New year’s optimism

Welcome to the new year! The start of the year is such an optimistic moment—all those shiny new gym memberships and lists of freshly minted goals.

It’s hard to believe 2021 passed so quickly. I keep finding myself waking up going, ‘How did we get here exactly?’ In many ways 2021 felt less like a reset than an extension of 2020. It’s nice to know that year is over. Time, she marches on.

Did you celebrate with champagne and a midnight kiss? Or noisemakers? Or prayer? Or maybe you’ve made some resolutions. Maybe you’ll even keep them.

I watched a bunch of episodes of Queer Eye—very strategic to drop new episodes of a makeover show on the last day of the year—and took the phrase ‘fresh start’ literally by deep cleaning my apartment. Those floors have never looked so shiny.

I have also completed my annual tradition of buying a new planner and optimistically filling it with deadlines, dates to remember and long-term goals. I imagine I will also continue my tradition of abandoning said planner by March—returning to my standard life-organizing-systems of post-it-notes-everywhere and overfilled-phone-calendar.

As much as I expect the planner may end up languishing by summer, there’s something about looking out upon the year laid ahead that invites optimism and ambition. Why not try? Why not pursue the things you most want? Why not dream?

So much of life is about putting your feet one in front of the other, to meet the moments as they arise. It’s a useful ritual to take time at the start of the year and reset, to imagine again what could be possible. The work and challenges will come, whether or not you’ve prepared for them, so why not dream and scheme and plan before we’re buried in the momentum of the year’s passing?

It’s hard to say something new about New Years, so I’ll leave you with this 1910 poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

The Year

What can be said in New Year rhymes,

That’s not been said a thousand times?

The new years come, the old years go,

We know we dream, we dream we know.

We rise up laughing with the light,

We lie down weeping with the night.

We hug the world until it stings,

We curse it then and sigh for wings.

We live, we love, we woo, we wed,

We wreathe our brides, we sheet our dead.

We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,

And that’s the burden of the year..