2024 was a bad year. Actually, a terrible year. More specifically, almost definitely the worst year of my life.
I don’t mean that nothing good happened last year. I actually had a lot of good times, and I don’t look back at the past 365 days as exclusively a bummer. However, overall the year was garbage. I’m going to look back at my year and rate different experiences… probably because I just finished reading The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green.
Depression
At the beginning of this year, I was really going through it. I had to take the winter semester off school and spent eight months doing almost nothing but moping around my house. I tried to go out and take classes and stuff, but I became too anxious for those and I had to stop going.
On the bright side, I did get to spend a lot of time with my mum. I would go to the office with her at least once a week, and do “work” or whatever on her couch. We snuggled a lot, and she supported me through everything.
I give depression a 2.5/10
Concerts
I went to three concerts this year, which is a lot for me because I had been to maybe five in my life prior. First, I saw Em Beihold. You might recognize her song Numb Little Bug or the version of Stephen Sanchez’s Until I Found You featuring her. She was a good performer, but she writes songs about having depression and anxiety, and you could tell the audience related to that. The crowd was mellow, and despite the venue sharing a building with a dispensary, the only people who smelled like weed were the staff. I could tell I was in a room full of my people.
Next, I got to see Olivia Rodrigo (and Chappell Roan open for her). I like to brag that I was an early Olivia Rodrigo fan, because I followed her before she even released drivers license. Not that I knew it at the time, but I actually saw her first movie, a direct-to-DVD American Girl Movie, in theatres, so you could argue I was a really really early fan. Olivia was amazing, and I don’t know why some people my age are afraid to admit that her music is awesome. Just because tween girls like something, doesn’t mean that it automatically sucks.
Finally, I got to see Billy Joel, which had been a dream of mine since I was probably ten-years-old. As I mentioned in my mum’s eulogy, part of this dream was seeing him with her, which was not the case for this concert. I was still happy going with the person I went with, but it wasn’t the same. Leading up to the concert, we ran into a whole bunch of issues, so I arrived at the show late and beyond stressed out. Stevie Nicks was playing first, not technically opening for Billy, but pretty much opening for him. I was able to enjoy her performance a little, but I was still anxious and started to worry that this thing I had waited to see my whole life was going to suck.
Then, the lights turned off and Billy Joel came out. Every negative emotion I had ever felt left my body. For once in my life, I was able to live in the moment and enjoy what was in front of me. I was screaming, I was dancing, I was singing, and probably crying too. As soon as the concert ended, I returned to the version of me that I was when I arrived, but slightly better because of that experience of a lifetime. I still find myself thinking about that concert all the time. Honestly, I don’t have many memories from the performance itself, but I can remember how I felt during it. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel that free ever again.
I give concerts a 9/10
Shaving My Head
I shaved my head in February of 2024! That proves that time isn’t real because I feel like I did that a million years ago, but whatever. I miss my hair so much, but there was literally no point in keeping it, and not having to take care of it has made my life easier. I’m really happy I shared it with social media and my blog because now I feel a little less freaked out whenever someone rings the doorbell.
I’m still a bit ashamed of my lack of hair. It makes me feel less pretty and sometimes when I look in the mirror I just see an ugly troll gazing back at me. Despite that, there’s no reason to feel shame. It’s not my fault. I haven’t done anything wrong. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, yet the feeling persists. I’m mostly okay though. As I always say when I don’t know what more to say, “c’est la vie,”
I give shaving my head a 8/10
Theatre
This year, fortunately like most years, I saw a lot of theatre. I saw Six for the third time, Something Rotten in Stratford, a number of Toronto Fringe shows, and many more. I saw Les Mis for the first time live, and it was one of my favourites of the year. It was such a fantastic production! I wanted to make a lot of edits to the show, but all of them had to do with the preexisting musical. The acting, sets, costumes, and pretty much everything else could not have been better. It was truly one of the best theatre experiences of my life.
On the other side, I saw Jesus Christ Superstar with my mum and we both hated it. I know that pretty much everyone is familiar with the story of Jesus, but not to the extent the show expected me to be. They didn’t properly introduce any of the characters (or at least I think they didn’t, but they also didn’t enunciate, so I was really struggling to understand anything anyway), nor did the characters in the programme have last names. I was so confused why Jesus was talking to Mary the way he was, until after the show when Mum and I figured out the character was not Jesus’ mother Mary, but Mary Magdalene, a name that I only somewhat recognized. Respectfully, if you’re going to write a musical, you need to give the Jews in the audience the context they require, because if your show’s on Broadway, there will be Jews in the audience.
I give theatre a 7/10
Travel
Travel to me has always been associated with fun, but this year might have changed that a bit. Not to say that it wasn’t fun, it just wasn’t exclusively fun. Some of it really sucked.
I started off the year on my Korea/Japan trip, which you can read about if you go back several entries. It was a great trip, but depression interfered and I struggled a lot on it. Also, piglets are not as cuddly as you might think. The trip only overlapped slightly with the new year though, and I spent January 1st at Tokyo Disney, which was pretty cool.
In mid April Logan and I took a Brother-Sister Best Friends road trip. We learned that we do not travel well together. Stress was the name of the game, and I’m not sure we’ll ever do it again, but it was still pretty fun overall, and I got to add a new place (Missouri) to my list of states I’ve been to.
In late April my parents went to my Aunt and Uncle’s place in Costa Rica. I wasn’t supposed to go, but they were worried about leaving me home alone for more than a week given how depressed I was, and so they flew me out for the second part of the trip. I had a great time. I got to go ziplining headfirst which was really cool except for the sunscreen that got in my eyes and I didn’t have access to water to rinse it out, which kind of put a damper on the whole thing. I spent most of the vacation doing absolutely nothing, which was also amazing.
In early-to-mid June I went to Montreal for a few days to visit Marianne. There’s not much to say about it except it was perfect. We didn’t really do anything, we kind of just hung out and talked, and it was everything I wanted it to be.
In mid-to-late June I went on a weeklong road trip with a friend. We did a lot of cool things and I had a great time, but depression was really getting to me and something felt off the whole time. I still had some great experiences though, for example the Billy Joel concert and going to the American Girl Store for my birthday. Also if you’re in Chicago, the American Writers Museum is a cool place to check out.
In October I went to visit Logan in London. This was a great trip. I got to travel at my own pace, see a ton of cool stuff (a lot of which was free), and spend time with my baby brother. I also got to see my cousin Julie and meet Logan’s roommate Joe. The craziest part though, was going to the pizzeria attached to Logan’s building. When our server came up to the table, he asked us how we’re doing and we responded that we were doing well. Then he turned to me and asked me specifically how I was doing and I was like this is weird, but I still said I was doing great. He asked me if I was from Toronto, and I didn’t know where this was going but I said yes. He asked me if my name was Zoey and I was like who is this person and do I have a stalker, but I still said yes. He then told me that we went on a Blyth trip together in 2017, and I was like oh my god, it’s Cole! Thank god I recognized him by that point because it could have been very awkward. Then he had to continue to be our waiter for the rest of the night which was definitely weird, but it just goes to show you, it really is a small world.
I give travel a 6.5/10
Solar Eclipse
I got to see a full eclipse! It was awesome!
I give the solar eclipse a 10/10
Losing My ‘Best Friend’
My best friend, someone I was convinced was going to be my friend for the rest of my life, suddenly pulled away from me. I’m definitely not going to claim to be anywhere close to perfect in this situation and act like I’m only the victim, because I’m confident I’m not, but the truth is, I don’t know. I didn’t get an explanation, and though I have guessed that I was too needy or emotionally unstable, I can’t be sure what the real reason was. Nevertheless, she had been pulling away all summer and confirmed that she wanted to take a break from our friendship in late August. I was completely devastated and didn’t leave my room at all for about four days. I hardly ate and didn’t really talk to anyone. Eventually, I started to recover, mainly because of my mum’s help and love, and the belief that we would reconcile after a few weeks or maybe a few months.
Unfortunately, I now have confirmation that she is not interested in that, so the only thing I can do is move on. I still look back on our friendship with so much tenderness, and I am grateful that those memories don’t feel overly tainted.
I give losing my ‘best friend’ a 0/10
Switching Antidepressants
I have been on a lot of different medications over the past few years, and it has been a pain. Trying to find the right antidepressant for you is not fun and can be really damaging. My Chicago road trip was the week that I was slowly going off Zoloft and beginning Cipralex, which maybe explains why that week felt so off for me. Nevertheless, once on Cipralex, I started to feel so much better. I was able to return to school and even do some of my work. I still get really depressed and anxious sometimes, but it cannot even be compared with what I was going through earlier in the year.
I give switching antidepressants a 9.5/10
My Mum Dying
Not only was this the worst thing to happen all year, this was the worst thing to happen in my life so far, and probably/hopefully the worst thing that will happen in my life. Mum was my actual best friend, with me through thick and thin, my ride or die, and every other cliché. I’m not going to go into more detail. There of course is so much more, but I can’t write about it. Not now at least.
I do hesitate to brand last year as my worst year ever though, because at least I got to spend 99% of the year with Mum. For every year from now on, I’ll have to spend 0% of them with her, and that seems a whole lot worse. Still, with all that I’ve lost in 2024, I don’t know if any future year could come close in terms of emotional pain, hence why I am branding it, perhaps prematurely, the worst year of my life.
I give losing the person I love most in the world a negative infinity/10