December 31st is not a date. It's a performance. A collective representation where we pretend we understand our lives and that, furthermore, we have some kind of control over them. Spoiler: we don't.
We got ready as if someone important were going to evaluate us at midnight. As if time were a jury with a glass of champagne who could say: passed, this person deserves a better year. And there we were, in uncomfortable clothes, with forced smiles and the internal feeling that we were still exactly the same… but with sparkle.
At twelve, the miracle happens: nothing changes. Absolutely nothing. The same tired body, the same doubts, the same bank account looking with contempt. But we, brave ones, proclaim resolutions with the solemnity of someone who doesn't intend to keep them even in February.
“This year I’m going to prioritize myself,” says someone who doesn’t know how to say no.
“I’m going to take better care of myself,” says someone with a pre-emptive hangover.
“I’m going to surround myself with healthy people,” says someone whose WhatsApp is already full of perfectly labeled toxic individuals.
The end of the year is the official holiday of "I'll start tomorrow." An elegant excuse to change nothing today. Because real change isn't sexy, it doesn't have champagne, and it doesn't fit in an Instagram story. Change is boring, slow, and lonely. And that doesn't sell.
We promise ourselves self-love while continuing to beg for emotional crumbs. We swear to let go of what doesn't add value, but we leave it in "archives" just in case. We toast to mental peace with people we know will drive us crazy again in January. Tradition.
And then there's the big myth: "this year has been tough, but next year will be better." Not because we're going to do anything different, but because we need to believe it so as not to admit that life doesn't work in shifts or in annual installments of suffering. Sometimes it's just like that: chaotic, unfair, and quite indifferent to our desires
The funny thing —and here comes the dark humor— is that we repeat the ritual every year as if it were the first time. As if we didn't have enough proof that the problem wasn't the year, but our decisions, our fears, and that very human habit of postponing everything until it hurts more.
But we keep doing it. Because lying to ourselves a little, once a year, is cheaper than therapy and socially better accepted than admitting out loud: I have no idea what I'm doing with my lifeSo we toast. To what wasn't. To what won't be. And to recycled hope, which returns every December 31st like nougat: nobody asks for it, nobody needs it, but there it is
And on January 1st we will wake up the same. No epiphanies. No superpowers. Just a headache and the vague feeling that this year… well… maybe.
And hey, with that we'll get through another year.
