📝 this is the new year & i have no resolutions

11 Jan, 2025

I’ve never been one for making New Year’s resolutions. Mostly, I enter a new year with the same goal: I try to be better than I was the year before, a commitment to always growing. So, in honor of that, here’s a (too long) wrap-up for 2024.

January, is the first year in our new (old) house and the beginning of a work commute that's over an hour. I start listening to audiobooks again and I laugh-cry my way through Quietly Hostile. I start reading Eileen—a library book I meant to read over Christmas break when I checked out too many books—and at first, I am horrified that I relate to her; there are moments where Eileen’s anger and self-loathing hit the deepest parts of me, but then there comes the familiar feeling of being seen. I start baking again and begin adjusting to life with a dog; something that is much more difficult than I initially expected. I continue to push against my anxiety around buddy reading and ask Kaylyn (@kayreadsandnaps) to read Blood & Steel with me. This starts a new reading adventure for the both of us—her, especially because romance isn’t her usual genre—and I take it as a challenge to find a series that she will fall in love with. The month also brings the first snow, and as I walk hand-in-hand with Robert, I think “this must be what Narnia feels like.”

In February, I attempt macarons for the first time alone—I am made brave by my friend Emily who, weeks before, took my “I’m afraid to try” turning it into a “what if I showed you and we did it together?”—and I over-mix them because after 4 years of consistent exercise, I still don’t understand my own strength. I read Sea of Tranquility in the living room, curled up in the oversized chair in the corner next the large window that faces the street. My niece visits for her birthday and I bake her a cake: 3-layered funfetti, heavy on the sprinkles. Kaylyn and I continue buddy reading the series we started, moving onto Vows & Ruins. I start listening to Cultish (recommended by my friend Rhi) during my commute—a perfect addition to the absurd amount of cult documentaries I begin watching.

In March, I watch the world—and the people around me—thaw, slowly coming back to life. I listen to Sapiens in my car and it feels like being on Spaceship Earth. I’m alone, which means I have time to think, and long-buried parts of me recoil at ideas they that had been led to believe weren’t true. I work through the discomfort and I’m finally given the language and context I need and my world expands. It’s as if someone—I suppose it’s me and my insatiable curiosity—has finally opened the door where there once wasn’t one and has let a bit of light in. Perhaps the door was always there and I never noticed it.

Nonetheless, I brim with excitement every time I tell someone—anyone who will listen—a new fact I’ve learned. Baltimore continues to wake up from its hibernation. The cherry trees are in full bloom and their falling blossoms carpet the sidewalks in a beautiful, perfect pink. That same day, or maybe on a different day (does it matter?), I stumbled upon the sound of buzzing so loud it made me stop in my tracks because I needed to see. Picture me, stumbling through the neighborhood, inspecting blooms until I found the source. I could have stood there for hours, I think, listening to their buzzing and watching as they darted from bloom to bloom, gorging on pollen.

In April, Robert takes a Shakespeare class in the city and for weeks, the sound of him practicing his monologue will fill the house. He asks me about the Shakespeare & Film class I took in college and I share what I can remember, though years of living in survival mode made it difficult to retain much of anything. Later, sitting on a blanket in the park while the eclipse happens and I wish I could bottle the feeling of collective wonder. Days like these are when I think of Sapiens and wonder what we might’ve been if we hadn’t gotten everything so painfully wrong. I attend Hanif Abdurraqib’s book signing for There’s Always This Year and I listen as he talks about hauntings and ghosts and grief and the different versions of us that exist to other people, something that I’ve struggled with because which version of me is the real one? A trip Asbury Park to see Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties perform and when Robert and I take turns driving, the other reads essays out loud from They Can’t Kill Us Til They Kill Us.

In May, I finish reading Martyr!, and it becomes a book I think about often—usually in moments of yearning, of grief, of rage; when I'm angry at the world and what it has taken from me and everyone else; when I wonder what the point of it all is; when I hate my country and I'm reminded of the cruelty and indifference of governments; when I can't stop thinking about language and it's importance and beauty of it, but also of the barriers that it creates—and I wonder how Cyrus is doing and I hope that he’s happy.

Robert’s Shakespeare class nears its end and after weeks of practice, he finally performs the monologue for me. Standing in the kitchen and watching him perform and the only thing I could think to myself was “how beautiful to watch him bloom.” We celebrate 15 years of marriage and spend it like (most) of the years previous: no money to do much of anything besides share in our mutual wonder at how long 15 years is; how much we've endured, survived, and accomplished; so much gratitude for the other because “you stayed.”

I start hiking again and I feel alive because the trees are the brightest shade of green and sometimes I have to squint because the rays of sun shining through the treetops make it difficult to see. The trees, the rocks, and the ground beneath my shoes a constant reminder that all of this was here before me. My birthday comes and for once, I'm excited. I wake up early and Robert and I get breakfast at Blue Moon where—despite the waitress not knowing it's my birthday—I get a free cinnamon roll. Sometimes the universe provides! The rest of my birthday is spent at the SOWEBOfest with friends and I eat my first real crab cake as a Baltimorean. Later, we get dinner with at a local Argentinian resturant and life feels like a movie and this is when I begin to recognize what being happy feels like. After dinner, we share the cake (red velvet) that Robert baked for me.

In June, I read The Woman Destroyed—my first Simone du Beauvoir and a book I bought solely based on the cover—and I feel self-conscious in all of the public places I read it (mostly in the park and on the train to DC to hang out with a college friend). I read on the deck, soaking up the sun and the sounds of the city. I fight with the squirrels over the tomatoes and eventually give up, resolving to try again next year. I listen to Don't Call it a Cult on audio while I paint furniture the deepest, dark blue. June also ushers in another (unintentional) Octavia Butler summer and I finish Dawn and begin Adulthood Rites (my favorite of the trilogy) while I sit with the discomfort that an Octavia Butler book provides.

July arrives and I explore more of the city, visiting the National Aquarium and the Museum of Industry. Other days are spent in the library, constantly rearranging, convinced there is some perfect layout I can achieve. When I leave for Florida, I bring Imago with me and the “Enoch Pratt Free Library" stamp on the edges is a reminder to myself and all my parts that I'm not going back—not really. I read outside of Homestead Correctional Institution as I wait for my sister. The corrections officers are difficult and rude and they succeed in making me feel small and stupid which turns to anger and then to shame. I swallow it down and try to pretend I’m unbothered as I wait and wait and wait and I want to scream. When she comes out, I hug her for the first time in 4 years—for once, there is no time limit on it—and cry. I drive us from Homestead to Middleburg, only stopping if she asks.

In August, I sleep on a twin-sized air mattress in Florida and when I wake up before everyone else, I take the opportunity to truly be alone. I walk outside in the yard barefoot and bleary-eyes, holding back tears. I watch the sun slowly come up and I cry, cycling through grief, anger, and a kind of homesick I haven’t felt in years. A 16-hour train ride to Baltimore, and she calls the kindness of strangers "kingdom currency" and it grates on me. I want to correct her and say "no, it's the kindness of people who care about you," but when I challenge her she gets frustrated. The first of many instances where I will make myself small and bite my tongue; a part of me assuring myself “there will be time later.” Attempts to read on the train are futile, so I stare at the passing landscape of the east coast instead. I watch the sun as it sets in South Carolina and watch it rise as we pass DC. My sister spends a week with us and I try to resist showing her everything because “we have time.”

I devour more Weird Girl Lit because sure, I am probably (definitely) losing my mind, but so are these women and it makes me feel less alone. I read Death Valley on the deck and soak up as much sun as I can. I read Bunny while I wait for my sister at various appointments and it reminds me of what it felt like to attend college in Connecticut. I read Big Swiss and finish it at the pool with a friend at the tail end of summer. I finish Imago and I am (unsurprised) when Octavia Butler rewires my brain again.

September arrives and my sister leaves to join a cult, and in my grief I turn into the worst version of myself. Surprisingly, devouring cult books and docuseries doesn’t prepare you for when someone you love joins a cult (again). I read Starling House and it’s a house as a living, breathing thing, and finding home in a person and doing whatever it takes to keep them. I saw so much of myself in Opal, my twenties spent trying to claw my way out of poverty and doing whatever I could—even at the expense of my own health—to drag the people I love out with me. I think of how often I had to be brave, especially when I didn’t feel brave. I read The Hacienda and I feel it so deeply in my bones when Beatriz says "This is my house. Here I am safe."

This is also the time where I really start working with my teenage part, fully trusting the Internal Family Systems modality and phew! is she angry. I paint a door pink—a color that only ever reminded me of the insulation falling out of a broken, paneled wall in my childhood bedroom—and reclaim a color I’ve always hated. A camping trip and i explore an old growth forest and it feels like being transported into an entirely different world. I want to cry because there is so much wonder in my body and if this is what standing in a 300-year-old forest feels like, what would it feel like to stand in one that's even older?

October is when I begin to find my rhythm again, though I partially attribute that to the world (in some ways) naturally slowing down. I try to connect with my inner teenager more and I dive deeply into vampire books and read The Southern Bookclub's Guide to Slaying Vampires, Fevre Dream, and Certain Dark Things. I (once again) rearrange the library and the bookshelves. I listen to The Indifferent Stars Above on my commute and I feel a million different sensations in my body, the writing is beautiful and tells the story of The Donner Party with so much tenderness. I start reading Spark of the Everflame with Kaylyn and finally, this one clicks for the both of us. A slow-burn romantasy with intimacy that isn't based around sex. Here is the yearning I've been searching for.

In November it’s harder to find the joy, but I still try: a Day of the Dead celebration in Highlandtown, scootering around the city and soaking in the view of the city from Federal Hill, a weekend trip to Philadelphia, and a tiling class at the tool library. I continue buddy reading Heat of the Everflame with Kaylyn and during Thanksgiving break I set up the air mattress in the library, because why not?

December is a slower month: Philadelphia for PAX Unplugged where Robert surprises me (yet again) and is so brave and does the robot in a theater full of people; a drive to Philadelphia to see The Wonder Years; a holiday WWE show at CFG Arena, while memories of watching wrestling with my stepfather loop in my head, though for once, there is no distress.

So much happened last year, but throughout it all, I’ve been focused on being present in a way I’ve never been. In therapy, I’ve dug deeper into that parts that I’ve been afraid and ashamed of, and in that, I’ve found a calmness and an openness within myself that I didn’t know could exist. Some days, it’s hard to find, but if I’m patient and listen to my body—ignoring the panic that comes at first and the thoughts that I’ve programmed my brain to ignore—I can find it. It’s uncomfortable to sit with those thoughts/feelings; to turn it over in my head and look at them with compassion, but in my consistency, I’m learning that sometimes, things just are and that’s okay; there’s isn’t always a problem to solve.

I think of how long I moved through my life detached from myself and the world around me while in a state of wanting which left little to no room for wonder.

So, I suppose, here’s the addendum to my first paragraph: I also want to sit in the wonder, the joy, and the uncertainty. When I focus on those things and not what I feel is expected of me, my entire world opens up bigger—becoming so much brighter—than I ever could have imagined.

#wrap-up (yearly)