I didn’t intend to leave it until April to write this one, but I’ll explain why a little later. Overall, though, 2024 was a good year!
Restarting therapy
I say 2024 was a good year, but it started with me in a pretty bad place. It quickly became obvious it was time to go back to therapy again (something I’d stopped just after my son was born).
I was lucky enough to find a great therapist based just a short walk from my house. This was super fortunate. More fortunate still, our healthcare policy at work covered the cost of some of my sessions.
I’ve spent the last 16 months at regular therapy sessions, learning and unlearning a lot about myself. I tend to view success and failure as binary terms, I expect to be brilliant at anything I do (regardless of experience), and I obsess a little over measurable productivity.
Figuring this (and many other things!) out has helped me slow down, show myself a little more kindness, and generally improve my mental health.
Again, I can’t overstate how fortunate I am to be in a position to afford private therapy sessions in the UK. It’s not super accessible in a financial sense, and our NHS mental health services leave a lot to be desired.
Returning to the gym
I started 2024 with the goal of completing a half-marathon around May. My training progress wasn’t as disciplined or as regular as I’d have liked (see: high self-expectations) but it was roughly on track until an injury made it impossible to continue.
With my half-marathon plans dashed, I figured my next best option for improving my fitness was to head back to the gym. Again, super lucky that my employer more-or-less covers the cost of my membership.
Thanks to my trainer, I’m back back into the swing of strength training and seeing my body composition improve. There are some third-order effects here, too; I’m eating better, have more energy in the day, and generally more aligned in terms of my lifestyle and health goals.
It’s a long road ahead, but I’m feeling very patient about it all.
Baking pizza
My wife and I are vegetarian, so have long held the belief that while a BBQ is nice, a pizza oven is better. This year, we used the money we saved from wedding gifts back in 2021 and bought an Ooni Koda 12.
I tried my best to lower my expectations around my ability to make and bake great pizza (see: therapy) and ended up surprising myself. They’re not half-bad!
A good proportion of the summer was spent making pizza for family and friends, culminating in me catering for 30 at my mum’s birthday party. I don’t want to make pizzas for that many people at once again, but I’m still pretty proud of how it turned out.
And yes, it’s provided something new for me to obsess over. Flour, tomatoes, cheese. The legal definition of Neapolitan pizza. Proving times and hydration levels. I’m all in.
Settling into the community
We moved out of London at the end of 2023 to a small town in Buckinghamshire. 2024 was all about getting settled and branching out into the community.
Our town is huge on community-run events, moreso than a lot of places. It’s made me realise how much of that we’ve lost. So we’re trying our best to support it and be a part of it.
There’s nothing specific to write about here, beyond that we’re loving it. We feel very fortunate to live where we do.
Becoming a more comfortable dad
I found the first year of parenthood incredibly tough. In all honestly, I didn’t account for the newborn stage at all in my mental image of having a child.
As silly as that sounds, it made those earliest months a real struggle for me. I was constantly worried about doing the wrong thing, aware that I could do a great deal while my son was breastfeeding, and generally feeling like a bad dad (see: high self-expectations).
Now my son is two and a half and I feel like I’ve found my groove. He’s the funniest, kindest little guy and we have a lot of fun together. I have a better understanding of his needs and, arguably of equal importance, I’m more aware of when I struggle and need to tap out.
Getting back into reading
In 2014 I managed to read 10 books. It was two off my goal and nowhere near my 2019 record, but a big step forward on the last few years.
I have another post about what I read queued up, but safe to say there were some good’uns. I also read a lot more fiction than I have previously!
I started 2015 by buying a new Kindle Paperwhite because age is creeping up on me and I’m finding the text in some books too small to read (especially in the evenings). We’ll see what impact that has on my reading rate.
What’s next?
For 2025, I have a few goals:
- Lose weight (it’s a bit more specific than that, but I’m generalising here)
- Run at 25 Parkruns
- Save a 3-month emergency fund (this got depleted when we moved house and it’s been bothering me ever since)
- Join the local diving school and learn to scuba dive (yes, really)