Observations for a New Calendar Year
Popping a re-cap in your ass
It seems during the last couple of years that a reflection of the year coming to a close has been potentially the only thing keeping my sanity. Adulting is no joke. The end of 2023 had me begging for a new year, only to get served up a very smelly shit sandwich in 2024. Call me once bitten, twice shy. I’m not begging for 2025. I have lost faith in the future. I have, however, gained enough wisdom to understand that shit sandwiches are also often severed with delicious cookies or chips, you just have to look at the whole plate.
Looking back through my photo library for the year is keeping me calm. So many good things happened in 2024. I am pretty sure good things will continue to happen alongside bad things. My plan is to keep recovering from the bad things while enjoying and creating memories of the good things.
I’m not going to share my own personal highlights from 2024 because that’s boring for you. Instead, I‘ll ask you to spend a minute thinking about your own highlights. If you can’t remember enough of them, it’s time to look at your photos from 2024. If you didn’t take enough photos, here is my advice; as you get older, you might find it harder and harder to remember things and you’ll need to remember them even more than before, so start taking photos of people, places and things.
I will say that in 2024 I saw a decent number of good shows. I got introduced to some new musicians and saw some favorites. Here are some links so you can listen too:
Wendy Mac’s substack has 30 days of drawing prompts to start off the new year. Day one was a more/less drawing and it’s mirrored how I’ve been thinking about the new year. Some trends I see continuing into 2025. Less subscriptions, more dvds, vinyl, and cds. Less overextending myself. Less things. More art. More freelancing. More reading about global warming. More reading in general. More snuggling. More creating, less consuming. More friend time, less alone time. More singing and dancing!
Speaking of dancing… I’m working on a dance mix inspired by a club I used to dance at in my youth. I went to an 80s dance party at Crystal Ballroom and was disappointed in the mix. so here’s the start of mine.
One Step Beyond - 80s alternative dance club music on Apple Music
I listened to Sam Harris’s “A message from Sam” for the new year. He talks about trying to live each day as if this were your last year alive. While I’ve been in that camp many years of my life, I’m thinking instead about what it might be like to stop fretting so much. Because that’s what happens when I feel like time is running out, or is so precarious that it might just vanish in an instant. I know this is not what he means when he talks about living as if you could die soon, but it’s what happens inside my brain. There was also a quote today on the waking up app that said: “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” and I think I like that one a little better, for me anyway.
One more thought related to fretting. I’ve taken it upon myself to dive head first into topics of climate change. Educating myself more about it somehow feels like a form of resistance against people and beliefs that make my stomach churn. I highly recommend the book: Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore by Elizabeth Rush. She’s an incredible writer and the book is somehow hopeful while still highlighting the kind of absolute fucked-ness that the planet is in right now.
My friend took this photo of me yesterday. It makes me nostalgic for the old Alanna… I mean the younger Alanna… who lived in the past. I want some parts of her back to help me with the present and future. I’m I’m going to be good at trying and failing and trying this year, I need her to help me pick myself up and dust myself off, she was really good at that.
Hey, we’ve got this, or we haven’t, just keep swimming.
XOXO, -Alanna