Reflections and (non-)resolutions
2024/5 Edition
Around this time last year, a friend told me about her approach to New Year’s resolutions: Avoid them. Instead, she focuses on a word of the year – which she uses as a framework to guide her intentions for the next twelve months. Her word for 2024 was community, and when we checked in a few days ago, she told me that she felt she had done well. She’d built new bonds and reinforced old ones, and amplified her sense of community in various ways in her life.
My favorite thing about this idea is that there’s no real downside. You can’t fail to achieve a word, the way you can a goal. That’s what resolutions are in the end, after all. Goals to achieve. Promises to keep. And when we aren’t able to make them happen – when we don’t lose the 10 pounds or when we gain them back; when we don’t get the job we aimed for or when we lose the one we have – we feel like we failed. There’s nothing wrong with failure, or wanting to achieve, but I find there’s freedom in looking at my life as more than a pass/fail system.
When I spoke with my friend a year ago, I told her that family would be a good word for me at the time. Of course I promptly forgot about it – in fact I hadn’t thought much about that conversation with my friend until recently. But I find, in looking back, that the word was a pretty good fit for my 2024.
This was the year I got engaged to my best friend in the world. It was the year I co-hosted and -produced an original series for one of the top podcasts in the country and interviewed CEOs of at least four different companies. It was the year I lost a grandmother. It was a year in which I made it back to the Philippines for the first time since the pandemic, attended my first political conventions, spelled in a spelling bee, found new friends at work, made some real progress on my writing, planned a wedding, celebrated the birth of my friends’ babies, and had Christmas with my fiancé’s family and mine together.
You might look at that list and say, okay, I see a few things there that apply to family. But producing a podcast series? Joining a spelling bee? Watching other people have babies? How does any of that fit in?
Let me grab the low-hanging fruit: My friends are a kind of family to me. The people I’ve found here in D.C. (and beyond! hi Sam!) have been some of the most remarkable gifts of my adult life. To be able to forge community with humans I adore at a stage in life when finding lasting friendships is neither easy nor guaranteed. . . what a blessing. And to not only see them grow their own homes, but to also be invited into those spaces and share in their joy? If that doesn’t hit the family theme, I don’t know what does.
As for the spelling bee, I got up on that stage as part of my work with the National Press Club. It was a fundraiser, they needed more willing bodies to get up and spell, and I figured: Why not? It’ll be fun. And it was. Not just because my friends showed up to support me (see previous paragraph). But also because in a rare instance of the timing working out super well, I got to share that moment with my mom and aunt, who were in D.C. that week to help me pick out a wedding dress. Living so far away from family means my mom almost never sees what my day-to-day life looks like, and being able to give her a glimpse of it in that way was really special.
OK, what about work? I try to be careful about looking at my job and my colleagues as family; there are both expectations and boundaries that true families tend to set (and break) that I believe have no place in the office, no matter how much I like my coworkers. But I will say that I can look proudly at the body of work I produced this year in large part because I really enjoy and respect the people who encouraged, questioned, edited, overhauled, cried, laughed, stressed, and created that work with me. And those are feelings I associate with family, too.
2025 is set to be a big one for me. It will probably feel different by this time next year, but from where I’m sitting now, my wedding is looming pretty darn large in the year to come. So at the risk of sounding super corny, I’m choosing love as my word for 2025. And yes, I do mean that in the white-dress-walk-down-the-aisle romantic kind of way. But I also see it as permission to welcome every version of love I stumble upon all year long.
Maybe I’ll fall in love with a new hobby, or author, or place. Maybe I’ll come across a Substack I’ll become obsessed with or a dish I’ll make again and again. Maybe it’ll be an idea, or a routine, or a friend. Whatever the form it takes, I’m excited to discover them all – and yes, I’ll write about it here. 💌
Like I said, not a lot of wrong ways to do a word of the year. But there are a million different ways to do it right.
Small victories BIG MOMENT🏅❤️
Speaking of growing families. . . Sam welcomed a baby girl into the world! I figure she’ll want to share all the details herself when she’s back in action, but let me just say: Last I checked, everyone’s happy and healthy and excited for the new year.
Hot mess recs 🔥
You know what I love? A smart fantasy plot that takes familiar ideas – can superheroes be made? and if so, would they actually be heroes? – and finds a way to make them original. To me, V.E. Schwab’s Villains duology does that fabulously. The books follow Victor and Eli, two college buddies trying to push boundaries. When they, at great cost, create something extraordinary, it leads them down a road full of magic and mystery, and where the lines between hero and villain are an ever-shifting gray.
One thing I do every January that does feel a little resolution-y is cut down on alcohol, so I’m looking at all the non-alcoholic options out there to last me through the month. We’ve stocked up on tea and seltzer, but I love a fun NA cocktail! My dad, who doesn’t drink anymore, was very delighted by this particular non-G&T. Looking to give it a try myself. If you’ve had it, let me know what you think!
And if you’re a new-ish reader, last year Sam wrote about why the new year is a great time to look back before you look forward (not unlike what I just did). Take a look if you want more inspiration for 2025.
Send us a note 💌
What’s your version of word of the year? Or if you decided you wanted to try it out, what word did you pick and why?
You know we love to hear from you! Hit us up at goshdarnmess@gmail.com.
Happy 2025!
xoxo,
Jess