One of my new year’s resolutions for 2024 was to go to a trivia night at least once a month.

My goal with this resolution was twofold: (1) I love trivia, and (2) I was extremely shy about initiating plans with friends, and hoped that having a standing excuse to make plans would help me break the ice.

I did not complete a full year of trivia, but for a happy reason – my daughter was born in mid-October, so I (understandably) had to skip November and December. However, I was able to go to trivia nights with friends at least once a month for the first 10 months of the year, and I consider this resolution a success!

I used this resolution as an excuse to hang out with people that I do not normally reach out to (and even met new people!), deepened many of my existing connections, learned a lot of useless trivia, discovered new venues, and, ultimately, had a great year of trivia nights!

If I were to do it again, I did realize a few things that I probably should have done differently.
My biggest regret was publicizing the resolution so widely at the beginning of the year. I was excited to hit the ground running with that new year’s momentum, but quickly found myself overwhelmed with invitations to trivia nights. Understandably, everyone I talked to about my resolution took our conversation as an invitation to a trivia night in the near term (said another way, nobody I know is making plans months in advance). This meant that I was going to multiple trivia nights a month earlier in the year, but scrambling to make plans before the end of the month near the end of the year. In retrospect, I wish that I had staggered my announcement to different groups of friends.
On that note, I actually kind of wished that I hadn’t told people about my resolution at all. I made the resolution because I wanted to proactively make plans with friends, but after hearing about my goal, many of them reached out to me to make plans. I cannot stress enough that I am thankful for my friends and am overjoyed for the time we spent together, regardless of who-reached-out-to-whom! However, I do feel like this system let me “cheat” my original goal to be the-person-who-reached-out, and if I were to do it again, I would be a little more under-the-radar about my motivations.

My trivia nights are on hold right now because I have limited evening availability these days (baby girl’s bedtime is 8PM, after all) – but I look back on my trivia 2024 with fondness!

People like to say that new year’s resolutions are arbitrary – what is so special about January 1st? Why not make changes to your life on other days? Why do your goals and dreams have to start on the first day of the year?

To that, I say…

Last Wednesday, I turned 32 years old, and on this “arbitrary” date, I decided to implement two “new years” resolutions. (Get it? It’s still a new year, right?)

• Stop reading the comments
  • I don’t think it’s realistic for me to completely cut out social media. Facebook Messenger is still the primary way that I message friends, and Instagram has been a great way to passively keep up with friends and find out about things to do and places to go. I’ve already implemented guardrails to keep myself detached, like not looking at my Facebook feed and keeping both the Facebook and Instagram apps off of my phone.
  • Since having a baby (which I swear I will write more about soon) and diving deep into parenting content, I have found myself even more stressed out by every comments section I see. So much judgement! So many conflicting opinions! So many strong opinions!
  • I’ve since realized that every comments section is like this – so why even look at any, anymore, anywhere?
• Reach out more proactively to friends
  • After my year of trivia nights (which I also swear I will write more about soon), I became a lot more comfortable with reaching out to friends and making proactive plans. Though becoming pregnant threw a (happy) wrench into my plans, I was still happy to have an excuse to see people, especially when pregnancy was the roughest and it was hardest for me to get out of my front door.
  • Since giving birth, more than ever, I have felt the importance of having a community, and would love my daughter to grow up surrounded by loving adults and role models. As my past new year resolutions have shown, I’ve been wanting to fight my introversion and be a more proactive friend, but that goal had never felt as pressing as it does now with my new little girl.
  • I’m not exactly sure what this looks like yet – more phone calls? FaceTimes? In-person meet-ups (if I can figure out how to finagle them with a baby)? I just know that I want to make my connections an even greater priority this year, more than ever!
  • Additionally, I have a sub-resolution to ask more questions. I talk about myself a lot! (Why do you think I started a blog?) I am happy to talk about whatever my conversation partner wants to talk about, but have always been scared to ask leading questions (what if you don’t want to talk about that?), and have never been great about following-up on past conversations (oh no! I completely forgot about that big trip you took!).
    I am hoping that focusing on asking more questions will help me do that! (I am genuinely interested in you, OK! I am just bad at showing it!!!)

After getting married in August 2022, like so many other brides, I considered making a drastic change to my hair. Would I finally dye my hair blonde? Shave an undercut? Get a bob? It took nearly a full year, but I finally decided that I would get curtain bangs.

Was I ready for such a drastic change? I had never had bangs in my entire adult life. I was purposely low-maintenance about my hair, and hated the idea of needing to curl, trim, and style my hair every day. I joked that my forehead was huge and needed to be covered up, but I could not even fathom what that would look like.

And yet… I sat in my stylist’s chair in November 2023, ready to make the leap.

“I want to try curtain bangs.”
“Okay! You know that means we’ll need to move your part, right?”
“Huh?”
“Your part, you have a side part right now. For curtain bangs, you’ll need a center part.”
“Oh… okay.”
“Are you sure? It’s a big change!”
“… yeah, let’s do it.”

In retrospect, I don’t know if I would ever be ready – but I had been thinking and sitting on and waiting on the idea of changing my hair for so long, even before getting married, that I had to trust my gut and finally make the change as soon as the mood struck.

A little over a year later, I can safely report that my gut was correct – I wasn’t ready!

First, I underestimated the amount of time it would take my hair to adjust to the new part. I had had a side part for years and my hair was simply used to falling a certain way. I was so wrapped up in adjusting mentally that it didn’t occur to me that I’d have to adjust physically as well. It sincerely took my hair a year to be fully used to the center part – who knew!

Second, just like I worried about, I was not prepared for the upkeep necessary for bangs. Having a new haircut actually inspired me to start taking better care of my hair in general, and I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve likely used my hair dryer more in the past year than I had in the past 5 years combined. I’ve experimented with new brushes, clips, rollers, hair masks, and heat protectants, and have slowly built a long overdue hair care routine. I even treated myself to a hair dryer brush as a Christmas gift!
While I’ve learned a lot, I am still not sure how much time and effort I want to invest in my hair, especially on a daily basis. It’s been a gradual learning process, and maybe I’ll be more efficient and confident with time, but I’m honestly still struggling right now!

In 2025, I am still not sure what I want to do with my hair. I’ve grown attached to my new hair, but it still does not feel fully “me.” Every once in a while, I’ll sweep my part over to the left, where it was for the first 20+ years of my life, and I’ll look in the mirror and think, “Ah, I’ve missed you.” I’m grateful for what I’ve learned about hair care, but still find it so much easier to retreat back to my (lack of) routine. But I can’t shake the desire for change and experimentation as I get older. You can’t have growth without some growing pains, right?