Some Thoughts on the New Year

A few days ago I did a reading, my first of 2026, that ended up being my most intense and lucid experience with the cards yet. It was a simple three card spread: the son of cups (or knight, as they’re called in traditional decks), the four of pentacles and the star, representing the past, present and future; who I was and what I need to let go of, who I am and what I’m experiencing currently, and who I could become.

I’d been cooking up this mini-essay in my head for a while, since before the new year, but it was this reading that really forced me to put pen to paper (I wrote this on paper before typing it up, I promise), and be vulnerable with myself.

I know now that before this reading, my thoughts would have been dominated by my anxiety towards the start of a new year. There are so many things I can pick out about myself that I want to change, so many things I can recognise that I’m not doing, or not doing enough of. I still feel it, that anxiety, forever swirling just below the surface convincing me that nothing will ever be enough, I can’t push myself far enough, none of my goals will ever be realised. The voice in my head can be terribly dramatic. However I think it has loosened its grip on my heart ever so slightly.

Looking forward shouldn’t scare me, and yet I let it. What if I don’t accomplish all the things I want to within my self-constructed timeframes? What if I try and I find out I’m not good enough? What if this year disappears before me, becomes less sprawling and open as it feels now and quicker than I thought possible it has slipped through my fingers and closed itself off to me?

Every year we are forced to take part in a ritual where we try and mould ourselves into a new person, a better one, someone we aren’t so disappointed in, someone who has goals and a plan to see them through. I think there must be people who don’t see so much pressure in this, or find these new beginnings beneficial, but more often than not I think we are weighed down by the stress of them. When and how do we start? How do I implement everything I wish to without becoming overwhelmed?

We start forgetting to forgive ourselves for the little slip ups.

This idea that we have one opportunity a year to make meaningful, impactful change is a fallacy. Something that limits rather than becomes freeing. You don't have to wake up on the 1st January and become everything you want to be: healthier, harder working, more resilient, more creative. You can make choices to change at any point. Sometimes meaningful change is hard, and takes months, years.

The most cleansing, freeing thing I realised this past year is that the work, the change, the growth doesn’t stop when I enter a new phase of my life, or when I go back to uni. I don’t have to stop watering the seeds I planted. There is no timeframe, or deadline.

This might be something that sounds incredibly obvious, or surface level, but in articulating it to myself, to my own mind, I was able to let go of so much worry that I was holding onto, that I was not doing enough, fast enough. It’s something I’m still trying to remind myself of every day. In this realisation, that time isn’t always limited, I’m able to fully feel the moment I’m living in and creating in, rather than always thinking ahead - what’s next? What now? When can I get this done?

Therefore, this year I have not given myself resolutions - static, immovable - but intentions. How do I intend to carry myself through this year? The energy you put out will return to you threefold. My intentions might change, month to month, day to day. I may not feel the same intent in October as I did in February. I am evolving constantly, and lately more than ever I feel spurred on by an unnameable feeling, a power that comes from within and without, that is a product of both my mind and spirit but also of all the people around me. I am reminded of one of my favourite quotes from Shelley’s Frankenstein: ‘There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand.’ I cannot explain this energy that I feel, or what it will make of me, but I know that I am not limited.

So, this year, I will read, I will write, I will watch my cat breathe beside me, I will listen to music, I will be unapologetic, I will nurture my relationships, I will try and give myself grace, I will appreciate small moments, I will experiment.

This has been an act of experiment in itself. I have not written something like this before with the possibility that people will read it. I just knew I needed to let it out, and try not to care how it’s received. I thought about writing it all down and locking it away in a drawer, but that would be boring.

I want to be everything this year, but I do not want to be boring.