I Was Wrong About 2024

On the weirdest year of my life

I’m Haley. Book midwife (editor), author, and single mom of four. Consider upgrading to a paid subscription to support my family and gain access to exclusive content:

Looking back at last year’s “what’s ahead for 2024” post of future writing projects and pilgrimages, I found this gem: “I’m incredibly grateful for no big transitions ahead in 2024.”

Pardon me, I just spit out my coffee. Maybe in the new year I’ll be able to stop laughing.

Because, as you know, 2024 has been The Year of Big Transitions. I lost my gallbladder, my marriage, and the future I thought I would my kids would have.

I’m still in the thick of the wildest transition year of my life: harder than moving three small children across the country to a farm with no flushing toilets so my then husband could live his then dream of learning to farm, harder than CovidTime, harder than moving a family of six across the country again in 2022 so my then husband could live his most recent dream career. Just hard.

But as my son and my sister keep reminding me: we have almost made it to 2025 without anyone having to go to the psych ward which I am counting as a huge win.

All dark humor aside, I couldn’t be more proud of surviving this year and emerging out the other side of a horrible thing feeling stronger, more resilient, and more myself than ever before. I genuinely wouldn’t have believed I would be capable of thriving in the way I am and I can’t fully understand it. When I visited my parents for Thanksgiving, my mom said, “Haley, I haven’t seen you this happy in years.” Grace, grace, all is grace.

“Am I doing it wrong?” I asked my therapist. “I feel…really good. Am I grieving wrong?” She didn’t think so. “You’ve worked hard to process what has happened to you this year. You’re taking time for it. You just have an incredible support system and you’re much stronger than you realized.” Waves of grief come and go. But the overwhelming feeling is peace.

A few people on Instagram asked me how I deal with the anger. I have waves of anger. But most of the time I struggle to unlock that emotion for myself. I can easily be angry for my kids and everyone else that is affected by the bomb that went off in our lives but for me? I have to sit on the porch with Olivia Rodrigo’s “Grudge” in my AirPods to really dig into that feeling. There’s not a lot of room for anger in me right now, to be honest. I’m sure it will be an emotion that will come and go over the years. But mostly, I end this year with incredible gratitude for the truth, for my kids, for my extended family on both sides, for my friends, for my faith, and for hope which is a strange grace.

Apart from the weirdness and the grief, there were a lot of wonderful things this year.

I released two new books: Women of the Catholic Imagination (which launch 10 days after my life blew up—that was a doozy) and The Catholic Kids’ Cookbook.

I edited several books and brought them to life for the amazing authors and illustrators of Word on Fire Votive.

I launched The Votive Podcast and recorded 16 episodes.

I got to see my son in his first musical production and my daughters continue to love performing on stage.

I went to Paris for three days with my son and my best friend, Ellie, from Waco, and then continued on to a pilgrimage in Belgium and Germany with 25 incredible pilgrims.

I took my kids to Disney World for the first time and then to Dollywood (with my sister and niece, too).

(Photo compliments of my teenage son who likes taking picture more than being in pictures these days.)

I reconnected with good friends and am closer than ever to my kids, my sister, and my niece.

I learned to eat and sleep again after trauma.

I’m proud of making it through this year. And I am going to make absolutely no predictions of ease for 2025! May the Year of Our Lord 2025 bring what it brings, surely more opportunities that embrace the reality that God is in control (and I am certainly not) and that his plans for us are truly good.

(And please say a prayer for us because 3/4 of my kids have the flu and/or strep! 2024 going out with a BANG.)

And I would be remiss not to take another opportunity to thank everyone who has upgraded to a paid subscription while we navigate this very transition-y year that I never expected was coming around the corner. THANK YOU.

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Thank you for being here.

With all my heart,

Haley