, but on 9/14/2024, I truly did have one of the best days of my life. It sounds cliché, but I have never been surrounded by all my loved ones, friends and family, with the sole purpose of celebration and merriment. My heart and brain were properly overloaded with dopamine and serotonin, and I am just beyond joyful to finally be married to Uri! September is also one of my favorite months, especially in Ithaca: Apple Fest and Porchfest capped off the end of the month, so there was a bounty of good food and music for two more weeks–– a lovely way to keep the energy going! I will always be thankful for Septembers.
October
Early October, Uri and I slipped away to the Adirondacks for a "Mini Moon", since we have no idea when we will be able to take a proper honeymoon. We hiked Whiteface and were graced with beautiful views, weather, and fall foliage colors. Unlike our usual Adirondack hiking, we also prioritized non-high peaks, and this allowed us to avoid crowds while also staying in the more vibrant and lush deciduous valleys. Later in the month, we met up with friends for the NY Renaissance Faire, which was a rainy experience but still charming. Friends gathered together for fall festivities like pumpkin picking bike rides, pumpkin carving, and a hard apple cider fest (featuring the !Aurora!). I also signed up for local food rescue opportunities, this month gleaning 750 lbs of apples with friends which will be donated to community members in need. I'm hoping to do more of this in the future.
November
The weather started to turn for the worse, as it always does. We celebrated friendship and food with Friendsgivings and dancing Zydeco at Halloween-themed events. Thanksgiving week, I visited my alma mater: Westminster College. It was moving for me to visit a place that held such meaning for me for many years, to see that much was the same but also much had changed. Perhaps I am getting old- the nostalgia, sense of place, and passage of time was heavier this year. But I am so grateful to have had lovely visits with my old professors and my dear friend Clarence! In this same holiday trip, Uri and I visited the eternal flame, a natural fire behind a waterfall that forever burns. Geologically, this is really cool as the micro-seep comes from natural gas produced from shale. And it survives surrounded by water, which is metaphorically really cool. A snowstorm blew in, trapping us inside for a few days until we could get rescued with some heavier equipment. With the crummy weather, we restarted a D&D campaign with friends.
December
The final month of 2024. The semester ended at school, thankfully marking the end of me having to teach ArcGIS. I taught a guest lecture on Environmental Journalism which was very exciting, and it reaffirmed my growing interest in writing and reporting. The fall issue of Unearthed was launched, and I was fortunate to get one of my pieces published in it this semester: More Than Spinning Wheels, a feature article on bike tourism. Unearthed had a cool open mic event to celebrate the publication, and I read aloud a short excerpt from my piece, something I never do. Uri and I joined some friends in attending the annual Rutabaga Curling Competition, one of the silliest and, quite frankly, best events in Ithaca. The month and year ended with Christmas celebrations with my family and traveling to Montana to visit Uri's family. New Year's eve night, my father-in-law was the DJ for the local radio station, and we hung out there, dancing to Argentinian rock music and indulging in my mother-in-law's latkes (drooling).
New Year's Resolutions/ Goals
This year in 2024, I had goals and hopes, some of which occurred and others that fell by the wayside:
Get married! = YES!
Read at least 30 books = Yep
Get past beginner-level mandolin = Nope
Long Live Book Club= Still going strong!
Keep ESF Bike Club active= It's hanging in there
Revive Food Tour = Yes!
Improve my Spanish= SÍ!
Athletics
Re-attempt the 24 hr bike ride= Nope
Ride 200 miles in a day= Nope
Complete more Winter 46ers in Adirondacks= Yes! Not many but yes!
Finger Lakes Hill challenge (bike the 50 hardest hills)= I did almost half?
Vermont Super 8 bike race, maybe?= nope
Spring Break bike tour, maybe?= Erie canal!
Academics
Write 2 more academic papers= LOL
Pass my A-exam! (hopefully)= YES
Overall, the wedding in the fall made it difficult to balance my outdoor goals, and I dropped a lot of those off my list. At first, I was disappointed. As a goal-oriented person who accomplishes tasks in a very type-A fashion, it was tough to not see those goals through. To worsen matters, seemingly now, most apps give their users yearly review statistics: Spotify tells you the number of minutes you've listened to music, Strava the distance you've traveled and amount of time you've spent working out, Goodreads the number of books and pages you've read, etc. For the quantitative soul, these numbers are fascinating, though I've felt an underlying and increasing pressure to always do more. Go father. Read more. Just do More. More. More.
This hasn't been suiting me, and it has been sucking life and joy out of my hobbies.
I've spent a lot of time this year thinking about what it means to have a good life, and I've had this conversation with a number of friends. The main thing that kept returning was quality. A high-quality life that prioritizes meaning over metrics. Choosing swimming in a creek with friends over cranking out miles alone. Slowing down and doing less in an effort to live more fully.
Instead of making a checklist for 2025 where I can get depressed about accomplishing or not-accomplishing those goals, I, instead, have more general hopes based on this internal recalibration of mine.
I hope that I find more ways to express myself through art, whether its writing, painting, drawing, or any new hobby I come up with (embroidery perhaps?). I hope I read a few impactful and immersive books this coming year. I hope that I cook something delightful that I can share with others.
I hope that I can have a healthy 2025, both physically and mentally. That my outdoor activities bring me joy and that I don't do anything solely because of the pressure to do more. That I prioritize my increasingly limited time to be spent with family and friends. That I be more present. That I slow down.
I hope that I learn new things about the world and myself. That I find ways to give back and help others. That I prioritize kindness and understanding, even when it's difficult to do so.
I hope that 2025 feels full and well-lived.
Happy New Year's everyone!
Be safe, be kind.
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