Oh, all the best plans fall to pieces. After writing part one of my Everyday Wardrobe bullet journal use, I fell very ill and now I’m back on my feet all the natural daylight in Scotland has vanished. Roll on, Winter Solstice.

In lieu of taking photos of my Everyday Wardrobe planning, I thought now would be a good time to take stock of 2021. We still have a few weeks left of this year, but I have experienced so much throughout this year that I want to reflect upon it. 2021 has been a very different year for me and one that I’ll think back upon in the years to come.

I began 2021 in a pretty bad place. Glasgow was in perpetual lockdown while an old injury had messed up my left knee and I could not walk. By mid-February, I was finally able to go on 5-minute walks around our neighbourhood, heavily reliant on a walking stick. Professionally, I was working on a project which had me confront things that had happened to me in the distant past. It was creatively fulfilling but emotionally draining.

By April, everything was a mess though I was doing physical therapy and my knee was getting better. I took a very hard look at my life and realised that I needed more than just physical therapy. I needed some big changes. As you might imagine, these changes took a lot of energy and I had to step back from various ventures while I began re-aligning everything.

2021 became the year of change rather than a year of making. I cannot remember a year where I made fewer things than I did in 2021. My plans for my Everyday Wardrobe were pushed aside as were my knitting design plans (with a few exceptions). I wrote things, but things only meant for my eyes. As someone who thrives on sharing her creativity, this was a huge shift but also a necessary one.

It’s now been six months since I began intense trauma therapy and it has been hard work - and also a period of immense joy. I have become that person who speaks about gratitude and affirmations, and who spends an hour a day examining her life. A year ago I would have raised my eyebrows at the thought, but I am genuinely happier than I have been in a long time. I have begun swimming regularly and also invested in a better bike.

And so colours and words have begun flowing back into my life. With everything going on in the world (and there is a lot), I am incredibly thankful to myself for doing hard work on myself. I am more resilient than before; better equipped to take whatever the world throws at us.

2021 was the year of change; and I think 2022 will be the year of gentleness for me. I’m not sure what that means for my knitting ventures, but I think it means treating myself with kindness and gentleness. I have plans, of course, but I also recognise that plans can change. And I am going to be gentle towards myself when I course-correct. We are all just learning as we live, and I am going to nurture this thought.

I used to keep a book blog and do my end-of-year reviews. This year I have read 116 books (and counting) and although I am no longer a book blogger, I thought I’d leave some words on my favourite reads. This year I have focused hard on books by women and specifically romance novels. I may have a fancy degree on literature and have read all the “important” books (by dead white men), but when I need to be kind to myself I end up reading contemporary romance. And there were some great books out there.

• Talia Hibbert: Take A Hint, Dani Brown. Queer academic suddenly finds herself going viral when her gruff campus pal rescues her from a workplace fire drill. It’s an adorable, funny, and diverse romance that I absolutely adored. (second book in Hibbert’s Brown Sisters series)

• Denise Williams: The Fastest Way To Fall. This one is all about self-acceptance and self-love; how to grow stronger in your own body and in your own Self. It’s also very cute and sweet. It resonated a lot. The body positivity on display was great because it could easily have been done badly.

• Susanna Clarke: Piranesi. The less I say about this strange beauty of a speculative fiction book, the better. Do not read reviews (though they are glowing) but just dive in and discover for yourself.

• Emily Henry: People We Meet On Vacation. One of those books I reluctantly read based on recommendations, then cried for hours after it finished. Poppy and Alex are pals, until they are not. They go on one last vacation and hopefully they can repair things. Maybe.

• N.K. Jemisin: The City We Became. Culture, myth, and identity all melt together in New York City. And Jemisin’s book does things with culture, myth, and identity that feels new and wild. It’s a speculative fiction book, first in a series, and I absolutely loved every sentence of it. So incredibly well-written that I can only marvel.