Today, I got up at the time I’d typically be crawling into bed on New Year’s Day.
Usually my head would be throbbing to the beat of the pumping house music still ringing in my ears from the London club I’d just rolled out of. Not today. For the first time in three decades of NYDs I am fresh, clear-headed, and ready to grab the New Year by the cajones, instead of IT grabbing ME in an anxiety-inducing headlock as I whimper into my pillow and will the skull-crushing hangover to stop.
2020 was the year that took so much: our freedom; and in many cases friends, family and livelihoods, but it was also the year that gave us something back: time.
We were locked in our homes for months on end with time to reflect on the hectic lives we’d been living and take stock of the way we were living them. Understand what REALLY mattered: family; friends; nature; the environment we live in; our health.
Health.
Without it, you have nothing. And last year brought into sharp focus just how quickly that health we took for granted could be ripped away like a rug from beneath our feet.
So, for me the year was a game of two halves, the first of which featured the Old Me: the party-loving, live-for-the-moment, fuck-it kinda gal; the one who fell and snapped her wrist at a nightclub in March but got right up and carried on dancing for hours until she could bear the pain no more. Health came last on the list of priorities.
Then, with people losing their lives all around the world from this virus - this deadly silent assassin entering human bodies with ninja-like stealth - I woke up. How dare I treat my health with such flagrant disregard when others were fighting for theirs? It seemed disrespectful, somehow.
So, hungover on a summer’s Sunday morning, I woke up. I took stock of my mid-life lifestyle, and decided that if I wanted to give myself the chance to live another 40-odd years on this planet then something needed to change. And now.
On Sunday, 2nd August 2020, the New Me was born.
Subsequently, the second half of the year looked very different to the first. Having taken a long hard look at myself, I decided to remove alcohol, just for a bit, as an experiment, to see how things changed. And boy, did they change! The pandemic still raged around me, but I experienced a seismic shift in attitude. It was like looking at the world with fresh eyes. I felt calmer, more able to deal with life’s challenges. My sleep improved, as did my appearance. Everything else around me stayed the same...but without that one thing - alcohol - my entire world changed.
And now, 5 months on, I have zero desire to touch alcohol. Why would I, when my life is so much better without it?
So if you’re waking up (or just going to bed!) with that familiar bottom-of-a-birdcage mouth and vice-clamped head, having overindulged last night, I dare you to try Dry January. Who knows, you might just decide that life is better when you’re not constantly poisoning yourself with ethanol. Sounds crazy huh?
If this post has pissed you off, I apologise. I don’t mean to preach. After all, I was the same as you for most of my life to date. I’m only telling you this because I wish someone had told me how good life would be without the booze. Or maybe they did, but I wasn’t ready to listen. (Actually, my teetotal mum did; I didn’t listen, because the 87% of the population who drink alcohol can’t be wrong, can they? Errr, yes!)
Over 73,000 people in the UK have lost their lives to this terrible virus since March; I feel I owe it to them to make the most of mine. I’m grateful for the lessons of 2020. And now I’m off to enjoy the first day of a New Year; the first day of the rest of my life.
If you’re reading this, congratulations! You survived 2020 🥳. You’ve been given the greatest gift there is: TIME ⏱. Don’t waste it!
Happy New Year 🥳
Day 153. 5 months today ☺️.
Sam x
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