Here we go again

It's been 2024 for 11 full days now, and I thought I'd sum up my thoughts so far in a comic.

It was my intention to write a comic or at least a post reflecting on 2023 and what it was like for me, but I didn't in the end: I once again had some bad luck in the lottery of colds and flus and was out of action for a few weeks. Rather than entering 2024 by enthusiastically jumping into it, I slowly dragged myself there while coughing and sneezing. I think this time I won't be writing an autobiographical comic about it, though - I probably said all that can be said about the mundane frustrations of catching colds in last year's Sickness Diaries.

Well, somehow I've stumbled into a new year. Once the excitement of hanging up a new calendar wore off, I thought: oh, it's another year of doing the same things as last year, like remembering to submit meter readings and to change the bed sheets and maybe to finally get around to tidying up that stack of papers that has been sitting on my desk for as long as I have had the desk. And there's a tax return to be done, and a physio appointment, and emails and messages and people that need replying to. And that's before we get to the underlying pressure of doing something with my life.

I find that when I try to break life down into these chunks, it all seems really overwhelming and strange - and the bad chunks can easily overshadow the good chunks. The week before Christmas, as I was lying in bed with a fever, my therapist sent me an email and ended it with "Be proud of all that you have achieved this year". In that moment, I wasn't feeling as though I was capable of achieving anything and I certainly wasn't feeling very proud. I could only see the bad chunks. And, well, some chunks are kind of annoying. This cannot be denied. However, despite there being some not-s0-brilliant chunks that will likely follow me through adulthood (dentist appointments, back pain, taxes) - I know that I can deal with them, and that there will be good chunks, too.

In fact, I do feel proud of being able to see that.

Here is to more good chunks in 2024!

L x