2024 was a year that went supersonic. One, two… gone. Like an F-15 flyby – loud, sudden, and gone before you can process what just happened. Yet, despite how fast it went, it was a year I will never forget.

In July, I married the love of my life. That day remains the most significant and joyful moment I’ve ever had. I am a career-driven man. It is something that I have relentlessly pursued through uncertainty and sacrifice. But my career only exists because of her – her belief in me, her unwavering support, and her quiet resilience. Ironically, just two days before our wedding, I felt that very career shatter into pieces. 

Working in the United States as a foreign national means your life and livelihood depend on a visa. At the time, I was conducting research at Mount Sinai in New York City – one of the country’s most prestigious medical institutions. I began my postdoctoral work there in June 2022.

I gave this position everything. Long nights, weekends, holidays. I was running complex, time-sensitive experiments – particularly on stem cells, which I differentiated into neurons to study how they respond under different physiological and disease conditions. These protocols were not easy. Maturing stem cells into neurons can take six weeks. I often had to monitor them every other day. But in reality, I wasn’t working on just one batch. Instead, I had multiple experiments running concurrently. The sheer volume was unrelenting. 

From the start of August 2023 to February 24^th, 2024 (the day before my birthday), I didn’t take a single day off. Not a single weekend. Over 200 consecutive days in the lab. It was reminiscent of my Ph.D., a period I had sworn never to relive. Yet here I was again – depleted but determined.

After this period, I promised myself I’d reclaim my weekends. And I tried. But guilt crept in, just like it did in grad school. I managed to push through it, but not entirely. All the while, I was aware my visa would expire in September 2024. The plan was to transition to an H-1B, a longer-term work visa that could eventually lead to a green card – something notoriously difficult to obtain, even for highly trained professionals in STEM. I submitted all required documents for the visa transfer in March. I was told I would hear back closer to my current visa’s expiration.

Then… silence.

April passed. Then May. Then June. Nothing.

I followed up with my department’s administrative head repeatedly. No response. My anxiety began to spiral. I argued with family. I lost sleep. The lack of urgency from the department – despite me flagging the visa deadline months prior – was unbelievable. I escalated the issue to the institute’s immigration office. They replied quickly – but even they didn’t know what was going on. 

At this point, I was a month out from my wedding. My life was hanging on the edge of an email. We had no backup plan. I hadn’t been applying for other jobs because all indications had pointed to continued employment. Research plans were ongoing, meetings were promising. It all seemed to signal stability. 

Except, it wasn’t. 

The week of my wedding arrived. Still no update. I was waking up each day with panic in my chest. I emailed the department every day, clearly stating that I was home for my wedding – a leave of absence I scheduled four months in advance, the same week I submitted the visa paperwork. There was no excuse for radio silence. 

Then, a meeting was finally scheduled: Thursday, July 18^th. Two days before the wedding.

The Zoom call was concerning from the outset. You could have cut the tension with a knife. They took forever to get to the point, as if delivering bad news more slowly somehow softened the blow.

Then came the line:

“We feel that your interests and motivations are not aligned with the department, and so we’ve decided not to renew your contract. However, we will support your visa transfer through the end of November.”

I felt like someone slapped me across the face. It wasn’t just unexpected; it was fucking cruel. I had sacrificed everything for this position. And yet they couldn’t summon the decency to deliver this life-changing news at any other time than 48 hours before my wedding?

I was devastated. I told my wife and her mum immediately. Overwhelmed, I stepped outside into the stillness of the Cornish countryside, clinging to my partner’s stability for calm. No one knows how to reach me during these moments like she does.

But I was hollowed out. For better or worse, my career has always been central to my identity. And in that moment, it felt like someone had just stolen it from me. 

Truthfully, 2024 had already been a brutal year professionally. I felt overworked, isolated, and increasingly disillusioned. I admired my colleagues deeply. They were brilliant, thoughtful people. However, the department’s environment was suffocating. Prestige sometimes comes with a cost. I already had it in my mind that I would start looking for a new position for the following winter in 2025. Perhaps even taking a few months to travel. 

But this… this was the breaking point. 

And yet – my wife, my mum, and my mother-in-law wrapped me in tape and held me together. By the morning of the wedding, the job situation was pushed to the back of my mind. That day was untouchable. Sacred. A memory not even the worst professional blow could taint. 

But, when we returned to New York, it ate me alive. The thought of being forced to return to the UK, after years of clawing my way out of a traumatic past, felt unbearable. I felt it in my bones. I live with struggle. I have accepted that I will most likely not find peace in life. But this? This was something else.

I have never held much regard for myself. That’s not said for pity, it’s just my reality. In some ways, it helps me scrutinize my actions and keep improving. But if there was one thing I did believe in, it was my work ethic. My discipline. My willingness to go all-in for what I cared about.

To be told that my “motivations are not aligned”? It didn’t just rock the boat – it sank the damn ship. 

My dedication to work has long been the one part of myself that I respected. Perhaps even my only redeeming quality if I’m being brutally honest. And to have that stripped away… I felt vulnerable. It was like being a child again, on a freezing Monday morning, when your parent yanks off the covers to get you out of bed. You’re left cold, exposed, and entirely unready for the day ahead. How do you go back to work in a place that made you say goodbye to the life you built?

The one upside to all this was that I finally allowed myself to reduce my workload. I was done sacrificing my remaining time in the U.S. for an institution that had so little regard for my immigration status. And, in some sad way, that felt fitting for the United States – a country that says it values science, yet makes its scientists beg for scraps of stability. 

2024 was a savage year. But it had one slice of light in the middle: our wedding and honeymoon. The world could crumble around me, but those memories remain sacred. And through it all, it was my wife who carried me. Who held my gaze when I couldn’t meet my own. If I had been alone during that time, I don’t know how I would’ve made it through. The spiral would have been long and deep.

She was the guiding light. The northern star.

She reminded me that when one door closes, another opens.

Even if you have to kick the fucking thing down.