Okay, so bouncing back from my roller coaster February hasn’t been going so hot. Firstly, I got sick again! Just as I was recovering from being sick last month! Life is so unfair.

After that second bout of illness, I was even more behind on work, so I spent a lot of time catching up. I also had a lingering dry cough that’s only just subsided. Let me just say, I’m so grateful that I’m healthy right now. It’s probably all thanks to my mom. I spent some time at home and I genuinely think that fixed me.

But now we’re here. I’m going to California next week. The plan is to hang out with a college friend, go to a concert, and live the West Coast life for a couple days. I’ve been so nostalgic for my old life in San Francisco and I need this trip to knock that out of me. I love San Francisco, but it has its downsides. A few rides on the BART should have my head straight on again.

I’m also going abroad in April! Busy month. For years, my family has been talking about seeing the tulips in the Netherlands. And for years, the trip has fallen through. But this year, we finally got our act together and booked tickets. I’m kind of in disbelief, to be honest. I’m excited to check this off our family bucket list. And I’m excited for some time off work. It’s not a great time for it, but it never is.

So yeah. Not so much progress on stuff in March. I read a bunch of shitty romance books and now I’m trying to un-rot my brain with non-fiction. I finally bought a new phone and traded in my broken one. I didn’t complete anything on my to do list for the month, but I have a couple days left to try! We’ll take it. Onwards.

This month gave me major whiplash. I had 2 stellar weeks! I was waking up early. I was exercising. I was keeping my apartment clean. I was studying in my free time. And then I got pretty sick. Like, the type of sick where I was basically out for a full week and could barely get off the couch. It’s a week after I started feeling somewhat normal and I’m still dry coughing. Unreal.

I’ve been struggling to get back to the routine I’d built earlier. I’m behind on work so I’ve been spending extra time on that, which leads to staying up late, which leads to sleeping very little, which leads to decreased brain function during the day, which leads to work taking longer, and so the cycle continues. I haven’t been spending enough time on my other goals, like studying and side projects. My apartment is a mess.

I’m hoping to get myself together in the coming days and have March be my comeback month. But I have to say, it’s been a bit depressing to go from almost the ideal lifestyle to this. Bouncing back hasn’t been going well so far, but I’m keeping at it.

I started this month out with a lot of great ideas and goals! Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to meet many of them. I had a bit of a rough month. I was in what feels like my millionth slump. I had a minor, but scary family emergency. I made a lot of excuses. But that’s just life, isn’t it.

I’ve been reading and listening to a lot of self-help content lately. A couple things have stuck out to me. The importance of building habits. The fact that our brains are reprogrammable. The bounce back rate as a measure of success rather than perfection. The concept of acting like your ideal self even if you aren’t there yet.

I’m still working on putting these ideas into practice, but an interesting outcome of thinking about them is that I’ve been trying to figure out what my ideal self even is. I’ve always been a bit of a fickle person. I tend to start hobbies, become okay at them, and then move on to the next thing. At any given moment, there are a million lifestyles that I find appealing. I want to live in a cottage in the woods. I want to be a digital nomad. I want to to be a corporate girl boss. I want to be an entrepreneur.

Of course there’s the fact that in the midst of wanting to be all of these things, I also haven’t really done any single one of them. I’ve never quite known what I really want to do, and that has lead to not doing anything. Not the best track record.

So I’ve settled on a few things that are common to all of the selves I dream of being. My ideal self sleeps 8 hours every night. She priorities eating protein and fiber daily. She spends her days productively, and isn’t glued to her phone constantly. She is confident and happy. She proactively manages her stress levels. She makes sure she’s being challenged in all aspects — career, fitness, personal development, etc.

Yup. It’s the basics. Mental, emotional, and physical health. That’s the base of who I want to be. Pretending like I’m the person who has all these has helped on occasion the past few weeks, but I’m really planning to dial it up in the common month. This time next month, I hope to be able to say that I’ve met all my great ideas and goals for February.

The end of another year. Let’s do this. I’m not certain how to feel about 2024. I think it was great as far as fitness and health go. It was just okay in terms of hobbies. It wasn’t so great career-wise. But in this market, I’m just glad I still have a job. Anyhow, here’s some of the good stuff.

1. Moved to NYC proper
2. Traveled to Arizona, Texas, and Ireland for the first time
3. Ran my first half marathon and also my first 10k
4. Got my first v4 climb (and 6 in the whole year)
5. Got back into skiing
6. Invested more
7. Maintained a perfect Duolingo streak (I literally didn’t miss a single day this year!)
8. Got all 12 monthly Duolingo challenges
9. Wrote 12 blog posts
10. Read 17 books
11. Survived another round of layoffs at my company

Overall, an okay year. I’m grateful for some things and looking forward to improve others in 2025!

November was a rough month, with lots to deal with. Daylight savings ended and darkness started coming way too early. I picked up running again, just in time for the northeast cold. I deleted social media off my phone. My company had layoffs (I survived, thankfully). I exercised 18 days out of the month. I went home and took nearly a week off work just to chill and rejuvenate. I hit just over a year of not drinking coffee.

I also nearly quit climbing. Between stress from work, frustration from lack of progress, and mild seasonal depression from the shorter days, I was not having a fun time when I did drag myself to the gym. I even went and froze my membership for December. But I reassessed the situation and ended up changing my mind. Going after work on weekdays was too depressing, so I decided to just not go after work. Instead, I plan to go in the mornings or even just stick to weekend afternoons. And despite not seeing much progress myself, I’ve had friends tell me they can see an improvement. In fact just this week I ended up getting a V4 for the first time in a while (it wasn’t at my home gym, but still). So I’m back, membership unfrozen and everything. I’ll really be trying to keep things in perspective this time around. The reality is that I want to improve at this and the only way for that to happen is really to keep climbing.

On the other hand, I’ve decided to quit something somewhat related — protein shakes. For almost a year now, I’ve been having one daily, and in the last few months, I’ve upped it to two. And I really do appreciate them for the convenience, especially as far as hitting macros goes. But recently I’ve been feeling bloated and heavy and I haven’t been so sure that the shakes have been helping. Maybe two a day is too much. I’m not sure. I’ve decided to use them more as a supplement to my diet rather than a core staple of it. So I might still have one here and there after a run or a workout, but I won’t have one for breakfast unless I really want to. I’m especially excited about this since the cold weather has had me craving hot breakfasts and forcing down a shake just wasn’t the ideal start to the morning.

So yes. A bunch of highs and lows for the month, and two decisions to improve my day to day. We’ve just got another month to the year. I wonder what this last thirty or so days of 2024 will bring.

Okay that’s not completely true. I got my first v4 flash. I went to Houston for the first time. I ran my first official 10k race (in Houston!). But aside from that, yeah. I don’t know what I did this month, and it kind of scares me.

Time really is slipping away. I’ve been going through somewhat of an existential crisis. What’s the point of life? What do I want to do with my life? Am I happy? What next? Stuff like that has been on my mind all month. I haven’t been able to come to any conclusion yet. I’m too tired all the time but I also feel like I don’t do anything. So what do I do about it?

How is this possible? Are there really only three months left in the year? Didn’t fall just barely start? But no, it’s starting to get dark at 6:30 and mornings are starting to be chilly and I can feel the start of seasonal depression creeping in. It never gets old how fast life moves. This month, I visited my parents. I went to a (very tame) bachelorette party. I got my life together. I wrecked my life (thanks to a work deadline). I hosted a friend.

I also started to think about some passion projects I’d like to pick up again. I’d like to write more. I’d like to study more. I’d like to build more. I have some exciting things planned, and I’m hoping October turns out to be an exciting month.

A few weeks ago I went to Arizona with some friends. I spent a weekend taking in scenery unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. I hadn’t realised how beautiful rock could be, but the dusky red rock everywhere was so stunning. Three days passed exploring slot canyons and boating and doing some (very light) hiking — it was August after all, and 100+ degrees was no joke. It was a really fun trip and a much needed break from reality.

We spent one of the evenings watching the sunset from the hotel veranda. It was wonderful and peaceful and definitely not something I’d easily be able to experience in New York. I’ve been getting an itch to have these kinds of moments more often — being able to curl up outside with a book and enjoy nature. Part of me wants to move away and get a house and live out my cottagecore dreams. The other, louder part of me reminds me that I can do that later, and to enjoy New York for now.

I think it’s the right move to stay here a while longer, but my trip to Arizona helped me realise that if I’m going to stay, I’d better do it right. That way I’ll have no regrets later. I have more clarity on the next few years now, which is a good thing. I’ve been antsy for months while trying to figure out my next steps, and I hadn’t been able to make any progress towards an answer. I’m all set now, I guess I just needed a trip to Arizona to figure things out.

This month I was a bridesmaid at a wedding. I went to Europe for a week. I held my friend’s baby for the first time. Exciting things.

I also got more V3 climbs this month than I ever have before. 5 of them to be precise. My climbing progress has been slow to say the least, and this month I finally feel like I’m getting somewhere. And it’s taken months of consistency and building good habits and gaining and losing and regaining strength. I’m so appreciative of all the strength I’ve gained and I’m so aware of how much further I have to go.

Climbing kind of altered my life. Seriously. I schedule my weeks around climbing. I think about problem sets when in my free time. I plan my eating and exercise to align with my climbing goals. There definitely are moments where I’m fed up with everything and feel defeated. But every time I complete something I fought for, it feels so worth it. It’s so cool to have a hobby that is also exercise and also is social and also keeps my brain occupied. It’s so cool to see my mind-body connection strengthen. I’m so glad my mom pushed me to give climbing another shot last year. And I’m so glad my brother let me use his guest pass on that cold January day.

June has been uneventful and I’ve been having mood swings. I’m bored. I’m excited. I’m sleepy. I’m restless. I feel like I’ve lost interest in everything but at the same time there are so many things I want to do and not enough time to do them all. I’m not sure what’s going on. This happens every summer. I start to feel uneasy and think through a million things that I could do and somehow end up doing none of them. This year I’ve finally picked up on this pattern. Which is great! Except for the fact that I still have no idea what to do about it and we’re almost at July. I’m going out of town shortly and I’m hoping the time away gives me clarity. But in case it doesn’t, I’ll think more on things. I feel like I need to take time to stop and spend more time thinking about stuff like that. In a vaguely related vein, certain events this month have made me realise that I really need to stop watching short form contact. It’s rotting my brain. I really need to get my life together and start taking advantage of all the resources and opportunities available to me. I’m going to do some thinking the next few weeks while I’m away and come back strong and ready to rumble.