#15. It's a New Year
You can start over any time, but here's how my 2024 is starting off
I rang in 2024 alone, on the couch, with a glass of champagne.
I’d had a lovely New Year’s Eve with two friends, enjoying dinner and dessert and champagne. One of the friends had just flown in to Paris that morning and went to bed at 10pm. The other friend had a party to go to. The dog I was dog-sitting and I were the last ones standing, but even he didn’t make it to midnight.
I turned on a movie (The Holiday, natch) and as midnight neared, I opened a bottle of champagne, wrote down 12 wishes for the new year, and put 12 grapes in a bowl, borrowing a Spanish tradition for the new year. The countdown started - 3, 2, 1 - I toasted to myself as we reached midnight - BONNE ANNÉE! and ate the 12 grapes as midnight struck.
It was officially 2024.
I’ve become rather used to being alone. And thanks to a lot of practice and patience over the last few years, I actually enjoy my own company. I can be very outgoing and love to meet new people, but I cherish and value my alone time. This is partly because I genuinely like my own company, and partly because it probably won’t last my entire life. I continue to be optimistic about finding a person to share my life with, and I know he’s optimistic about finding me too. Until we find each other, and I choose to give up some of my alone time, I’m going to enjoy it.
I took my first solo trip in April 2015. I flew to Istanbul from London and spent a long weekend exploring the city. I admit, I was a little bit afraid to be there alone, but I also felt so fully that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. Something unlocked for me on that trip. I started going on more solo travels, to Croatia, to Portugal, to Sri Lanka, and so many other beautiful places. I’d go to the movies alone, to museums alone, to dinner and coffee and concerts alone. I realized that in going solo, I only had one person’s schedule to consider. I was both the travel agent and the traveler, I could do just about anything I wanted, whenever I wanted.
I was (and still am) more than content to go to museums and movies and dinner alone, reminding myself that no one is looking at me and no one is judging me, and I’ll be damned if I waited to do everything I wanted to do until I had a boyfriend or a friend with the same availabilities of me.
Long gone are the days when I would have been devastated to have spent NYE on the couch alone, when I would have been embarrassed to not have had “cooler” plans.
Besides, ringing in the new year is more about who you’re with, not what you do.
And I happen to really like love my own company.
In and Out lists have made the rounds for a couple of years now, and while they can be very fun, there’s no *need* to make one for yourself. This year I saw a friend create a “do more // no more // in 2024” where she made lists of what she wants to do more and what she wants to stop doing in 2024.
I don’t believe in saying “I will never do X” or “I will completely stop doing X” because I don’t think it’s realistic. So I’ve created a list that works for me, of things I’m cultivating more of and things I’m aiming to reduce.
What do you want to do more and less of in 2024?
Here’s to a wonderful year ahead. And remember, January 1 is an arbitrary start date. Yes, it’s very convenient that it was a Monday this year, but you can start any time.
xx