Another year passes with minimal updates. Life gets in the way.
This year felt very different from the others. If there’s one metaphor that aptly sums up 2024, it would be ‘war’.
Struggling, battling and fighting – in the real world and in personal life.
Adaption
This year has been filled with very fundamental changes on the level of family and identity. Not only did I finally move out of from my family home, my Dad passed away unexpectedly in May 2024. These two events – one planned, the other unplanned – upended my world. I’m still adjusting to the effects of both.
In some ways, the real consequence of unexpected death in the family is accidental independence. So I ‘adulted’ this year on two fronts: managing home renovation while acknowledging death certificates at the morgue. My wife and I merged savings even as we settled the messy business of my Dad’s estate, without a will.
Family changes are always intense and hard to process. As of today, on the last day of the year, I’m still trying to understand my place in all of this.
Thinking of Lebanon
There’s a lot of awful stuff happening in the world today. But nothing hit me harder than what happened/ is still happening in Lebanon.
Since studying there, I’ve kept in touch with my friends in Lebanon through Covid, the Beirut Blast, and the subsequent economic crisis. With war looming, I returned to visit friends and my teachers. And just two months later, the war began.
I watched the war unfold from afar, from airstrikes to ground invasions. The dominant feeling from August 2024 until the ceasefire in November was one of helpless hopelessness. Constant worrying over my friends and their families. The dreadful news of town after town being bombed. The realisation that some places I used to frequent do not exist anymore.
When I went to Lebanon, my wife followed. It was meant for us to probe in a possible future, where we’d both work with NGOs and church organisations in the country. Instead, the war has ground that to a halt.
But I’m grateful my friends and their families are safe. They’re shaken, poorer and some are homeless. But they’re safe.
Work is a curse
I used to think my job was great: freedom to define what I needed to do, excellent location and facilities, stellar colleagues and good pay. Then something happened this year that completely destroyed everything.
Ironically, this happened just after I was sent overseas for work. Soon after this work trip, things snowballed, I was accused of something I didn’t do and conditions became unbearable. Within a month, I was serving my notice.
I’ve always viewed work as a vehicle for learning new things, meeting new people and financial freedom. Now, I’m just glad I have a job that doesn’t make me dread going to work.
Away from and near to home
One positive of 2024 was that I got to travel: with work, with Christian NGOs, with my wife. We got to see some awesome places:
My books of the year
As always I will end this (late) 2024 post with the best five books I’ve read this year in no distinguishable order:
- The Blacktongue Thief, Christopher Buehlman (fantasy fiction)
- Smelling the Breezes: A Journey through the High Lebanon in 1957 (travel/ memoir)
- The Disappeared: Stories, Andrew Porter (short fiction)
- Burning Angel, Laurence Osborne (short fiction)
- The Mountains are High, Alec Ash (non-fiction/ memoir)