Let me start by saying there are about 10 other things I should be doing right now. My room looks like a bomb went off. I haven’t finished my best of 2019 books list. I’m definitely dehydrated and should be drinking water. Ok, that one I can fix. Hold please.

Water acquired. Now, the way I’ve started is very indicative of who I am as a person. I am always aware of what I should be doing. There is a constant check list that streams through my head of all of the things I have yet to finish. The things that would be better if they were done, if they were clean, if I had just worked on them a little harder.

I spent this past week packing up my childhood home in New Jersey, as we prepare to pass it to its new owners in the first few weeks of 2020. For me, this experience was not explicitly sad. I loved that house – I filled it with hundreds of friends and so many books and endless music and cakes baked from a box and seventeen magazines and movie ticket stubs. But I always wanted to be in New York City. I craved it for as long as I could remember – something about me was never quite New Jersey, but I knew that thing could fit here in the city. Not just fit, flourished.

In 2016, I moved to the city and found everything I wanted and more. It’s the best decision I made this decade, though that feels funny to say because it was a total no-brainer for me. I didn’t for a second think of living anywhere else. I wanted to be in theater, I wanted to be surrounded by friends, I wanted this place for so long.

In 2019, I changed it all up. New job, new home, new routine. All of these choices were the right ones, but god did they overwhelm. I had to let go of things to make it all work – of posting regularly to the blog, of keeping my personal email at inbox zero, of attending every event I was invited to. Some of that, I probably need to be ok with (I’m working on that piece).

But in this next year, in this next phase, I’m looking for more. I’m beginning to think that maybe it isn’t really about the year with all of the change – it’s about the next one. It’s about the one where you have the chance to say, ok, that happened, what now?

In 2020, I will create. I will write and I will listen and I will allow myself to spend time working for my dreams, and not just crossing things off my to-do list.

I will spend time at home. I will make my bedroom the place I want it to be. I will organize the storage under my bed. I will stretch and sleep. I will take care of my body.

And I will keep the things that make me happy. I will walk through the streets of this city and listen to playlists I crafted just for this moment. I will ride bikes to nowhere and tap back and sweat and sing and cry. I will spend hours with my friends playing games, learning games, making games up. I will watch a lot of BA test kitchen and binge-listen to podcasts. I will spend hours reading and ignoring the world around me on Saturdays.

I will make content I am proud of. I will read and recommend good books. I will give back to this community that has given me so much.

When I’m not barreling ahead at full speed and I give myself the space to stop and think about it, I am so damn proud of what I have done this year. But it’s in my nature to want more. And so I’m going to go for it.

Thank you for following along. For all of your support. For embracing and rejoicing in that feeling of reading a great book. For rocking out on your morning commute. For being the bookworms you are.