2024 Hat Tips

Finding joy in the face of some terrible disasters.

Yay, we are here again. To talk about the things that I would tip my hat to and appreciate things that happened this year. Should be fine, right?

Right??

Okay let’s be real, this year sucked. I will be talking about the good things that happened, but the sign that things were going to go wrong in 2024 was when a ceiling almost fell on me at the beginning of the year. Cleaning what I could carry took hours. And it seems more little disasters — along with big ones — would follow. There’s a reason why I wasn’t able to post this during Thanksgiving week as I normally do, despite taking time to start the draft earlier.

It’s also the reason why I dislike the phrase “gratitude” because it’s used to enable toxic positivity. You’re told to be grateful even when a situation is bad. In the end, trying to seek this feeling only makes you feel worse.

But What Is A Hat Tip?

A “hat tip” is making a little gesture of a thing that lifted your mood, even when life decides to mess with you. You don’t ignore that bad things happened or pretend that everything is okay with the people who caused them. But you talk about what you would tip a hat for, to show respect and appreciation.