Year in Review: 35
Me turning 35 in Aruba last year with some “tea” it’s always nice to be reminded of.
I’ve been trying to recap 2024 for two months.
I start and stop. Erase, write, erase.
It’s not as if 35 was terrible or anything. But, there was something about 35, about 2024, that was just, disorienting? Off? A blur?
Pa’ no perder la costumbre and to flex the writing muscle I’ve committed to in 2025, we’re gonna crank this post out, my dudes. Como que me llamo Liz Rebecca.
Let’s start with the good. Si no me siento a hacer esto, even I forget all the beautiful moments and milestones:
-Pulso became an independent org and did our part in getting out the vote
-I fulfilled a dream (I forgot I had until my Huz reminded me) to do live election night coverage on Telemundo
-I doubled my speaking engagement revenue from 2023
-Graduated from Stanford’s LBAN program
-I started co-hosting a weekly show on AM radio here in Miami
-We baptized Eva and threw her first party
-I celebrated Easter and being Latina at the White House
-Added Curaçao and Guatemala to my countries-visited list
-And grew closer to my people around Miami and the world
Round of applause for all those wins! If we don’t start by celebrating ourselves, then—tamos’ mal, my dudes.
If only that was the whole story…
According to some random IG post I saw last year, Tom Hanks says 35 is the hardest year of anyone’s life.
If you’re ambitious about everything like me, then, yea, I can see what the dude means. Many of us are in the thick of it at 35: raising toddlers, kin keeping, solidifying your professional and financial life, home making, trying to take care of yourself and leave this place better than you found it…
All of this without even mentioning the perpetual state of disarray the world was (IS) in.
So, yea, 2024 was also hard. But, this isn’t the best medium to share the details on why, asi que de esto les cuento mas In Confianza in a couple weeks.
Aside from using this space to mark my progress, I do it to reflect on how I did with my “word of the year,” which I set to bring an intention for what I want to work on.
My 2024 word was DISCIPLINE.
What I Learned: the times I needed that kind of discipline most, was when I tapped into it the least. While I’ve made enormous strides in removing stress, hustle, and overcommitment in order to make way for it, I struggled.
I came to realize just how much I struggle to prioritize my SELF during that lowest low of 2024. Everything around me was literally, physically, emotionally and spiritually crumbling, and there I was, with little “motivation” from my internal cup left to fill up with what I needed. Discipline.
Maybe that’s why it’s been hard to “wrap up” last year. Because I’m not some new, renewed me that accomplished what I most set out for myself last year.
Part of the lesson is, that much like “FOCUS” “DEPTH” “Love in Action” “Take the Time” of years past—the idea isn’t to just leave those concepts behind in the old year, it’s to INTEGRATE those values in how I live moving forward.
And there’s my word for 2025. INTEGRATE.
Peeping my camera roll from last year I found this picture:
There’s me and Eva on a late Friday afternoon in November, attending a 1 Billion Rising meeting calling for a movement of women rising to stand up to fascism.
What’s more foreshadowing of INTEGRATING than bringing my favorite little human to a political space, combining the professional with the personal?!
Precisely the vision that would soon come to life for myself for 2025.
Here’s to bringing the many parts of me together this year, and for more wholeness in the beautiful horizon ahead.
