Some Notes to Myself in 2022

New year, who dis?

New Years really sucked this year. Sparkly dress stayed on the hanger. Heels collected dust in the closet. Champagne bottles remained corked. Taylor Swift themed headband (pictured below) sat in my online shopping cart, just begging to be purchased.

All of these wonderful things were traded in for a pair of sweatpants, a blue sectional in Westchester, NY, and a monstrous case of FOMO. I know what you’re thinking — calm yourself, Julia, we are living in the midst of a global pandemic, nobody cares. I get it, I really do. But I can’t help but feel like my youth is being stolen from me. And the $130 I spent on my new year’s ticket… also stolen from me.

In all fairness, it was a personal decision not to attend the event, and I stand by that decision. I wanted to keep myself and my family safe from contracting COVID and I believe this was the right thing to do. But doing the right thing didn’t make missing out any less sad.

So, 2022 started off on a bit of a sour note. Overly emotional, angry at the world, bumming around the house, you get the picture. I’m sure we’ve all experienced times in our lives when it felt all but impossible to pull yourself out of a funk, like a bad mood that you just can’t seem to shake. I began to stress that entering 2022 with all that negative energy would basically doom me for a bad year ahead. I wanted to walk into the year with my chin up, brimming with hope and possibility of what is to come. This wasn’t as easy as I’d imagined it would be.

There’s one line from Zac Efron’s absolute masterpiece of a movie, 17 Again (lol), that I haven’t forgotten. “When you’re young everything feels like the end of the world. But it’s not.” New Year’s Eve parties will never go extinct. The pandemic will eventually calm down. Life will go on. Things will be OK. I will be OK. It’s really not the end of the world.

It may have taken me until nearly February to do so, but I’ve decided that I want to rediscover my sense of excitement for things to come in the new year. Unfortunately, I don’t have the best track record when it comes to keeping resolutions. Or when it comes to remaining positive and hopeful for extended periods of time. But I figured that putting my thoughts into writing for the world to see (or, more accurately, the ~2 people who will read this) may be beneficial.

I’ve got 2 big, overarching goals for the year ahead. So let’s talk through them.

My #1 goal for 2022 is, simply put, independence. I want to be happy on my own. This could mean many things, but I’ll tell you what it means for me.

First and foremost, I want to move out and live in my first adult apartment in New York City. No matter how crappy it may be. I want to wake up early in the morning, put on an outfit I probably don’t want to wear, and walk my ass into a real-life adult office. Maybe I’ll actually start to drink coffee. Maybe I won’t. I want to stay up late at night, put on an outfit I absolutely love (paired with some sparkly eyeshadow), and walk my ass into any social gathering I please. Maybe I’ll start liking tequila. Maybe I won’t. Cool thing is, it’ll all be up to me.

But independence doesn’t just mean living away from my childhood home and calling the shots in my own life. To me, it also means being satisfied with myself, all on my own, not relying on others for happiness. Yes, of course this applies to romantic relationships. Just as many other girls I know, I too have clung to male attention as a measure of self-worth.

It also applies to that nasty little acronym I mentioned earlier: FOMO. I’d be thrilled if I could get to a point where I was indifferent to the actions of others and could just do what I wanted when I wanted, oh so peacefully. Realistically, I know it’ll be impossible for me to not care at all about what other people do. My only wish is that I get to a place where I prioritize myself and avoid comparing myself to my peers so harshly. Now that would be independence.

Big goal #2 for 2022 would have to be taking my mental health more seriously. I’m not saying I have major mental health issues, I don’t. But I do think that everyone should make at least a small effort to care for their mind, no matter what state they may be in. I’m a generally anxious person. I get stressed quicky. I worry. I overthink. And I’ve always just brushed these things off as being no big deal, because I didn’t have any real issues.

I now know that there are lots of little things I can do to improve my overall mental state, to ultimately have more happy days than sad. First on this list: rediscovering my love for reading. Just like most people my age, I spend way too much time on my phone when I should be using my time differently. So I recently read my first start-to-finish book in God knows how long (likely since Jane Eyre made me hate reading back in high school), and it felt really good. Shoutout to Katie for the rec. I plan to continue down this path in 2022, finding good books that transport my mind away from the anxiety-causing reality on my phone screen.

Much like reading, writing is also a friend to your mental health. Particularly for me, this means journaling when I have some thoughts to get out. I’ve already started doing this and I do think it helps to clear my head. It also helps me accomplish goal #1, because writing about my highs and lows allows me embrace practices of self-healing and self-awareness.

Another mind-happy practice I’d like to adopt is meditation and breathing exercises. I believe there’s a lot of power in meditation, especially transitional sleep meditation, that I don’t take advantage of often enough. Back when I went to physical therapy for my jaw pain, my doctor had me download an app for this that I’ve used on and off since. I plan to weave this into the fabric of my daily life more frequently. Even if that just means taking a minute to breathe and calm down in moments of more intense stress, that would be good enough for me.

And of course, just as any Average Joe’s resolutions usually include, I want to prioritize my physical health. I won’t be crazy unrealistic here — I know I’m going to be lazy often, and I know I’m going to eat candy. Nothing I can do there. But, I will continue limiting junky snacking. I will include even more vegetables into my daily meals than I already do. And I will work up a good sweat at least twice a week, shooting for 3. Whenever I can fit in some exercise after work, it always makes me feel so accomplished. I want to feel this way more often.

Of course, there are lots of things I’m hoping for in the new year that I haven’t discussed here. New things I want to try out. Old things I want to try and stop. Yet no matter what resolutions I’m able to accomplish, I feel confident that it’ll be a year of change for the better. And that’s all anyone can ask for these days.

Wishing everyone a successful, healthy 2022 filled with loads of goal-accomplishing. Especially those who read this entire article, you guys deserve it most.

If you need me, I’ll be busy making my own resolutions come true. You can always try to shoot me a text, but I may just respond with “New year, who dis?”