New Year's Peeve,

 I used to love New Year's Eve, but I have to admit that there are a few things about it that just get on my nerves. It's not the fireworks, because I do actually kind of love that we celebrate the idea of the world making it around the sun again by filling the sky with pretty lights; I just wish they didn't scare the shih out of my dog when they happened, because she turns into a total basket case and I don't like to see her scared. Or more scared than she is of the world on a daily basis, the poor kid. It's not even the drinking. I love that it's such a celebration and people get a bit drunk and a bit daft and in the morning, there's all these different places where people do a dip in the FREEZING COLD sea (or lakes where there is no beach close) and it tends to be for charities. I love having a Prosecco (or six) and feeling in the spirit of it. 

But mother of God, I hate the new year, new me bollox, because things do not change that quickly. The previously mentioned fireworks and drinking mean I will be staying at my mum's so the dogs can feel a bit of solidarity in their terror, so I won't be waking up in the same house I live in all year, but some time during New Year's Day I'll come back and all of the same laundry that's sitting waiting to be done will be sat here, and everything will be just as I left it. For a few years, I spent New Year's Eve doing SO MUCH cleaning because it felt imperative to start the New Year with a clean slate, or if not, at least a pristinely clean flat. It didn't matter that everything would be everywhere again in a few days time because cleaning means tidying and tidying means moving things and moving things means I can't find anything, because it was all about New Year. 

One year, I can't remember if it was before I went to university or after at this stage, but it was probably a couple of years after, I chose to do Veganuary and I regretted my life choices by the middle of the month because there was so much that I just couldn't eat and I threw a few wobblers about why I was doing it. I stuck to oat milk in coffee and tea for a long while afterwards (I'm not sure I made it a full year, but it was a while) until I struggled to get my hands on the one I liked, went back to 'normal' milk for a bit and then tried to just switch back straight onto oat milk and couldn't cope with the taste of it. Honestly, one of the big reasons people "fail" Veganuary is it's too much, too soon and it's too strict. I'm not specifically saying I'm going to try and use less animal products next year, because I'm not really a big resolutions person, but I've been vegetarian for over nearly 18 years and whilst I have oscillated between being pescatarian (still eating fish) and vegetarian (no meat, no sea meat, nothing) with occasional steps into veganism which I have never intended to be permanent, I have always tried to be more aware of the impact of what I eat, drink and consume in general, and *surprisingly* that's going to continue in the New Year. I'm interested to see the new plant based products that all the supermarkets are going to come out with and I'm really interested to see which ones make it past February before being discontinued.

In a similar way to Veganuary, I understand why people do RED January (Run Every Day) but it feels like the same sort of thing to me: too much, too fast. I know from experience that if you want to improve with running you need to commit to it and commit hard, but at the same time, you need to give your body time to rest, especially if you're not stepping up from your previous running and you're actually just starting afresh. I briefly considered thinking about RED January, but I've done it before, and it did not go well. My knees didn't thank me for it and I don't need to do anything to make them worse. Also, when I think about it, I'm not a hundred percent sure I WANT to get back into running. It was never something I did for the love of it, but I did love the community of park run and I loved pushing myself at the end of park run to sprint the last bit. I loved the sprinting, I was just crap at it. I didn't love the number of times I needed to find a tree to 'slightly' spew up under, because I pushed myself a bit too hard. One thing I do want to do - though I wasn't waiting for the New Year to do it - is go back to spending more time outside. With events of this year being what they have been, I've spent all together too much time inside which hasn't been good for my head and hasn't been good for my health either. I'm still not going to go running every day though, because that is a recipe for disaster (for me, at least).

Sadly, that brings me to my next peeve: the gym. Honestly, I haven't been to a gym for a long while and part of that is not having felt comfortable in one for a number of reasons, and partly it's because I really liked my old guy and pool situation and the pools around here are cold. I did briefly flirt with the idea of getting into wild swimming this year, and yes, I realise that's even colder, and that's the reason I didn't do it. Cold makes me hurt. Cold causes pain for me. I don't know why, I don't really care why, I just deal with it, but it does mean I struggle a bit with swimming. I quite like it even though I panic in the water sometimes, and even though I'm slow. But as soon as New Year rolls around, everyone starts going to the gym and swimming and things, and it annoyed me the few years I was training for half marathons and such, because suddenly there were more people around and it was harder to get to the equipment I needed, and things got broken more often. It's highly unlikely that I'm going to be going back to the gym in the next few weeks, but I am probably going to see all the New Year, New Me crowd on Facebook and Instagram and by the middle of the month, or if not, by March, suddenly the gym selfies stop and life "returns to normal".

I guess my big gripe with everything about New Year is tied up in this idea of what I have always loved about the holiday. It's this idea of starting the year as you mean to go on. I have always wanted to spend it with the person I'm in a relationship with, seeing, whatever terms people are using these days that I struggle to understand, because I want to start the year as I mean to go on; being with them. I guess if I were to take that to it's extreme I should be at least tipsy all year (another thing I don't really understand is giving up all alcohol through January and then binge drinking all the way into August, but I did try Dry January once and made it to pretty close to my birthday before realising that I actually like having a drink and that form of self limiting just didn't feel good anymore). Given I have no intention of spending the whole year vegan or running every day, I would rather start the New Year being realistic, both about who I am and what I can do to change the things I don't like this year. 

This year is different because I have my ADHD diagnosis and one of the biggest things with that is realising that there are reasons why things like Dry Jan/RED Jan/Veganuary don't work for me (or work for a little while and then I get bored). This year, 2023, I have spent some good time trying to come to understand myself better, and that's something I'm planning on carrying on. I mean, even if I didn't plan on it, it's something that happens to us all anyway, but I want to intentionally try and understand myself better, so I can try and make things easier for myself, be more the person I want to be and feel less hemmed in by the things I struggle with. 2024 is already shaping up to be a good year, with Green Day tickets already booked, heading back to Red Rose 20 years after I went as a child (Christ, that makes me feel old) and The BIG Finish - Mr Big's final world tour, which I'm sure I will be a total weeping mess after, but I am thankful for one thing with it - at least I know it's coming. There are plenty of times that people don't know that the last time they see a favourite band live will be the last time, so I am so very thankful for that. 

By the way, none of this is to disrespect anyone who does Dry Jan/ Red Jan/ Veganuary. I appreciate that not everyone feels the same way that I do towards it and many people find all of them helpful in some way or other. I guess many people's livers do thank them for Dry January after the excesses of Christmas and New Year all in the space of just over a week, it's just something I am peeved at from my own perspective because for me they don't work.

I hope everyone enjoys New Year's Eve and doesn't feel too sore on New Year's Day, and I hope one of the things I do in the New Year is start pressing 'publish' on a few more blogs, rather than leaving everything sitting in drafts. Again.