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According to the Chinese Zodiac calendar, 2025 is the Year of the Snake, the wood snake to be more specific. And much like the snake, as the new year approaches, we feel the need to shed our skin and seize the new year to become a better version of ourselves. However, after speaking to a therapist I learned that most people (like me) view the new year as a restart, and percieve it literally as a new beginning. Furthermore, (like me) adding additional pressure on themselves in an all-or-nothing attitude.
Existential Dread Has Never Looked So Cute
Since as far as I can remember, I have always looked forward to the next year. I, like most people, towards the end of the year, have a tendency to take all my hopes and dreams, and carefully place them in a basket called ‘next year.’ I tell myself that next year I will finally start working out, that next year will be the year I actually start learning a new language, that next year I will fix my sleep schedule, that next year I will start giving more credence to my mental health, next year I will start reading more, that I will make the most my days. This year however, I find myself dreading the next year.
Main Character Syndrome
A part of me wants to believe that it is because I am tired or over the whole ‘new year, new me’ spiel, but I know the real reason. I am beyond terrified of the uncertainty that a new year brings with it. I do not want to think about how many canon events are left, I don’t want to think about how I am merely in the first few seasons of the TV show that is my life. How the characters from cult-classic shows like Friends and How I Met Your Mother, were in their early twenties at the start of their shows and had no idea what they were doing. Those things do not bring comfort to me because at the end of the day, as much as I would wish it, I am not a fictional character, I am so obviously human.
And because I am human, and despite the fact that I am dreading the coming year, does not take away from the fact that over the weekend I met with my friends to make vision boards (~I'm just a girl).
Not Really A Real Adult
A part of my uncertainty comes from the fact that I am not in school or college. I am done with the certainty that came with being a student. I miss the certainty that comes with knowing the future syllabus, knowing which question papers to practice and getting the download on your new teachers from your seniors. But most of all, I miss the ready-made answer of ‘I am going to the 11th grade next year,’ when asked the dreadful question of: ‘What are you doing next year?’ Now, that question seems like a poisoned bullet and I feel like a helpless target.
The Existential Crisis
Because, what am I doing next year? Do I want to be a new person? Do I want to travel the world? Do I want to hunker down and focus on my career or do I want to chase after the same dream that I have fostered since I was 10 years old? Do I want to do my masters? If so, what do I want to study? Do I want to change the world? Do I want to move to another country on a whim? Or do I not want to think about the new year and all the things I could be doing and just focus on what is in front of me? Maybe scream like a banshee at the person who dared to ask a person in their twenties, such a risky question?
Imposter Syndrome
I think as the years have gone by, the next age cannot help but feel more serious and I cannot help but feel like an imposter who is bound to be caught sooner or later. And to make matters worse, the people older than me find great joy in telling me with big smiles that that feeling never really goes away. So much for hoping that my brain will start working normally when my frontal cortex finally develops at 25. And as an added bonus, over the last few years, I cannot help but look back at the last few years with more fondness even though I felt like I was trapped in a broken washing machine while living through those days. However, you cannot take away from your yesterday and hope to power through your tomorrow.
So, now, as the new year inches closer and closer. I cannot help but want to sleep it all off. I cannot help but want to keep my hopes smaller, and smaller, to save myself the heartbreak, and yet, at the same time, because I am human, I cannot help but hope (because staying in delulu is the solulu).