What's Past is Prologue
What the rearview mirror has to teach us about the year ahead. And my favorite gifts, reads, and lessons from 2024.
Happy and hard are the two words I’m seeing many folks use in their social media end-of-year sign-offs. While I’d sub in “stressful” for “hard” in my own 2024 recap, it’s interesting to reflect on the totality of 365 days of living. Only in the rearview mirror is it possible to name the distinct chapters that make up a year:
Chapters of health (life outside the classroom has been very good for my nervous system).
Chapters of travel (NYC, LA, Paris, Turks, Maine, Miami, AZ, and many trips to visit family in San Francisco).
Chapters of nose-to-the-grindstone work (proud to have brought educational programming to more than 1,000 kids through Amore Learning).
Chapters of running around like a chicken with its head cut off (i.e. motherhood + work).
Chapters of creativity (I wrote a middle-grade mystery this year that I can’t wait to share more about!).
Chapters of loss, birth, and anniversary (this year marked 10 without my dad and 15 of marriage, including 12 post-brain injury).
Chapters of disappointment (ahem, election).
And chapters of elation (holding my nephew Rio for the first time).
All in all, 2024 was FULL. And as I consider the challenges and tribulations facing several loved ones at the moment, I recognize the gift of fullness. It’s a privilege just to wake up and greet another year.
Each year, I welcome January 1st with a valuable ritual: journaling in response to 5 prompts penned by author & artist
. If you’re the type to indulge in a little New Year reflection, I share Suleika’s prompts with you here:What in the last year are you proud of? (note: I revised this one to, ‘What did I pour love into this year?’)
What did this year leave you yearning for?
What’s causing you anxiety?
What resources, skills, and practices can you rely on in the coming year?
What are your wildest, most harebrained ideas and dreams?
Whether you’re bidding farewell to a banner year or eager to forget one that challenged you, what’s past is prologue as we map our routes forward in 2025. That’s why, in lieu of resolutions, I’m focused on naming and celebrating my accomplishments from last year and using that list to inspire the year ahead.
Many of us, including myself, are wired with a deficit mindset when it comes to inventorying our own lives. It’s far easier to name our shortcomings and the goals not yet met than it is to give ourselves credit for how far we’ve come. For that reason, I challenged myself to make a list of everything I accomplished in 2024 - big and small. For 15 straight minutes, I scribbled furiously, surprised by how much I was able to put on paper. From small things like helping my son with his English homework and baking a perfect mac & cheese to bigger things like drafting a book and tripling our programming at Amore Learning, this list is the irrefutable evidence that I made good use of my year, perhaps even planting seeds that will bear fruit in the one ahead.
The New Year is a wonderful and affirming reminder that it’s never too late to begin. The only condition is that we show up. With that said, I hope you’ll launch 2025 by giving yourself due credit. Thank yourself for showing up to your own life, especially when it was hard. The rearview mirror reveals all the ground we’ve already traversed. It reminds us that we’ve got what it takes to keep moving ourselves forward.
Favorite Book of 2024
For a gal who carries around 3 notebooks at all times, I somehow forgot to make a list of my 2024 reads (whoops). So, I’m using an equally helpful (albeit less reliable) tool, my brain, to name the book that made the most lasting impression on me this year. For me, North Woods had it all: exceptional writing and a page-turning conceit (through shifting POVs, we follow the stewards of a plot of land in New England over many generations). It’s a book I find myself recommending often and one I know I’ll re-read.
For all my Beyond the Classroom recommendations, visit my Bookshop.org page.
Favorite TV Show
In full transparency, Bad Sisters may also be the most recent TV show to which I’ve surrendered hours of my life, but it’s still a top contender for best show of the year (and I am a picky B when it comes to good TV).
The premise? The Garvey sisters want to off their diabolical brother-in-law, but they’re just so damn bad at murder. Dark and funny, synonymous with its Ireland setting, Bad Sisters is for everyone, not just those with a sister you’d gladly break the law for. It receives extra credit for the Irish accent I now regularly use around the house.
Stream Seasons 1 & 2 of Bad Sisters on Apple TV.
Favorite Holiday Gifts
Subscriptions to new magazines! This year, I was gifted The Sun, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker. Let’s keep print journalism alive! Let’s also support writers (Substack subscriptions also make wonderful gifts. Just saying.)!
My 2024 Happy Place
I’m taken to calling 2024 my “New England era.” For as much as I’m a city girl at heart, I’ve never felt more at home or deeply settled than I did during our month living in an A-frame cabin in the woods of Maine. Turns out, I’m a nature-deprived animal whose greatest ambitions in life are to read books, soak up Vitamin D, and eat lobster for every meal. But in all seriousness, Maine rearranged my DNA. I returned different, eager to cut down on the bustle in our day-to-day lives and embrace simplicity. I’ve never felt more like myself than I did during our time away, which is why I credit it for providing me with one of the most valuable lessons of the past year:
Make your own path.
The greatest kindness I gave myself in 2024 (besides 8 hours of nightly sleep!) was the permission to silence the noise and decide what was right for me. In addition to getting some excellent practice at saying no, I learned to get quiet and figure out what yeses most align with my soul.
There will always be noise, pressure, and expectations pulling us in different directions. Whether it’s the community we live in, the roles we play at home, or social media comparisons that trick us into hustling for self-worth, there are plenty of sources willing and ready to tell us who we should be. Learning to separate that noise from the truth of who we want to be is hard, continuous work, but oh so very liberating.
I’m hoping 2025 brings you exactly the moments you dream of. You deserve credit simply for arriving.
