“Then we enter that strange period between Christmas and New Year, when time seems to muddle, and we find ourselves asking again and again, What day is it? What date? I always mean to work on these days, or at least to write, but this year, like every other, I find myself unable to gather up the necessary intent. I used to think that these were the wasted days, but now I realize that’s the point. I am doing nothing very much, not even actively being on holiday… I am not being lazy. I’m not slacking. I’m just letting my attention shift for a while, away from the direct ambitions of the rest of the year.” - Katherine May, Wintering
Writing to you from one of the most poignant in-betweens of the year: the days in between holidays and perched on the cusp of perhaps a monumental moment, the new year. It’s just about all we can do but to wallow on the sofa in our PJs and eat too many Christmas cookies. The days are getting longer, although we don’t quite feel the shift to more light yet. It’s cold, grey, filled with (too much? up for debate?) family time and a loss of our sense of direction. This is liminal space, I remind myself. I’ve talked to so many friends and acquaintances recently who have shared in this sort of prickly, tender, disagreeable, precipice of despair state during the past few weeks, myself included. Luckily I am on the other side of mine, and I am curious where you are all sitting with this end of year feeling.
Here is where I was, open and honestly, for the days surrounding Christmas. For me it was a reminder to take my medicine, challenged me to seek kindness when I feel bitter, and showed me (yet again) that when my skin is angry and I pick at it, it doesn’t help. Every day I woke up hoping to have found a renewed sense of energy and purpose, the one that that makes me excited about my graduate school research and tells my body it will feel good to go outside. I watched a lot of Sex and the City and failed miserably at the crafts I intended to gift to my girlfriends; my air-dry clay cracked and I ripped out rows and rows of scarves and hats that had suddenly became something I hated. My patience knows no solace in these moments. I looked in the mirror and realized I missed my yoga practice. I laid on the floor of my adolescent self’s room and felt how great it could be to just let the floor meet you where you are. What do we do to fill these days with something meaningful? When spending time with other people, what is autonomy and how can we cultivate it? Somedays it feels like I have a lot of questions and no answers.
Other days, I am energized to at least attempt to answer the questions, and ask myself even more questions as an attempt to re-meet myself where I am at. The new year (for me) is a time to take a second to assess and triangulate this journey between where I want to go, where I am, and where I have been. So as 2024 starts to close I want to save a little space to take inventory of the right now. The past 12 months stretch long and far behind me, and yet I endeavor to make the journey backwards, learning from who I was at the cusp of last new year. It’s amazing how quickly the new year becomes old, and how far from ourselves we can go before returning to where we are today.
So where am I? Physically, I am spending the New Year’s holiday in the midwest with Gus’s family. Mentally, I am deep inside my 2024, trying to learn and take what I can while leaving what doesn’t serve me anymore, creating an in and out list, experiencing a new wave of energy and optimism for what is yet to come. Emotionally, I have a new found energy and optimism on the other side of my December slump. But before I go forward, I want to take second to be right where I am.
What I’m watching:
By myself, I’m on season 5 of a rerun of Sex and the City. Gus and I just started Yellowstone (I’m not typically keen on a violent and graphic action show but I think we both miss Montana).
What I’m reading:
It seems like all of the substacks I subscribe to are doing some sort of end of year lessons, favorites, intentions. I’m eating them up and here are some of my favorites that I’ve gotten in my inbox and made it through thus far:
How to be organized in 2025 - Anna Newton
Notes On: The words that defined 2024 as Taylor Swift eras - Hannah Connolly
Stepping out - Ryan Stutz
Who I’m listening to:
Gracie Abrams, The 1975, Waxahatchee.
What I’m knitting:
The Sophie Hood!!!! Duh! And next up the Sophie Scarf.
What I am eating:
Icelandic Provisions yogurt as a treat. Orange juice. Daal (Indian lentil soup). Taking my magnesium supplements. Whatever is in my mother’s fridge, or gus’s. Greta’s gluten free sourdough. I’m trying to be gluten free (this is actually an announcement to my friends, you know who you are, you heard it here first). I’m flirting with the idea of becoming a pescatarian, both to face the fact that I don’t really like meat and to walk the talk of my seafood research.
What I’m wearing: PJ-esque pants
These are the types of pants that can go from sofa to a cute walk about town with the addition of the right jacket and a pair of boots. I have been living in these types of pants, and think I have become somewhat of an aficionado in the topic. I realize this is somewhat of a “Scandi girl” style item, and I think I realize why. It is the ultimate way to embrace winter coziness and maximize style. Cute and comfortable; no one wants to curl up on the sofa with a knitting project in jeans!
My true and trusted:
Simon Miller ribbed pants
thrifted PJ pants
Silky Madewell pants
All the Babies pointelle pant
Planet Nusa striped pants
OMWL (on my wishlist)":
Daily Drills silky pant just wish they didn’t have such a flashy logo
Secondhand scores for someone else:
What I’m pinning:
Intentions I am holding onto right now:
noticing instead of judging (self)
overpacking as something that is okay, not demonized
things are the props in a person’s life
taking the extra 10 minutes to feel a little more polished and put together
books on tape
walking, jogging, and enjoying moving my body
manifesting for what’s to come (it doesn’t have to be the new year!)
my favorite ways to do this:
journal prompts from Katherine May
pinterest boards
purging what no longer serves you (to make room for what does)
So that’s that friends! That is where I’m at, what I'm doing, how I am leaving behind 2024. I implore you to take a second and take stock of where you are today, where you were last week, where you were a year ago. Progress is not progress until we realize it to be, and give ourself a moment to see how far you have come. And if you do anything to honor the new year, take the extra time and space to re-meet yourself where you are in this liminal space.