When Taylor Swift said “meet me at midnight” I felt that, but there’s one midnight I wouldn’t meet her at—New Year’s Eve. Because I have to be honest, I loathe New Year’s Eve.
And while I’m being honest, fine, yes, I would absolutely still meet Taylor Swift at midnight on New Year’s Eve, and actually I’d probably enjoy it, but it’s the only scenario that appeals to me at all.
There’s just something about it for me: this one day where there’s anticipation and expectation suspended over your head, and then you count down and the clock clicks over to midnight and…the anticipation is gone. The expectation that something soul-shifting was supposed to happen kind of fades away like firework smoke and you’re left with the reality that things are essentially the same they were at 11:59 PM, but that maybe something was supposed to change right then, so there’s a lingering sense of overwhelm, too. On top of that, you’re probably being subjected to some version of Auld Lang Syne, which is arguably the most melancholy song in existence. If I’m out on NYE (I won’t be, but IF!!!) you can find me somewhere in the corner in the fetal position with tears running down my face, trying not to mentally scroll through all the moments that are now memories.
Like, hello, this song is so sad and FOR WHAT:
And—again—if I’m being honest, my feelings toward New Year’s Eve are probably also related to my feelings about the death of eras. Every 2022 recap I see on social media makes me cry, because look at what you did! Look at the ways your life has shifted! All of it is laid out for me in an easily consumable post that will make me feel Everything™️. Please. I didn’t stand a chance.
I know that I could feel this way any other day of the year, technically, because time passes every minute we’re alive, leaving behind things we can never go back and touch. But there’s something about New Year’s Eve that requires you to be viscerally aware of that passage, and to think about what you’ve done, what’s happened, what you’ve gained and what you’ve lost.
Needless to say, I often feel like I’m holding my breath until both of my feet are firmly planted in the new year so that I can put the previous year in a box without having to think too hard about it. You probably won’t ever find me reminiscing about a year in its entirety on social media, or even face-to-face. I’ll only ever be able to hand out bite-sized pieces, because if I start that spiral, it’s a hard and fast drop into the previously mentioned fetal position crying thing, and that gets awkward for all parties involved.
But now the Bella Swan-like breath I was holding can be released, because both of my feet are in fact planted in this new year and I can look forward. While I never assign expectations to what a year is going to be, feel like, or do to me (this is especially true since 2020. Like, let’s all just tiptoe in and take our seats), there is something very objectively cool and big happening in my life in 2023: my debut book, YOU, WITH A VIEW comes out July 11! I don’t have to say “oh, it’s coming out next year” when someone asks me about it. Before 2023 is over, people will have held my book in their hands. I will have held my book in my hands!
Just a moment of commotion for it because HELLO!!! I remain obsessed.
Obviously I’ve known my book was going to be a book since I signed my contract in December 2021, but now it actually feels real, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a ton of anticipation suspended over my head. It’s kind of like New Year’s Eve, except way stretched out, and hey, maybe that means I’ll be able to handle the emotion better in doses rather than being slammed with it in one night. And honestly (my last one, I swear), my life is going to change. It already has, just slowly, over time, in the way life actually happens. Not in one second when the clock ticks over from 11:59 PM to 12:00 AM with confetti at your feet, but in an endless scroll of them, a mountain of minutes and hours and days and new years.
At any rate, while I am couching any expectations for this year, I’ve decided I’m going to fully embrace something one of my favorite astrologers, Nadine Jane, says in this Instagram post about 2023: “Fuck it, why not just do it? There is a foolishness to this upcoming year. An opportunity to leap—imperfectly, awkwardly, with great fear, with crippling imposter syndrome, with knees shaking and teeth chattering.”
Happy 2023, friends. If you love New Year’s Eve, I hope it was the best one ever. And if you don’t, and you find yourself breathing a little easier today, I’m right there with you.
Onto my RANDOM SCREAMING:
- I hit 70k in the first draft of my second book! While that sounds like “wow, you’re almost done with it, Jessica!” the reality is that, no, I am an egregious overwriter and this draft is going to land somewhere around 110k (god I hope). But 70k is unmistakably A BOOK and for that I’m extremely excited.
- Relatedly, I discovered a song the other night that is deeply the vibes of book 2. Second Chances by Gregory Alan Isokov, it just makes me so emo and warm in the best way.
- I commissioned art from horreurscopes and should be getting a first glimpse at it sometime in the next few weeks! I’ve always wanted to commission art for my work, and I can’t wait to see the way Noelle and Theo are brought to life by Alex’s expert hand. And to share it with you all as a 👀preorder campaign goodie👀
- I recently read BUSINESS OR PLEASURE by Rachel Lynn Solomon and if you haven’t preordered it, I would recommend you do yourself a favor and do it right now. It’s such a sexy, beautiful, tender, kind-hearted book, with a brilliant take on the sex lessons trope. Rachel never misses, but this might be my favorite of hers to date.