Category Archives: Personal Essay

Looking back at this last year, it’s hard to believe how much has changed since I wrote my review of 2021. It has been a year of significant change and challenge, but also one that’s ending with more hope than I have felt on the last few New Year’s Eves. As always with my endContinueContinue reading “2022: in review”

Another difficult year is coming to an end and, like most of us, it looked nothing like I’d thought or hoped it might. Usually I love new year’s eve, not in the sense of going out and celebrating – in that respect I think it’s overrated – but as a reflective person I like theContinueContinue reading “2021: in review”

I am fairly sure there is no good way to start a reflective blog about 2020, so I guess I’ll start mine with that sentiment because, well… dear god. What a year. It would be more than fair not to review 2020, I suppose, but I enjoy the reflective process of looking back at theContinueContinue reading “2020: in review”

The last three months for me have felt perhaps like the longest of the year, despite the fleeting shortness of the days. Looking back on October and November, now nearing the end of December, to write this post feels almost dizzying. So much of what has happened in that time seems like a lifetime agoContinueContinue reading “Quarterly Review: Autumn to Winter”

Somehow it’s already the beginning of October and I’m honestly not sure how that happened. The weather seems to have turned very quickly, to the point where seeing the word “summer” in my blog header feels like it cannot possibly be right. This has to have been the strangest summer of my lifetime, probably becauseContinueContinue reading “Quarterly Review: Summer to Autumn”

Sitting down to write this, it feels like I’m settling in to do an annual review post not a round up of a single quarter. Who signed off on 2020 being this much for this long, and why was that allowed? Somehow not much at all seems to have happened (hey, lockdown) and yet there’sContinueContinue reading “Quarterly Review: Spring to Summer”

Here we go again – new year, new blog format. At the end of 2019 I had started to rethink how I wanted to write my reflective blogs, as monthly reviews had stopped feeling like the right fit. It began to feel a little repetitive and I would beat myself up if I didn’t haveContinueContinue reading “Quarterly Review: Winter to Spring”

I think it’s fair to say that this year has knocked all of us for six. I have been sitting for a while staring at the blinking of my cursor on the screen not knowing where to start, which I suppose says everything you need to know about 2019. On all levels this year hasContinueContinue reading “2019: in review”

For the first time since I started writing my monthly round ups, I just didn’t have the energy to write the blog. I’m not sure quite why but it confirmed a feeling I had about reworking how I use my blog next year. This autumn/winter has felt tough, as my last couple of blogs haveContinueContinue reading “November (and some of December): in review”

For me the month of October felt a little bit patchwork, weaving together a multitude of pieces into a nice but jumbled whole. I guess that feels somewhat indicative of my year more broadly, which I suppose is no bad thing. This month was mostly a slow plod into autumn and working a little bitContinueContinue reading “October: in review”