New Year, New Intentions
An attempt to not quantify my life
Hi Friends,
Happy New Year! It's 2025! Even though I was born at the end of the nineties and wasn't literate until at least 2003, every number since the year 2000 has felt insanely science fiction. 2025 is no different.
There’s something special about this year ending in 25. A quarter of a century. A fourth of the way through the 2000s. A nice odd number, divisible by 5 and completely coherent. The 2000s are coming into themselves, out of college and a couple of years into full-time employment, still restless but a little less reckless. Or maybe that’s just how it feels to be in your mid-twenties during the century’s mid-twenties.
I’ve been reluctantly wrestling with the scaly basilisk that is writing a 2024 highlight post. I’ve won the battle and decided not to do it. I’ve beaten back the wave of perceived peer pressure, the deluge of personal branding disguised as retrospection, and the profiteering urge to quantify various aspects of my life into some neat poem of statistics. I’ve come out stronger, standing despite the current that tugs at our feet in the wake of Spotify Wrapped and its ripples in online media: each company, platform, or person suddenly condensing their year into a succinct 10 slides of clean numbers and summarized images, a celebration and obligation at the end of each year, a contrived rite of passage before stepping into the next.
It’s not that I don’t enjoy little summaries of my year or don’t find small joys in seeing statistics of my life and others’ from the year. I largely lose perspective of the year by April and forget any intentions or resolutions I made in January before the trees grow leaves again. It can be nice to be reminded that my days add up, that in the grand scheme of things I was making decisions throughout the year even on days when I was on the most auto-pilot of auto-pilots.
But I really don’t want to go through all my camera roll and try to narrow down the highlights of my year into one post, share my substack stats, or even revisit my list of resolutions from January 1, 2024. In an uncharacteristic turn, I don’t feel like looking back. I would largely be picking out my vacations and my time spent being myself because those are the best times, and those times feel increasingly shrinking in the years since I left undergrad.
Instead, let me try to move forward with a synthesis of various things I’ve learned this year. Let’s try a writing workshop method. I’ll start with what worked well, and then move on to where I see opportunities for growth and strengthening.
Something I loved about the last year was the time I gave to myself for healing physically. I maintained patience with my hip injury, found the right PT, and progressively returned to running. I also found my holy grail workout app, Ladder, and I have never felt better about the gym and my body’s capabilities.
I loved that I dedicated my time and energy to finding a routine that doesn’t make me want to to kermit every morning I have to go to work. I prioritized sleeping regular, sustainable hours and it helped me physically and mentally. I accepted that I need to eat overnight oats and chia mush every morning because the fiber is good for me and it's the easiest way to make sure I eat breakfast before going to work. I even maintained my bedtime and wake-up time on the weekends to prevent sleep whiplash when my two days were up.
I loved that I traveled the last year. I traveled in every direction with and for my loved ones. Texas to Massachusetts, LA to Madrid. Each trip brought back a part of myself I hadn’t seen in a long time.
Okay, it's silly but I LOVED that I found my dream nail technician last year. My nails have never looked better and I’ve never loved my hands more. Even if they do still feel like kindergarten playdough creations come to life, it's about the small corners in life to embrace whimsy.
The place I see room for growth can largely be summed up into one thematic shift. At the end of a yoga class, after savasana and before the class bows their heads one final time, while everyone is seated in sukasana with their legs crossed and eyes closed, the instructor might cue the class to place their hands on their knees. The instructor might say they can place their hands with palms facing down, palm to skin, for grounding and rooting. Or they might say they can place their hands with palms facing up, palm to air, for expansion and welcoming new things.
I spent the last year with my palms facing down. Diving into my writing, my routines, my own self-preservation. Grounding myself, rooting into my internal paths. Now, it’s time to flip my palms up.
To make my next year stronger than the last, I’d love to return to consistent and dedicated socializing and friendship. Make new friends, continue and deepen existing ones, and learn to be a better global citizen all around. Community building, if you want to place the technical term for it.
This shift toward expansion is not about pushing or stretching. It’s about returning to the world with renewed energy. Returning to people with renewed empathy, patience, and love. Returning to global struggles for justice with renewed passion, interest in theory, and ground-level action. Returning to the land with renewed gratitude, reverence, and trust.
I always have and will continue to place arbitrary importance on the new year. It's less about grand transformation and more about a desperate grasp at conscious living and tightening the reins on my own life. But we can all benefit from a little less commodification and analytical measurement. We are human after all.
As always, thank you for reading and supporting my writing. Y’all are easily one of the things I enjoyed most from 2024, and I’d love nothing more than to continue together in 2025. <3
I loved reading this and I love you! What a nice piece of writing this is, truly.