A Year Of Answers

So, what was 2024 for you? Was it a year of questions or a year of answers?

For me, 2024 was most certainly a year of questions. Big questions.  How could I handle living in a new country? How could I deal with a house buy, a building project, a new business? Could I settle my kids in a new foreign school? Can my wife and I survive the stresses? Can I manage to put my ‘happy face’ on for the cameras.

But I’m hoping, goodness, I’m hoping (!) that 2025 gives me answers.

I’ve been thinking about the quote by Zora Neale Hurston over the past few days, in which she said,”There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”

My thoughts on recent years took me as far as 2020. This was a year, for so many of us I would imagine, that asked tough questions. But I have noticed a trend because 2021 was one that cleared my head and started to deliver answers once again, if only in part anyway. The gyms reopened and my business could recommence. My wife had also started her own massage therapy business which quickly became very popular in the centre of Scarborough.

2022 flipped again to become a year of questions. Whilst my wife remained steady in her business, mine was stagnating. A few clients remained from pre-covid but the gym I was at never got their numbers back unfortunately.  It had also decided to give the members recorded fitness classes which obviously didn’t require a live instructor. This us something I’m seeing more and more in larger gyms in the UK and just can’t help but think that members are just a number to them. There’s no personal touch.  I know many of my class participants enjoyed the social aspect of classes. Having a chat with the instructor before or after and generally feeling a belonging. That is taken away with pre-recorded classes on a screen.

Prior to covid, our thoughts were very much fixed on moving out of the uk. Yes, there was a longing to be living back in the European Union but it had always been a dream for us as individuals before we met each other and then as a family. Covid had set us back financially so plans were put on hold, but 2023 we came up with the answers, swiftly putting our house up for sale and employing solicitors to assist in the visa applications and starting a business in the EU.

Oh yes, 2023 we had answers. We were so focused on this that we felt untouchable. We were asked many times,”What if your house doesn’t sell.” Or “What if your visa is rejected?”

Our answer was, “It won’t.” That’s how committed and confident we were in the process and our strength and abilities to carry this off. The reality was that our plans could’ve fallen off the edge of a cliff at any point that year, but we had answers that we told ourselves over and over that soothed our minds. “We can do it. We WILL do it.” Special mentions are required around now to thank those who gave me and my family somewhere to live in England while we were in limbo. And a great friend gave me some work working with kids in summer sports camp. I’ll be forever grateful.

But once we got to Portugal, 2024 became a year of questions once again. Mostly set by us. Just like our positive mindset helped us get through the previous year, the gremlins crept into our mindset a little during our Portuguese house purchase and business set up. We had the building work to the local accommodation house. A forest to clear. Children to settle into a new school and new lifestyle. Budget stress. And with a camera crew filming it all and a production team asking even more questions, last year was tough with some incredibly difficult questions to face.

But on the first night of the year, during a bout of man flu that had me awake most of it, I had time to think. Thinking is a luxury over Christmas with family visiting and two excited kids. It occurred to me that my year of questions were last year. This year, it is my year of answers. I don’t think that Zora Neale Hurston meant that it would be exclusively one year of questions and then one year of answers, but there has certainly been this pattern for me. At least I hope so.

There will be what looks like more filming to come. The production team are already in talks with us about their spin off ‘Revisited’ programme, where they film the progress we have made. But I feel a lot more head strong to deal with that now. I know the expectations of me. And likewise in other aspects of my life. I know what we have to do to our business to succeed. I am producing answers again. Answers that for many months I struggled to find, either due to the ‘out of my depth’ feeling or simply not knowing the expectations of, well, anything!

This time last year when asked what would be achieved by the end of the year I had to say ‘I haven’t a clue!’ And yet, if I were asked it right now I’d be able to give a more detailed account of how life might look like fir me and my family.

I’d have answers. Because it’s the year for it.

Here’s to 2025. And remember, even if you are faced with lots of questions this year, you will find the answers.