If you’re reading this, you survived 2023, and congratulations are in order. Perhaps even a pat on the back. Go ahead, pat yourself on the back.
I know few who did not struggle through 2023, either with health concerns, job challenges or the loss of loved ones.
On top of the personal struggles, we had high inflation, post-COVID worries, the rising and falling cost of gas, and the still rising cost of groceries and other goods.
Also, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the upcoming 2024 presidential election in the U.S., influenza, and America’s housing crisis with rent increasing because supply cannot meet demand and others struggling to buy a home because that supply also is not meeting demand, especially in Virginia.
Oh, and I cannot forget China, of which I wrote about frequently in 2023.
I don’t mean to be a Debbie Downer, but we did not leave these concerns and issues two days ago. We will still have to handle them in 2024.
Perhaps, we will be able to tackle these concerns and issues with fresh perspective and renewed hope for a better year.
I have never been a big fan of New Year’s Eve, partly after a bad New Year’s Eve with friends more than 20 years ago during which a close friend accused me of taking money from her jacket pocket, which I knew someone else had taken and had said the friend would not mind. Later, that someone else accused me of taking the money and the friend and I did not speak for several months.
I used to hear an old superstition that whatever you’re doing in the first few hours of the new year portends what the new year will bring for you. That new year I spent driving home crying and feeling like I did not have a friend in the world and that I was a horrible person.
So every New Year’s Eve since I have approached with caution and did my best to have plans to be anywhere but at home alone. The day was redeemed for me in 2014 when I spent the evening ringing in 2015 with my church brothers and sisters when I lived in Maryland. And again a few years later when I rang in the new year with family in Richmond.
But New Year’s Eve still creates apprehension and distaste in me every year. I think because so much tradition and meaning surrounds it. A new year! You can become a new person. Proclaim resolutions. Change your life, move on and transcend the previous year’s hurts and struggles.
I was surprised this New Year’s Eve to learn I am not alone in my distaste for the day. I spent the evening with a friend for whom the day holds only bad memories. Even though this year she had a lot to celebrate, the bad memories remain.
I recently began following a woman named Christine on TikTok who lives on a cruise ship. She is a former cruise director and married to a man who still works on the cruise ship so she gets to sail and enjoy cruise ship life six months out of the year. She posted a video on New Year’s Eve and said she dislikes the day.
She lives on a cruise ship and she still dislikes New Year’s Eve. She did not explain why, but her admission made me feel better that I am not alone.
We are all struggling with something and a new year on the calendar does not change our reality the next day. I wish it were that easy.
This year I continue to handle my terrible 40s. It’s like the terrible 2s for toddlers but you’re 40-something years old and still don’t know why you feel terrible. Trust me, if you’re not there already, when you get to your 40s, you’ll understand what I’m talking about.
In 2024, I will be dedicated to enjoying my career and stressing less, but also the distractions of getting back in shape and finding a new place to live in Staunton or Augusta County.
I began my fitness journey in 2007 after having gained 15 pounds in three months after a breakup. I am an emotional eater and I ate those feelings right up while also starting my career in journalism after college graduation. Within a year, I had lost the weight, was back in shape and, after having interviewed a 60-year-old Fredericksburg woman who placed second in a national bodybuilding competition, I was really close to going into bodybuilding myself. If she could do it, I could!
However, my career required much more dedication, and at the expense of my fitness and health, I’m afraid. Now, I begin 2024 30 pounds overweight and in danger of genetics making life much more difficult for me if I don’t make changes. I’ll be getting a gym membership and participate in personal training, change my diet, whatever I need to do to rededicate myself and find the person I was in 2007 again who almost became a bodybuilder. I know I won’t get all the way back to that level, but I can get close.
And, who knows. Maybe this New Year’s Eve I will be able to approach with less dread. Because I know I’m not alone in understanding I cannot possibly meet the high expectations of a new year. And nobody says I have to, except me.
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Rebecca Barnabi
