002: life happens, outside of the boxes

on resolutions and new years anxiety

I love New Year’s. I love fresh starts and clean slates and the feeling that no matter what day of the week it is, it will always feel like a Sunday. Every December, I spend a great deal of time creating goals for myself for the new year in the form of a decorated journal spread, a handmade collage vision board, and a Pinterest board with hundreds of pins of beautiful people doing beautiful things I may not ever have the time off work to do. The goals on the journal spread come as detailed and hefty checkbox lists for the coming year, oftentimes with unattainable goals that will likely go by the wayside and carry over into next year's list. In years past, I’ve spent the last weeks of December scrambling to finish journal pages so I can start fresh in a new book on January 1st, or rushing my way through knitting projects, or lamenting over how I didn’t actually take that camping trip this year, and my skin never cleared up, and (secretly) wasn’t this the year I was actually going to get skinny? (That one is never written down on the list, just in my head. You’re the first to know it.)

my 2024 vision board collage

I love New Year’s so much but it tests the all-or-nothing part of my brain that feels like I have to be perfect from the minute the clock strikes midnight, a perfect streak (which is incredibly difficult to start the year off on the right foot when I’ve stayed up later than usual and obliterated my bedtime routine, all to see the numbers on a clock change). I just want to enjoy my existence rather than making more checkboxes to my already busy life. I want to relieve myself of the notion that I must progress or grow or change to be worthy or deserving. What if I’m proud of how I am right now? What if I don’t need to change at all? Somehow I just don’t think that’s true, though. I do want to grow and change. And I’m not really proud of how I am right now. I should want to change. As someone who touts themself as a lifelong learner, isn’t that my duty? To be constantly growing and changing and learning? Is there a way I can do it more gently, without judging myself or past self so harshly? How can I exist more kindly? I don’t even know how to begin to organize or synthesize my thoughts into something tangible and concrete for me to use. And maybe I can’t do that? Maybe these ideas and feelings are journal-only musings and not meant to be actualized. Maybe I just keep encouraging change each year and hope those new goals stick, even if they cause anxiety because that’s just what you do in the new year. I wonder when it’ll all feel complete. When I don’t feel the need to make goals in the new year when I’m fully satisfied with my life and myself. When each puzzle piece fits together seamlessly and I can step back and admire the picture and what I’ve so carefully and cleverly worked for. But sometimes I feel like I’m working with the wrong pieces. What if I’ve been concerned with a piece that I have no business working into my puzzle? What if I’m spending all my energy trying to fit in a piece that will never fit, while the important life-altering pieces have fallen between the couch cushions? What if some pieces are backward?

What if I have it all wrong?

Maybe it’s not a puzzle at all. Maybe I’m wasting time and energy right now over-intellectualizing my thoughts and feelings on something so woefully insignificant I’ll look back on this in ten or twenty years and laugh at how naive I was for being so overly concerned with whether or not I should try to take more walks or improve my skincare routine or save more money in the new year.

Am I meant to change this much? Am I meant to encourage it this fervently?

Is the only reason I even care so much to change because I dislike myself so deeply that I need to prove to others that I’m changing?

Don’t worry! I have a plan, I’m going to fix myself, I don’t like myself either and I promise I’ll be more likable in the coming year!

Last night, at nearly 2 am, my fiance and I, having just recently gotten home from a longer-than-anticipated boozy game night at my parents’ house, were talking about the new year, lying in bed together. We proposed making resolutions for each other, rather than ourselves, to help alleviate some pressure. For him, I chose fishing and trust (or as he will now call it, the year of trust in fish). He’s been talking about learning to fish as long as I’ve known him, and the trust is for trust in himself, trust in me, and trust in others. Then it was my turn.

Can you please stop being so mean to yourself? He asked.

And so, as decided by us both, this coming year will be the year of confidence and contentment. I want to be content with where I am in this upcoming year of change.

My 2024 list of goals and resolutions was detailed and thorough, but it missed a key factor (one I am regrettably difficult at): spontaneity. So many wonderful things happened this year that I could never have anticipated. I left my job, I got a new job at my favorite local bookstore. I’m more connected with my sister. I’ve reconnected with middle school friends. I’ve tried seafood. I’ve fallen in love with yoga. I started a substack! I went to New York City. I got engaged! None of these things were checkboxes, or puzzle pieces I needed to fit in. I can’t retroactively add them to the first journal spread of the year to check them off between aspirations of saving money and taking better care of my skin and hair.

Life happens, outside of the boxes, and I think (slowly) I’m learning to be content with that.

All this to be said, I’ll probably still make an in’s and out’s list for 2025. Rome wasn’t built in a day.