New Year, New Me: Is it REALLY Bullsh*t?

People may talk shit about the whole “New year, new me!” phase that comes with the start of every new year, but there’s no denying that there is something incredibly exhilarating about a fresh start. 

There’s so much hope for the year ahead. So much exciting uncertainty about what you can make it.

Being a Colorado resident and a lover of the outdoors, I’ve learned that you have to plan several months in advance if you have specific outdoor endeavors you want to tackle, especially those that require a permit.

On New Year’s Eve, I booked a permit for late August to hike Pikes Peak and stay at Barr Camp, an experience on many Colorado Springs’ outdoor enthusiast’s bucket list. 

People here don’t play. 

I’m already thinking about what country/ies Mike and I will visit this year. What hikes I want to do. What mountains I want to climb. What camping reservations I want to make and plan ahead for. What concerts I want to see. What places I want to explore. What goals I want to accomplish. 

I want to sign up for a race this year, but will I feel compelled to tackle a full 26.2 miles? The mileage seems excessive, and the idea slightly scares the hell out of me, but it also makes me feel something inside that allows me to believe I’m likely destined to do it one day.

There are so many things to potentially accomplish and make out of your life and at an opportunity for a fresh start it’s worth embracing the pure excitement that comes with feeling all of it. It’s exciting and motivating and inspiring and even a little scary.

The older I get, the more I realize that you’ve got to carpe diem that shit. You’ve got to seize every moment you can because time goes fast and it’s critical to enjoy the now.

Then, there’s the ticking clock for women, a battle I find myself having with my mind more recently after turning 36 in December. People tend to assume you don’t want kids if you don’t start having them at or by a certain age.

I’m 36, and when I say that I’m not quite ready to have kids it’s not that I’m scared or feel like I’m not ready to be a parent. It’s that today, January 1st, 2025, I do not want to have a child yet. 

Could that change in 6 months? Maybe. But right now, I know what I want and it’s not a tiny, adorable human being that Mike and I get to help shape into a loving, passionate, compassionate being. Not yet. 

Am I excited for when that time comes? Hell yes I am. I sometimes day dream about it.

Regardless of knowing what I want, I can’t stop thinking about the fact that science is inevitable, and the older I get there’s a higher chance of certain things going wrong with your pregnancy than there was in your mid-to-late 20’s and early 30’s.

If you’re a woman and you feel me, you’re not alone. I’m sharing this because I know that I’m not alone.

But I trust the process. I follow my heart in everything I do and trust that I will figure it out along the way, no matter what life throws at me. 

Tonight, I watched “Brittany Runs a Marathon”, a movie described as “heartwarming and uplifting”, two words I couldn’t have chosen better myself to describe how it makes you feel.

It’s the story of a woman who is struggling to find her place in life and in her own words, “finally feel like a woman”, aka what society tells a woman they should be: below a certain body weight, looking a certain way, married and with kids by her 30’s, and highly successful, making a decent amount of money. (I mean, cleary the list is more exhaustive than that, but that’s for a different blog post.)

After a trip to the doctor to try to get a prescription for Adderall, she instead finds out that her BMI is too high, and she needs to get healthier. With that – and a lot of other moving pieces – she starts the journey of running a marathon. 

I won’t give any spoilers, but like in life and the famous quote, “Life is a journey, not a destination”, it’s exactly that. It’s more about the journey it takes to get her there rather than running the actual marathon, and it’s abso-fuc*ing-lutely beautiful. Highly recommend it if you want an uplifting way to start 2025.

Seeing someone achieve a goal and the journey that goes with it, the pain, the struggle, the challenge, and the reward, is insanely motivational and inspiring. If someone can achieve something that seems impossible to them, but they do it anyway, I think we tend to feel like… “Well, if they can do it, why can’t I?” 

And it’s true. We all can tackle anything we put our minds to. It’s the determination, the commitment, and the dedication to achieve it that is the hardest part of accomplishing it or even getting started in the first place.

One of my goals for 2025 is to write more. Specifically, write one blog a month and publish it on our blog that I refuse to let die. It’s not about having a blog that goes viral, or is even that good. It’s about doing what I love, and I love to write. 

So, today, January 1st, 2025, after watching “Brittany Runs a Marathon” in my adorable home with the fireplace burning and our Christmas tree still glistening in all her color in the background, I decided to write my first piece.

It’s about channeling the excitement that comes with the fresh start of a new year, this year, 2025. It’s about trusting ourselves to follow what our hearts are telling us. It’s about focusing on our goals and what ignites a fire within us to want to live and do cool things and chase after what’s important to us in life. 

It’s about me channeling that energy, figuring out where I want to start fresh, what I want to tackle, and hopefully encouraging others that it’s okay to say and feel and scream from the rooftops, “New year, new me”! 

Just make the words mean something.

“Carpe diem that shit.”