Story time.

TL;DR: Do what will make you happy on New Year’s Eve, and don’t feel beholden to mythical expectations.

Ten years ago, I was so desperate for an exciting New Year’s Eve, that I called up a crush of mine who lived four hours away and somehow casually asked what his holiday plans were. He said he’d been thinking of heading to Kansas City to visit a friend, and suggested I meet them there.

And because I was so desperate, I agreed, and headed three hours south.

I looked here on my blog to see if I wrote about it, and I did, briefly, and all I said was “I had a nice time.”

I didn’t.

I mean, it wasn’t terrible, but it was full of terribly awkward moments. I’ll just share one here: we ended up at a church dance for about 45 minutes, and while my crush and I danced, he said, “I HAVE to get married this year, because looking around this dance, this is bleak. This cannot be my future.”

I am certain that in my head I screamed, “HI! JULIE HERE. MAYBE DATE ME?” I am equally certain that out loud I said, “Ha, yeah, for real…”

You’ll be happy to know, dear reader, that said crush did get married, and therefore has avoided the bleak existence of having to, you know, make friends with people or figure out how to manage a holiday rife with unrealistic expectations every year.

I don’t let myself think about that New Year’s Eve too often, because I just feel shame. Shame that I thought spending time with a crush and two strangers was a better alternative than anything I could’ve cobbled together in my own city. Shame that I thought I could will a crush into seeing me as an actual dating prospect. Shame that I bought into the idea that having an exciting New Year’s Eve was some yearly rite of passage that signaled to the world “I am an adult and I do adult things.”

And so, like with Christmas, I have since created my own New Year’s Eve tradition. I make a giant skilletful of Chicken Korma, watch movies, and I work.

This is your permission slip, should you need it, that New Year’s Eve can be whatever you want it to be. If you want to be with real friends, be with real friends. If you want to get caught up in revelry, go out and revel.. If you are over expectations, though on the PJs and tap out before the ball drops.

What you do *not* have permission to do is feel obligated to celebrate. You do not have permission to think you aren’t a magical human being just because you might not have people to hang out with that night.

And you definitely do not have permission to wedge yourself into New Year’s Eve activities with people you don’t know you or don’t know how magical you are.

It was the year that I finally decided I wanted to live in a place that wasn’t a placeholder “until I get married.”

The year I hired an interior decorator and bought all new furniture—and when I say all, I mean every single piece of furniture except for my Nana’s kitchen table and my piano.

The year I decided I was worth replacing my broken wooden spoons, the year I decided I was worth having a garage. 

The year I realized there is only so much I can do in a day; it is okay to move items on the to-do list to a later date, it is okay to say no.

The year I didn’t write nearly enough or read as many books as I’d have liked to or even see as many movies as I wanted or bake as often as previous years.

The year I started painting my nails.

The year I questioned whether I should keep writing, keep teaching, keep active social media accounts.

The year my dad broke his neck and a month later I sprained my ankle.

The year I bought a new car.

The year I got rid of all my aspirational clothing.

The year I put up a Christmas tree but then didn’t decorate it, the year I contemplated having a Christmas party at my new place but then didn’t, because of the sprained ankle.

The year I almost deleted my entire blog, the year I didn’t delete my blog, the year I still can’t decide what to do with my blog or figure out why I still have one. 

The year I finally qualified for Public Service Loan Forgiveness.

The year I got to see my brother and sister way more than I usually do.

The year I got marginally better at accepting help when people offered to help.

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We might read a variety of end-of-year retrospectives that will make us feel a variety of feels, or receive letters from friends and family with details of travels and accomplishments. It’s often easy to get lost in comparison or rumination that the year just didn’t measure up to expectations—even in a pandemic when those expectations may have been modified.

If you find yourself sinking into a vortex of comparison, take a minute or two and think about your year. Maybe a couple of positive memories bloom from seeds of grief, doubt, or disappointment. At the very least, you made it to December. And that alone is a triumph. 

I have been living a mostly pandemic-driven summer, but on the occasion that I venture out and run into people I know, one of the first questions they ask is “how’s your summer been?”

And I don’t know how to answer that, really, because first of all, it’s small talk, but second, I can’t tell if they are expecting me to regale them with tales of adventures and plans for the ten weeks that I’m not beholden to the high school.

I’m not sure they want to hear about how I’m procrastinating the curriculum fine-tuning that I wanted done by June 30 (it’s not done), or the schedule I’ve set up to pack all my things in preparation for a move the first week of August, or how I’ve been in physical therapy since just before school got out for “significant vestibular weakness” that I’ve probably had for at least a decade but was only diagnosed after a gnarly case of bi-positional paroxysmal vertigo.

They might want to hear about how I got rid of every piece of furniture I own except for my piano and my nana’s dining table (got rid of the chairs that went with the table, though—those things were torturous to sit on), and built a TV stand, a bookshelf, a desk, an office chair, an end table and a lamp. All. By. Myself. I bought a couch and a pouf, and I no longer despise my environs.

But that’s a long story to tell, really, so when people have asked me, “how’s your summer been?” or “any big plans for the summer?” in that small talk way, I really might just start replying, “Do you want to see a pic that sums it all up?” And show them this:

Feels good to have accomplished something concrete.