How I've changed in 2024.

Here goes...

Taken by T at Powerscourt waterfall.

At the end of every year I make a list of the things that happened, the places I’ve been, how I’ve changed. I do this to remember, so the year doesn’t slip away into nothingness.

Sitting here on my perch looking out over the vista of 2024, I’m pleased to say that this year has felt long, in a way that a year should feel long. Rather than the year flying, it has sort of humped along like a caterpillar; there’s been lots of stops and starts, but underpinning the parts that have felt overwhelming, busy or stressful, the steady routine of my parental duties and domestic life propelled me forwards. Whether I liked it or not, the school run had to be done and there was comfort in that.

My list this year has exposed how much I have changed. Change is constant, omnipresent and absolutely unavoidable. It comes in so many forms. There is the change that Joan Didion describes in The Year Of Magical Thinking,

“Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant.”

This is the life altering, earth shattering change that happens to you. There’s the change that you enable in your life; leaving a job, starting a hobby, ending a relationship. And then there’s internal change; changes in perception, ideology, identity. Like a cruise ship turning around in the ocean these changes can be so slow that sometimes it can take a whole year to even notice them. It’s worth trying.

My list reflects all of these different forms of change. Here goes.

My life filled up with football. I started playing football with my club, training twice a week and playing matches on Sundays. I haven’t felt as frightened, as exhausted or as thrilled in years. It has changed my body. I feel stronger and fitter than I've ever felt.

My hormones went haywire. Large sinkholes opened up in my memory. I itched incessantly. My periods were crippling. My default way to express myself in the house was to shout. I started HRT, it’s still not perfect; progesterone makes my face itch so much I want to rip my skin off, but I feel less frenzied and floundering than I did at the start of the year. I’m relieved to be on the HRT train.

I've slowly learned to get out of my own way and listen to my body. I am no longer in a permanent state of 'stretched'. This is the most time I have ever had to think. Which has facilitated the next change..

My definition of success changed. The pursuit of personal fulfilment has superseded the pursuit of career growth. Success for me, is no longer views, likes, ticket sales, listening figures. Success is forging community, being more plugged into the world, being creatively inspired, and most of all, success can be, should be, (she’s only just realised duh ) what I can give, to the people around me, the communities I’m part of, to the world I live in. Success is being a useful, kind person.

New parenting challenges. My oldest kid started secondary school. It’s been a huge change, a letting go of control and a slow realisation that it’s about trust and guidance now. I am no longer his personal secretary. As he constantly reminds me, I can’t force him to do things. It’s strange, an ongoing feeling of low level panic that I hope will subside.

I have changed the way I approach novel writing. Instead of launching myself in and vomiting up a first draft, I have, because of my working hours, had to write it slowly and incrementally, with time to think and research in-between. I am picking the bound copy of the first draft up from the printers next week so time will tell how this different approach has shaped my writing but I am hopeful, that even if the plot and structure is all over the gaff, the characters will feel real enough for me to keep going.

I started weekly therapy. My biggest struggle initially was justifying the need for it, I’m not on my knees! But I have learned to see it as maintenance. It helps me to understand myself and to figure things out about my relationships. I’m more connected with myself than I’ve ever been. It’s strange, but deeply enlivening, to be just getting to know myself at the age of forty six.

My values have come to define my relationships. This is a big one. An unintentional one, but an interesting one. More than ever, I gravitate towards people who have similar values to me. The values that matter the most are empathy, gratitude, a desire to treat every person with respect and understanding.

Less and less fucks given about ‘should’. This is one of the beautiful things about getting older. How liberating it has been to step off the comparison train and exist in my own bubble of creativity and community. This applies to being a DJ, and playing the gigs I want to play as opposed to the gigs I should play according to some arbitrary measure of relevance. Having my Before Midnight parties flourish in such a beautiful and organic way over this last year has been the most empowering and gratifying thing.

Committing to being a writer. In pausing my Changes podcast, which was such a labour of love for four years, and giving myself space to breathe, out of the weekly cycle of research and interviews, I felt such an enormous sense of relief. Starting Substack has been a new way for me to commit to being a writer. I’m so excited to do more on here in 2025.

Happy New Year to you. Thank you so much for being part of this journey with me.

Before this year ends, if you have the time and the inclination, see if you can document your changes. Look back over your calendar and write down everything that’s happened to you personally and professionally this year, and then write a list of how these things have changed you.

Let me know here in the comments what you’ve learned?

grá mór

A x

Taken by T at Bullock harbour, Co Dublin.