2024: the year, abridged

This is becoming a bit of a tradition, huh? Here are some of my highlights of the year 2024.

I got some shit in order

2024 was my designated Year of Order, wherein I would try to take various aspects of my life and make them a bit more organised.

After 2023’s very specific yearly themes, the Year of Order was an intentionally much more vague and low-effort form of life improvement. I wrote a post or two about it, but mostly this was all stuff happening in the background.

Amongst other things, I moved a bunch of tasks into (several) digital todo lists, spent more time sorting things related to my personal health, rearranged my kitchen, bought all kinds of home storage solutions, and generally… tried to define processes for getting things into some sort of order.

How successful I ultimately was will be judged by how long these processes actually stick around.

I fell in love with the furry fandom again

I’ve been in the furry fandom since 2005. I took a bit of a hiatus from it in 2012. I had moved to Bristol for university two years prior, which cut me off from the local fuzzies I had otherwise known for my entire life in the fandom. I had also grown discontent with the state of a few things, so I decided to step back a little.

I kept in touch with a few folks and maintained having an animal-shaped online representation, but I stopped attending furmeets or being an active ‘creator’ in the community. I resumed doing that stuff again gradually between 2017 and 2019.

This year was the first since then where I really felt like I was back in the groove, like that strong sense of community and acceptance had finally returned to me.

I don’t know what exactly changed to make that so; maybe it’s just a feeling that comes with time, but it feels nice. I love my furry friends. You rock.

I got zatzhinged

Probably related to the above.

Back in May, in a case of history repeating, I ended up falling in with the yinglets of the Cohost Enclave: I got ‘zatzhinged’.

I ended up being a yinglet on the internet for a few weeks, including for the length of ConFuzzled. It ended up being a surprisingly comfortable and pervasive state of mind, which never really went away. Enough so that I decided, fuck it, it’s a therian thing I guess.

I (finally) got HRT through the NHS

There isn’t much to say here that wasn’t already said in the previous blog post, but after a myriad of appointments throughout 2024, I finally got properly prescribed the long-desired HRT.

I’d been self-medicating HRT for some years already, using those purchased from grey market sources—an unfortunate necessity for many trans people in the UK. Lacking any sort of medical supervision, I intentionally kept myself to a dosage much lower than would be typical for hormone replacement therapy.

I experienced some changes, saw that they were good, but the changes plateaued after about a year. Hopefully, now that I’m medically supervised and on a much higher dosage, things will begin happening again. We can only wait and see.

My anxiety has not been great

And now the bad bit: my anxiety this year has almost definitely been worse than in the few years prior.

Insecurity around my personal relationships; creeping imposter syndrome; medical anxiety derived from actual illness, random aches, and the gender clinic process.

It’s been easier than ever to feel unwanted, to feel used, to feel underserving, and to feel like everything I hold dear is imminently going to collapse around me.

Dealing with this will definitely constitute some part of 2025’s yearly theme. I’ll elaborate on that in the new year.

In conclusion

Compared to previous years, I’m short on notable things to expound upon about this year. I don’t think that’s because this year was any less eventful than the average, but that the previous two years were exceptionally eventful.

2022 and 2023 were both years of significant change in my self-identity, expression, home, and work. By comparison, 2024 has been relatively relaxed. And that’s no bad thing. Everyone needs a break every now and then.

Have a good Christmas and a merry new year, y’all!

Thought this was neat? Why not share a link to this page?