2024 arrived too soon!

I wasn't ready and I'm still not...

Jan 14, 2024

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Surely I can’t be the only one who feels like 2024 arrived prematurely?!

During the first week of this year, I read and saw so many emails attempting to reassure me that it was fine to not yet have New Year’s resolutions, intentions, or a word or phrase for the year.

While I know those messages were well-intentioned, they indirectly heightened the feeling that I should be entering the new year as an improved and transformed version of myself - or at least have a deep desire to do and be better.

Although I haven’t had big plans for New Year’s Eve since my twenties and I rarely know how I will spend the night until the 31st arrives, I normally quite enjoy the unfurling of the final day and night of a year.

However, this year, I spent most of the day with a recurring thought:

“It feels too soon. I’m not ready.”

It could be because I was unwell during the 10 days leading up to Christmas Eve and spent several days in bed so it felt like I was partially robbed of the final countdown to 2024.

Or it could be because I was reading the book Wintering by Katherine May which massively challenged the way I think about New Year customs.

Maybe both things were contributing factors or perhaps I would have felt this way anyway.

I spent NYE night with my cousin, as I have done for many years. We mostly talk and laugh and eat. We have the Graham Norton show followed by Jools Holland's Hootenanny playing in the background until midnight when we switch back over to BBC1 to watch the fireworks. This NYE was much the same.

We had a good night. (Love you Niks ❤️)

I got home in the early hours of New Year’s Day and slept until well after midday.

Once I woke up and reoriented myself, a similar but slightly revised thought began swirling: “I’m still not ready to start a new year.”

I’m still not ready…

A lot happened in my life during the second part of 2023 and as I write this note, I am still processing much of it.

I’m not quite ready to move along. I need a little more time.

But how do you navigate a deep need to stay in the year that’s passed when everyone around you appears to have fully transitioned into the next?

Through reading Wintering, I was reminded that although we may have entered a new year, we have only just entered Winter and perhaps my new year will not begin until Spring. It was a comforting thought and relieved some of the pressure I felt from everything else I was reading about how I should or could feel at the start of a new year.

Over the past two weeks, I have been exploring in my journal what it could be like to continue with “~~business~~ life as usual” until the Spring Equinox in March.

I have been considering how the various variations of ‘New Year, New Me!” evolved and became what we see and experience today.

I have wondered what it would feel like to let life unfold without any goals, intentions or guiding words or phrases for the year. (Spoiler alert: this thought feels both liberating and scary AF!)

To be clear, this is not a criticism of anyone planning or envisioning their year - this is something I encourage and have done and benefitted from for many years. If it feels right, then it can be a very powerful way to start a new year.

For me, however, this new year is different.

It has felt way too soon to aspire or commit to anything other than simply being.

Being, observing, listening.

Noticing what I notice.

Moving at a slower pace.

Seeking peace, comfort and ease.

The start of this new year felt similar to those first moments after heavy snow. A pause while everything settles; when everything is still.

I would be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about 2024 and the things I want to be, do, have and experience. But very loosely and probably only because I feel like I should.

2023 is only just settling for me and I am in that paused moment.

It may be a new calendar year but Winter has only just arrived and I suspect it will be several more weeks until I feel ready for my new year to begin.

In the meantime, I am holding my hopes and desires as lightly as snowflakes, noticing them float around my mind and allowing them to land gently and melt into my journal or slowly drift away.

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Journaling Prompts

Here are some prompts, inspired by this note, for you to consider and explore in your journal:

How are you feeling about starting a new year?
How would it feel to let life unfold without any goals, intentions or guiding words or phrases for 2024?
What still feels unresolved from 2023?
Where in your life are you not yet ready to move forward?
Where in your life do you need to pause?

Visit the LL Journaling Shop for themed journaling prompt packs and guides.