Things I Learned In 2024

1. You can’t force a vibe.
2. Hosting is a love language.
3. A neighborhood can contain multitudes, including but not limited to a peacock failing to pull four peafowl, an oil-slicked rooster, many dogs and sleepy cats.
4. Tampons are game changers.
5. South Beach people have the weirdest pets (i.e. a man riding a hover board with  a snake coiled around him).
6. Flirt with your edge.
7. Always read the acknowledgements.
8. The tenant in Unit 6 will always be sketchy.
9. Said tenant will break your plant unprompted.
10. Ana Navarro will inspire your mom to go to a drag show.
11. It is possible to show up at the club too late.
12. Bitches in line won’t be nice enough to let you in the club (in da clerb, we actually are not fam).
13. Hoes don’t get cold.
14. Cabron decidedly does not mean friend.
15. Ticketmaster is a scam.
16. Deluxe albums are a scam.
17. Reserving camp sites should not feel like buying concert tickets.
18. Document everything.
19. It’s Salvadoran (AP style).
20. Who knew that managing a student publication in college could help you organize.
21. Relationships ebb and flow in the most peculiar ways.
22. Your 2018 spring break trip from hell makes an excellent Hinge prompt.
23. You can get a good haircut in the motherland — just not the provinces.
24. JUST LISTEN TO THE TRAIN STATION EMPLOYEE WHEN HE TELLS YOU TO GET ON THE TRAIN.
25. Japan is a great place to lose a phone.
26. Bidets also belong on the list of game changers.
27. When your friend gets hit by a ceiling fan, it helps to have a network of nurses at your disposal.
28. Befriend the gay, Canadian plus one at the wedding where you don’t know anyone.
29. Nothing is more intimate than sharing poetry.
30. The world runs on group chats with a weird ass names (y'all know who you are).
31. Miami fuck bois are unfortunately great poetry fodder.
32. Always double check your cafetera for the seal.
33. Espresso travels far.
34. Hitting your late twenties means half of your friends are running marathons and the other half are getting engaged.
35. I don’t know how to fall.
36. Rock climbing is my quarter life crisis hobby.
37. I only like karaoke when it’s at AAJA.
38. You’re supposed to eat Texas barbecue with bread apparently.
39. Being nice, goofy and yourself apparently gives older men the wrong impression.
40. REI’s membership is only $30 for a lifetime.
41. Apparently, I don’t own real carabiners.
42. I don’t know how to spell them either.
43. RIP book clubs — I tried. 
44. People will literally pick the worst spot to pee (i.e. in an open field on a bend in the road during standstill traffic for PEAK visibility ).
45. Drinking from the glacier’s teat will not kill you or give you giardia. 
46. Sana, sana, colita de rana. Si no sanas hoy, sanarás mañana.
47. Digital strategy is 90% gut and 10% data.
48. Double check to see if your friend bought your concert ticket before you buy a new one.
49. Double check the dates of a concert.
50. I’m not allowed to buy concert tickets anymore.
51. Mosh pits feel like a war zone. (But I swear they're fun!)
52. Audience engagement 🤝 digital marketing. 
53. Journalism is not immune to the corporate world's penchant for acronyms.
54. Newsletters take a lot of work. 
55. Meg Cabot thinks I’m a Zoomer.
56. Meg Cabot also reads books on her phone,
57. Don’t try making gum wrappers into projectiles.
58. Don't be the twat that asks for chopsticks at the Thai restaurant.
59. Dating advice from Cuban women will make me spiral.
60. Apparently my type is punk granola.
61. I get why people liked HBO's Girls now.
62. Read the fine print before you think you’re going to see Alfonso Cuaron speak at an event.
63. Keep moving.
64. Have fun at all costs.
65. You can build habits incrementally.
66. Misery is wasted on the miserable.
67. Lo que está pa’ ti, nadie te lo quita.
68. I tend to let things happen to me.
69. I don’t question things enough.
70. Just when you think you've come a long way, it means there's still more work to be done on yourself. 
71. I am more capable of change than I might give myself credit for.
72. Nothing is more unifying than struggle and injustice.

The calvary is here yet again. I'm flanked by my giant green Flanigans cup with lemon water, hot tea, Vicks, cough drops and a roll of tissue paper. Getting sick on New Year's Eve seems ominous. And I don't even have grapes to fend off the bad luck. (I'm hoping blueberries for breakfast count.) 

This is the third time I've gotten ill, but ending the year in a sickly whimper seems appropriate for the blurry mess that was 2024. Oftentimes, I felt planted in the eye of a storm as I saw all the turmoil whip around me. I've managed to brace the impact as dynamics of every relationship around me constantly shifted. It felt like being in a mosh pit — pushing everyone away, refusing to fall down.

Now I'm sat here with this hefty list of lessons, struggling to come up with some pithy takeaway. Honestly, I could offer up some saccharine platitude on the ups and downs of life, but we're eight years in. If that's all I have to say by now, then what hope do I have of moving forward? If anything, this year has shown me that I must practice exercising agency. I need to learn how to light a fire under my ass. There's just so much I want to do in this life. Never more have I craved the need to fuck off and just do what I want. And I'm curious to see what that looks like next year — and how that could backfire. (Pun not intended). But I'm ready to embrace some of the messiness — if just to see what I learn from it.