The One Where I Sum Up My Own Annus Horribilis

My positive to take away is: 2025 can't possibly be as bad (can it?)

To rehash the late, great Queen Elizabeth’s words of 1992,

2024 is not a year on which I shall look back with consummate joy. It was, unfortunately, my ‘annus horribilis’.

Without wanting to end the year on a downer (apologies in advance, but I thought I’d get Christmas out of the way before unleashing anything resembling an avalanche of woe, though I shall try to make it as lighthearted as possible), I’m going to put this year to bed by writing it away and out of my system.

Trigger warning: I’m discussing dementia and elderly parents, so if this might upset you then maybe skip this post… if that’s the case I’m so sorry you’re having to deal with it too :(

Where to start? My family and I had an annus horribilis before, in 1990. Thirty-four years ago, the year I turned eighteen, we suffered a truly abominable year. I won’t go into the minutiae of everything that happened, only that it involved the horrifically premature, unexpected (and separate) loss of three young family members/friends and one family cancer diagnosis, the latter thankfully beaten.

Fast forward to the end of 2024, and I feel drained and fed up — only that this time, I don’t have youthful energy on my side. I’m fifty-two, and I feel fifty-two. I’m nearly three times as old as I was back then. Too many times over the last twelve months I’ve felt like my brain and my body were, quite simply, broken.

I am going to end this post on a positive note (or three), however — if I don’t, then I feel like this year will have won, and I’m not standing for that — but let’s get the negatives out of the way first, shall we?

Everything went tits up

Here are some of the things that contributed to our annus horribilis — some serious, some trivial (but still adding to the general urghh that was 2024). In no particular order, they were…

• My ongoing leg and foot pain turning into full-blown sciatica, producing a level of pain I have never experienced before

• An almost total loss of income from my work as a blogger/content creator

• Money worries so bad we had to borrow money just to buy food and pay for the dog’s upkeep and my own physiotherapy (so I could at least function on a basic level)

• The sudden, unexpected loss of a (my husband’s) close lifelong friend

• Two other shocking, premature losses of people close to other family members

• My eldest sister and brother-in-law visiting from Australia for the first time in six years, only to contract Covid and spend the first two of their six-week visit in isolation

• The whole family then contracting Covid and extending the isolation period even further

• Arguing horribly with my husband (when we’re not a couple that argues) over his directorship of a non-profit company that turned sour and stressful to the point of are we going to have to sell a kidney to get ourselves out of this

• Falling over in the street, ripping open my elbow and leaving me with a very sensitive, ‘don’t let me bang it because it’s always excrutiating’ appendage (and a nasty scar the length of an eyebrow)

• My 90-year-old mother having a serious fall at home two days after my own fall and being hospitalised, leaving the family to organise an emergency temporary care home placement for my father

• Dealing with the emotional trauma of my 95-year-old father (who has vascular dementia) entering end-of-life care after contracting Covid in the spring and pneumonia in the summer and being hospitalised both times

• Dealing with my mother who is struggling to cope emotionally with my father

• Waiting for an ambulance (one of a few times we’ve called for one) and cradling my father in my arms, only to think he had actually passed away at one point

• My husband and I contracting flu (badly) twice in the space of six weeks this autumn/winter despite having paid to have flu jabs — and finding out mine was actually bronchitis (it still hasn’t completely gone away)

• Discovering a rat problem in our garden and having to pay for pest control

• Realising that the only type of paid work I am offered (my work as a creator/influencer that I’ve been doing for the last eleven or twelve years) brings me absolutely no joy whatsoever and I’d rather be doing so many other things to earn a living

• Continuing to cope with perimenopause and all its joyful symptoms, including massive weight gain, lethargy, brain fog and joint pain

• A whole year of the worst weather Britain has possibly ever unleashed continually on its inhabitants including two major storms, a summer devoid of good weather and snow in November

• England losing in the final of the football Euros for the second tournament in a row

• … and a few other things that are too personal/that involve other people that I can’t outline here

There are probably more things, I’ve just forgotten them among the plethora of woefulness I’ve described. As I was writing the list I kept thinking Oh my god I’d almost forgotten about x, y and even z…, so who knows what else I’ve omitted.

For anyone with a relative, partner or friend with dementia, you will know what a horribly cruel, unrelenting disease it is. It is draining on those it leaves in its wake. I’m so sad to think that this will almost certainly have been my father’s last Christmas. We honestly thought he’d already had his last in 2023, the fact that he’s still here two days before the end of the year is something of a miracle. I grew up in a very loving, very happy family and to see my parents as they are now is heartbreaking. Thankfully I have a wonderful extended family who all do so much to support and help each other, and that’s a blessing I know not everyone in the same situation as me is lucky enough to have.

Going forward into 2025 will be hard. It will start, sadly, with ‘a black cloud of knowing’ over us. Knowing that there’s a 99 per cent certainty of losing a parent (and when they are 90 and 95, possibly both) in the year ahead doesn’t exactly bring on the joys of a new year. But this has been a long time coming and we take each day as it comes. I’m okay. We’ll get through it.

The positives

There have been some tiny glimmers of hope this year.

My husband’s directorship did not get us into the trouble we thought it would, and, thank god, it is now in the final stages of being handed over to another party for good. All four of our kidneys are safely intact.

I’ve decided what I want to do in terms of a change of career. I started out as a freelance (fashion) blogger in the days when blogging was the content creation of choice, and to be fair I made a pretty decent living out of it. However, the combination of the pandemic, the economic downturn and the rise of the ‘influencer’ and social media platforms has meant that the jobs I used to be offered are either non-existent or the fees offered are (and I’m not exaggerating when I say this) about 10 or 20 per cent of what I used to charge six or seven years ago. And that’s all sorts of depressing when you consider I was told back then I was undercharging.

I can’t live off what I’m earning now, and the jobs I am offered (nine times out of ten it’s video content that they want me to appear in which is a hard No thanks) hold zero appeal to me. The very last thing I want to do is make videos when all I want to do is write.

(Thank god for Substack, eh?!)

I have almost no interest in clothes anymore, and that’s perfectly okay with me. When the clothes you love no longer fit you and you can’t afford to go out anywhere to actually wear anything of any merit there’s little joy to be had in putting together ‘cute outfits’.

“Didn’t feel cute, won’t delete later because I didn’t take any photos in the first place.”

~ Me, 2024.

The BIG news — the thing that makes me super happy — is that I’ve almost finished writing the first draft of my debut novel. It has been nothing short of a joy to sit down at my laptop to create characters and write stories about them every day. It may appear that I dropped off the face of the blogging and social media earth in the latter part of this year, but I haven’t been idle. Between taking care of my parents, dealing with shit (as described above) and writing my novel, I have been working — and stressing — my guts out.

I last changed careers back in 2013 when I decided to try blogging full-time, and despite my reservations about not being in a nine-to-five I somehow made a decent success of it (not enough to become a viral phenomenon, suiting me just fine, but enough to live a comfortable lifestyle without money worries). I’ve enjoyed writing my novel so much that I already have the idea for two sequels and a fourth, stand-alone book. If someone could wave a magic wand and ask me what I want to do for a job without having to worry about being paid enough or how it’s going to work, then I’d say Fiction writer, please!

So, as they say in the annals of the blogosphere, Watch this space. The end of the year has given me a little clarity, and it was almost as if I needed to get this year done and out of the way for me to go, Right, that shit is done with, let’s move forward with the New Year. I can’t say when the novel will be out — my goal is Spring 2025 — but I can say that if you’re a woman of a certain age¹, Generation X or a lover of a good romcom then it’s definitely for you. It’s brimming with Gen X references, nineties nostalgia and romance as well as a healthy (healthy? oh, the irony…) dose of menopause and middle-age topics. But I’ve found out writing your first novel comes with a MASSIVE learning curve, and unlike a blog there’s no going back to edit and tweak once it’s published.

It’s shit-ass scary soiling-my-pants stuff, but I’m welcoming the change.

Finally, in the ‘Things that are good’ domain, one of my nephews and one of my nieces are expecting babies in 2025, so that’ll be my fifth and sixth great niece/nephew. Wonderful news.

However… I need sleep. I also need to raise my fitness levels. My morning walks up the hill have all but stopped due to sciatic pain and bronchitis (I’m still breathless even on our leisurely dog walks). Sleepless nights from back pain, constant coughing or straightforward worry have caused me to favour an extra hour in bed instead for most of the year. I’ll still need to deal with whatever is going to happen with one or more parents in 2025, so a year devoid of stress isn’t on the cards for me.

So, sayonara 2024. I can’t say it’s been a pleasure… you’ve been an absolute jizz gremlin. Go eat a bag of dicks, you mood-hoovering POS. Move out of the way, 2025 is coming through and I need to gird my loins all over again.

How’s your year been? Please do share some positive stories with me, I need to hear them…!

P.S. In case you’re wondering, the blog isn’t necessarily being retired, though never say never. It costs me four figures a year to run it, and it’s becoming clear that this is financially unsustainable unless I win the lottery and can keep it going for the sheer hilarity of looking back on my outfit shoot bloopers — and general outfit choices — in years to come. Substack is going to be the way forward. Tough decisions need to be made 🤔

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1. How fitting that we have reclaimed that phrase after the negativity that surrounded professional turd fungus Gregg Wallace and his intention to insult said women. Hell hath no fury and all that, Gregg — we’re wearing the badge with pride thanks to you.