12 New Thoughts To Try On Like Hats

This year, I'm resolving not to do anything other than change my mind

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wishes, wishes, tempting wishes ripe for plucking

For as long as I can remember, New Year’s Eve has involved me wishing for a new life. I have crafted my goals and resolutions with all the will and ferocity of a hopeful magician. I have done it because, whether or not I voiced it, I have been unhappy in one way or another, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.

That’s what resolutions are, really: a longing for change, a longing for something different, to be somewhere or something else. We hope that by trying to live differently, that something new will come to us. New feelings will arrive that feel better than the ones we feel now. New luck will arrive like magic, or perhaps healing, perhaps redemption, perhaps a whole new body, a whole new self. Success will be given to us, not just to others. Acceptance, love, an end to shame or loneliness, an end to fear, or perhaps all we crave is simply just some sort of reassurance that we’re ok, that we’re ‘on track’, whatever that means, that we’re not being left behind, and doing something helps us feel that. And sometimes it works — don’t get me wrong. I remain grateful to my resolutions past. A strong will and strong goals have kept me moving, hopeful, positive. They’ve also made me sicker, often, my uncompromising will and hunger burning me hot and soot-black till I crumbled. They have often left me feeling emptier still.

This new year, I do not need to wish for change because change is here; it’s happening. The man I love with all my heart, the man I’ve spent six and half years trying to figure out how to be with, has finally been able to sell his Danish house, apply for UK residency, and move home, home with me. When I wake now and draw him close, it isn’t with the haunting, aching knowledge that we only have a week left before six more weeks apart. The days now won’t become increasingly weight-filled as they pass, fear filling me like a flooding house as I worry how I will keep life together on my own until he’s back again. The companionship, fun and care I so desperately need is here, it’s mine. His suitcase has been put in the attic and doesn’t sit waiting under the bed. We will spend the rest of our days together. This is a vow more real and solid than any vow I have made before. All my dreams since we met have been some version of this dream, and now it’s here. So what happens now?

The new year stretches ahead of us and, oh, how easy it would be to fall back into old habits. It would be as easy as a kiss to set new goals: “Now I am settled, I will do this and this, and more and more and more. NOW I can get started.” I can feel the pull of it. I feel how it could never end, one hunger quickly replaced by another. Of course, we have our ambitions. We’re steering towards a home of our own (the tiny terrace is one hell of a squeeze and all F’s stuff will be in storage for the foreseeable). We’d like to facilitate and free my disabled body’s ability to be out in the world more so that this bed and these few streets aren’t all I know. But other than that, I’d like to try something new this year: no real goals, no striving.

Instead of resolutions, I’ve decided to focus on new things I’d like to believe in. Twelve things, in fact. If it’s ok with you, I will write about one a month here, sharing with my paid subscribers in between my regular free posts. Each month, I will share what happens when I try on a new idea.

This concept builds on some important lessons that found me in 2024:

That every day is my perfect day

That everything is supposed to change

That I need very little (and less is best)

That in any moment I can either be open or closed, and I want to be open.

Here then are twelve new big ideas I’d like to explore in 2025: