It felt like the new year began before december… and december felt like this grey area purgatory. I wrote a to do list called “things to do before the new year” and didn’t check any of the things off.

When the holidays started coming into view, I found myself in that familiar anxiety… But I tried doing my best to wrestle with it for as long as I could. It worked for a little. And I managed to enjoy the season in satisfying ways.

And now it’s really 2025 and there’s all this feeling. I don’t know how to respond to it. I went out this time for new years. Got drunk. Threw up a little in a Denny’s restroom. I had a lot of fun but it meant that I didn’t have that quiet, solitary, pensive new year’s eve that I’ve had for the last several years. At first, I was a little superstitious about it… like I wasn’t doing the proper ritual to transport me into new calendar energy… but the whole thing came to be fitting, considering the type of year I’ve had all together;

I was talking to someone about how 2024 felt exactly like a year. It didn’t drag on, it didn’t fly by… the amount of things that happened seems reasonable for the time allotted. It was refreshing. 2023 was detrimental to my perception of time and I think I was hungover from it at the start of 2024. Felt a lot of really big things there, but glad to have gotten it out of the way early. Not pictured: drafts of text messages: some that got sent and some that I had decided were too embarrassing to send by the next morning.

And I started this substack about a year ago. And by softly-fixating on everything that “does well” on this website, I have a million bullet points and half-baked thoughts that I “intended to write more about on substack”… most of them never made it further than this and I don’t feel loss. For a lot of these, I don’t even have anything more to say.

But I am quite touched by how 2024 played out. It was fun! It had its dips, as time always does, but at the end of it all, I had a lot to laugh about. That’s what matters the most to me right now.

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And it’s a trip; comparing it to 2023… not to bring old shit into this. But I do think that’s a particularly poignant comparison for me. To refrain from having to write it out and picking words to make it feel as poignant to you as it did to me, you can just look at the difference in my playlists:

And so what has January been so far… well 5 days in. I haven’t done much. Have you? I’ve been thinking about whether or not the imminent tiktok ban is going to change my life. I changed my phone case to this obnoxious hot pink one and I’m enjoying it. And I got this taxidermy emu.

I got a public library card to use libby more on my kindle. I sent a few emails. I caught my journals up. I made a credit card payment. I started air frying stuff. I tidied up my apartment. I had to go to the store for toilet paper.

And I did this— which is something I had “intended to do sooner” I guess. But whatever! I’m here, I’ve arrived, 2025! & There are quite a few things I’m looking forward to this year, actually. I’ll tell you about them later.