My Thought Progression in 2024

It always feels like I start the year a little later than everyone else, since I always focus on sharing on Vietnamese New Years instead of the universal calendar New Year. I would like to argue that it gives me a whole month to get into my mindset, so here we are with a 2024 reflection with you as I fully leap into starting 2025.

There was a rumor that TikTok would be banned in the United States, but TikTok is still around and I will give it credit for finding the idea for this blog post from there. Specifically, my sister Kimmy did a TikTok post consisting of a photo of her from each month with text of a lesson she learned in the corresponding month. It was so cute that I wanted to do it too, but I also feel like I’m learning so much all the time. It would be hard for me just pick one lesson to share for each month.

Instead, I decided for this blog post that I would adopt it a bit to share a predominant thought that I had for each month. Since perception has the ability to shape reality, these central thoughts also encompass what was generally going on in my life at the time and how I might have felt. So that is what I am going to share for today if you want to keep reading.

January: “My last semester before I actually achieve the one thing I’ve always wanted.”

Yes, 2024 started off on a note that was so sweet it was almost saccharine. After struggling for a long time with people-pleasing tendencies, I was in my last semester to get my MFA in creative writing, a degree I always wanted but was scared to admit to anyone outside of my trusted circle. I felt so happy to have pursued this thing for myself, and it was almost over.

It’s funny to think about how an almost moment in a chapter can stretch and suspend. On one hand, I felt like I didn’t have enough time to really enjoy the last semester, between teaching and finalizing my thesis project. On the other hand, once things were put into motion, there seemed to be all this time that seemed to move slowly between the readings, AWP, the graduation presentation, and the actual graduation ceremony itself. Being a part of such a wonderful program had become everything to me in the two years I was there.

February: “Kansas City has some amazing BBQ–probably the best I’ve ever had.”

Honestly, when I heard that AWP was going to be in Kansas City after being in Seattle the year prior, I didn’t think the experience would be comparable. That was a bit small-minded of me, because I was reminded once I arrived that even if AWP was in the middle of a dessert, I would enjoy the experience because it is a conference about writing with thousands of other people who love writing. It was a bittersweet experience because I was in a place I loved (a writing community) with my cohort for the last time we were sure to all attend this thing together.

The most surprising thing to come out of the experience for me is that Kansas City, Missouri has the best BBQ I’ve ever had. I feel like it isn’t hard for any state to beat Florida when it comes to the BBQ game, but wow did Kansas City knock it out of the park! It was so mouthwateringly delicious that I ended up eating BBQ multiple nights. My favorite place ended up being a restaurant called Q39. I loved it so much that I made sure to purchase some of the sauces and spices to bring with me back to Florida. It’s a topic of conversation that I tell my sister Jasmine constantly, and I would like to think she is a little jealous (but excited to try it with me one day).

March: “Once upon a time has become my reality.”

I can’t pinpoint the exact moment it happened, but at some point as I was growing up, I became jaded about love. If I had to guess, it would’ve been somewhere around the time I started high school that I stopped dreaming about falling in love and instead focused solely on my career and what I would need to accomplish to be happy in my life. Maybe I would always hope for it, but it wasn’t my focus or goal anymore.

Gosh, if I could go back to talk to that girl now, I would probably tell her that she wouldn’t be able to find love unless she became open to it. Once I got Damian, I became more receptive to the idea of love. I was so receptive that I actually met the love of my life, and it was in March of 2024 when he tried to make all my hidden dreams come true. He proposed to me in Iceland, a place that had been on my bucket list for years. And this made me feel like all my dreams were coming true, since this was the last spring break I would have before receiving my Masters.

April: “I can’t believe this chapter is about to be over.”

You can tell how grad school-centric my thoughts were in early 2024. All I could think about was how it was all ending way too soon. Simultaneously, I could only think about how I also felt like I was in a limbo after defending my thesis. There was nothing holding me back at that point, other than the fact that I had not lined up a job yet.

And yet, there was so much to look forward to. I would be done with school for a while, and I would be able to read whatever I wanted in whatever amount of time it took me. This would free me up for wedding planning, and spending more time with friends and loved ones. It was the mark of a milestone that made me so happy to reach.

May: “I DID IT!”

That’s it. That was the encompassing thought for the whole month. I finally got a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. I did that.

June: “What am I going to do now?”

There was a lot that I was free to do now that I finished graduate school. I spent a lot of time catching up on sleep, and I started reading things with less literary merit. My sisters, my dog, and my fiancé made up the time where I didn’t plan things, which still managed to make me feel like I was busy all the time.

In this newly freed up time, I was applying for jobs and working on figuring out what my life was supposed to look like now. While wedding planning was in the cards, it really wasn’t because I wasn’t in a financial place to start putting down deposits for things. It was nice to have the time to reinvigorate my body, but at the same time, I went back into a sadder limbo than the one before I graduated. At least with that one, I knew what was coming next.

July: “Am I ever going to catch up on my sleep?”

When I was in seventh grade, I read that you will never be able to make up your sleep debt because you can never get back time that you lost. So really, all the sleepless nights I had in graduate school were not going to be made up even if I slept for twelve hours every night. That’s not how time works.

But even without the pressure and the stress of deadlines in graduate school, I found myself still feeling pressure and stress. I was putting it on myself, because it was starting to feel impossible to get a job. Yet all I wanted to do was to be able to financially contribute to the household since my fiancé had such a major hand in keeping things afloat while I was in school. My desire to balance the scales was beginning to make me feel useless.

August: “Should I go back to school?”

The answer ended up being kind of to this one (you can skip to December if you can’t wait to see what I mean). August is back-to-school season, so I feel like it was a natural thought for me to wonder if I should go back for my Ph.D. Especially since I was missing the MFA, and some of my cohort was taking part in going to get their doctorates. At the same time, my baby sister was about to start high school, and my other sister was about to start another year of college, so the people in my life were very school-centric. Maybe I was feeling left out.

What ultimately held me back was the belief that I didn’t want to be in graduate school and planning a wedding. It wouldn’t allow me to plan and create the wedding that my fiancé and his family deserved. So I ultimately decided to wait to pursue my doctorates, which meant that I would continue to put myself out there for jobs and never hear back.

September: “Sometimes it feels like I’m unwanted.”

I don’t know if this feeling ever goes away, or if it’s something that will always just hide in the back of my mind. Between my baby sister being at an age where it is cooler to hang out with your friends over your family and the silences from all the jobs that I applied to, I was feeling pretty rejected. It might also come from the fact that the only job I did hear back from was to say that the position had already been filled by someone else.

It was looking pretty bleak for me. The one comforting thought that I had was that it might have been for the better, because I was about to go on an amazing vacation. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I would not have given it up if I got a job. That is the one thought that gave me a sense of peace in this time.

October: “The earth is so vast and heartbreakingly beautiful.”

In addition to seeing Iceland back in March, I got to vacation with my future in-laws to Asia. Two continents that I had never been to before now scratched off the bucket list! In the context of seeing it all, I let myself temporarily forget my feelings around trying to get a job.

Really, seeing the earth and all of it’s wonders should be what we all live for. For the first time ever, I got to see Vietnam, the country where both of my parents and my grandparents are from. The lanterns in Taipei were so magical they spirited me away, and it wasn’t even on my list of places to visit before. All I could think about was how lucky I was, to be surrounded by love and be able to experience all of this.

November: “Thankful to have so much to wonder about, but still wondering if I deserve it all.”

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, so it would make sense for my predominant thought of the month to be focused on gratitude. And I had so much to be grateful for, such as the chance to achieve my dreams, to have the ability to travel, and to have so much love from my sisters and fiancé. The gratitude gave me a sense of wonder at how lucky I was to have such a complete life.

At the same time though, I was starting to wonder how much of it I really deserved, especially since I couldn’t get a job. Worry was starting to bang around my brain about how long it would take before my luck ran out. I had already depleted my savings account to make it this long without a job. Would my sisters get annoyed with how much I talked about unemployment? Or would my fiancé get tired of supporting me first? It was creating a sense of dread as I waited for my whole world to shift.

December: “Life really is about who you know–and I know the best people.”

After living in such a feeling of dread, it gave me such a feeling of deep relief when I finally heard back from a job that wasn’t a rejection. On my fiancé’s birthday, I got a call to come in for a job interview. And it turns out that what you really need to get a job is a good connection; in my Graduation Gift Guide, I wrote about how my high school writing teacher gave me one of my most meaningful graduation gifts. Well, he followed up by putting in a good word for me at his workplace, which is how I got my new job.

So I am going back to school, but as an educator this time. While this is not the path I ever would’ve predicted for myself, I’m grateful to have this experience to provide me a little stability and structure in my life. And after hearing about my baby sister’s high school drama, I am so happy to have been able to be at a point where I can say that I have a support system that I can rely on and trust.

There’s a part of me that believes this might be one of my best blog posts in a while; what do you think? Is it too late for me to be reflecting on 2024? Are there better topics that I could cover here? Let me know in the comments below!

As always, thank you so much for taking the time to read this blog post. If you enjoyed it, please make sure to let me know by liking this blog post, commenting your thoughts below, and sharing it with your friends. And of course, you can always make my day by subscribing, which means that you’ll get an update every time I put out more content like this.

Love Always,

Kristi My