Ah – New Year’s Eve. A day I both love and abhor. I love the optimism that comes with looking forward to a new year, but I abhor the frantic feel of “let’s have fun!!!!” that so often pervades the day (and especially the night!). I plan to spend a quiet evening at home with the Furs and with my Best Beloved, who shares my lack of enthusiasm for raucous New Year’s parties. (It boils down to too much pressure. Give me an unexpected holiday like “Opposite Day” [Jan. 25] or “International Sloth Day” [Oct. 20] and I’m all over it, but people expect too much tonight. Two towns over, they’ll start shooting off black powder muskets and that’ll go on WAY too long.)
But there is optimism, too. Skip the pressure of New Year’s Resolutions – you’re not going to take on six huge new habits all at once, starting tomorrow, and you know it – and instead, select and reflect on a “nudge word” to serve as a beacon to keep you on track with your values and intentions. (Mine for 2024 is “savor.” I like that – it reminds me to enjoy where I am rightthisminute. It’s also shorter than Auntie Mame’s admonition.)
Also, as you look back over this past year, why not make a list of Really Cool Things you did this year that have nothing to do with how you earn your bread? Work accomplishments are all well and good, but in the end, work is a transactional arrangement. What did you do this year that made you feel really, really good about yourself? What was delightful and unexpected? What did you try for the first time? How are you hoping to incorporate more of that into your life going forward?
I just made this list, so it’s on my mind. This past year, I shared a flight of cupcakes with a good friend (instead of meeting for dinner – try it!), I went to my first regatta and my first live pro wrestling event, I hosted a tea party with all the trimmings, leaned all the way in to Swiftie fandom and received friendship bracelets, spent an evening with friends learning how hard it is to make a hand-thrown pot, got soaked touring Niagara Falls, baked on the Bonneville Salt Flats, and ordered personal cards proclaiming me to be a “Swell Dame.”
2024 can be a great year. And we all deserve that.
Scatter joy, Divas!
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