waltzing into 2024
I wrote about how scared I was about moving from a single digit "9" to a double-digit "10". I expected the whole world to fall apart at midnight.
We spent every New Years at my aunt's house. We popped confetti poppers on the driveway and drank so much apple cider it made us sick. I would fall asleep on the couch with music blaring all around me only to be shaken awake but my mom before the countdown and handed a glass full of 12 grapes.
I've always loved the New Year. I like fresh starts, I like do-overs. A chance to reinvent. I spent most of 2023 just wishing the year would be over to get my fresh start. 2023 was awesome and it had its highlights. I graduated college, I went to Europe, I played a bunch of shows, I took a ballet class. But I felt pretty horrible for a lot of it in different complicated ways. (I hate saying negative shit like that but sometimes I have to acknowledge it so I can give it its space.)
So the new year, no matter what it brings, feels new. And that's what you need sometimes, just a promise that things don't last forever, especially not time.
I've spent the last few weeks asking everyone about their New Years resolutions. I've been trying to keep up with my own.
It's the first time in a while I feel like people around me actually were excited for the Holiday and weren't saying shit like "it's just another day, what does it matter?". We kind of need something to matter these days.
I divided my resolutions into sets of 12. To be completed every month. That way I'm not just hoping things come along, but am holding myself accountable so they do.
I also won't list all of my goals because although I am optimistic, I am also superstitious. Plus, some of these are veryyyy private.
One thing I do want to do is be more present. I want to feel each day go by and not ignore it. I want to spend more time on fun, on socializing. New bars. New food.
I want to stay off of social media as much as possible. That, I am kind of doing well at already. I am on social media when I need to be promoting music or sharing something with someone. But I no longer want so much of my time and ideas to be coming to me unfiltered through the hands of pseudo-strangers. 2024 is the year of real..... realllllllll things.
I also want to read 20 books and start a book club. I want to get reallllly good at guitar.
The first day of 2024, I got an iced coffee and headed out to the river with my brother. I sat down to journal but my pen ran out of ink so I just looked out into the water for a while. I found my brother sitting by the river bank throwing rocks trying to find geodes, so we spent the rest of the day digging through rocks with cold fingers until it started to get dark.
I hope we all feel inspired and renewed to take on the world. I feel sometimes that I waste away at being presented with so many things all the time online that I don't get to fully work on one thing I really want. I want to care more about the world and the people in it, and take some time this year to really devote myself to community. I can only do that if I can find some respite within myself first, so I can be more capable of helping others and more eager to.
Just some crazy thoughts.... hehe.
Also I am excited to blog more this year. Wow!! Blogging is so fun. I hope more people do it. Yayyy..
Okay bye ttyl.. I have to finish doing my laundry.
