It Was The Worst Of Times, And The Slightly Better Of Times

Mental illness, grief, and surprising joy in 2024

Photo supplied by author

Okay, let’s start this with a terrible admission. This might just be what gets me cancelled, but I have to speak my truth. I’ve never read ‘A Tale of Two Cities.’ Please don’t come for me, literary bros. That’s not even the worst of it. The worst is that I’ve never read the book, but I absolutely live by a quote from it, and I think about it several times a week. I know, I know, I should find out what the quote means in the greater context of the novel. I won’t go and get it tattooed onto my skin without knowing more about it, but for now, I’ll continue to dwell on that single line of text, and that line is:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” — ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ by Charles Dickens

I may not have read the book, but I’ve lived that sentence. I am currently living that sentence, and perhaps I always will be.

2024 was…erm, rough

At the end of 2023, I moved out of my apartment with the intention of slow travelling for a while. Basically I wasn’t about to go full “gap year” and explore new places with a huge backpack. I wanted to immerse myself in new destinations…