Miles to go until midnight

The annual New Year's panic attack arrived early

This day really is like any other. I do the dishes and feed the cats, then they pretend like I haven’t. I butter my toast and brush my teeth for two minutes. It’s just another day, except it feels like a funeral.

Long gone are the days where I’d willingly fall out of a pub in the early hours of a brand new year. Foolish and confident, I’d go home alone and walk barefoot with my shoes in my hand. I’d start the year making bad decisions without much care, and I wasn’t scared of the dark back then. It didn’t bother me that I’d drank so much alcohol that everything hurt, including my hair. I wasn’t phased by falling down the stairs or saying something I shouldn’t to someone I shouldn’t be talking to. It was all for the plot. A glorious, gossipy plot where the consequences of my actions would come back to bite me and I’d find it the funniest thing in the world.

Now, as a woman in my thirties, the most important thing to me is comfort. I’ve traded sequin dresses for heated blankets and expensive dressing gowns. I’ve stopped wearing a bra because I’ve only got a handful of good boob years left. I’ve stopped drinking everything with Red Bull, and I actually can’t stomach any kind of energy drink these days. Scrabble and Dreamlight Valley are more fun than Ring of Fire, and I don’t remember the last time I wore fake eyelashes. I make sure I have everything that comforts me while I bury the year into the ground.

I used to be a lot more comfortable with the idea of a new year, but I think as I’ve gotten older I’ve felt the pressure to grow and to evolve in more meaningful ways. Shouldn’t I be a grown up by now?

People have written sonnets, love stories and screenplays, people have won Pulitzer Prizes. People have fixed holes in hearts, stopped bleeding and saved lives. People have done so many things by now, the least I could do is be useful somehow. I should be a better writer, at least.

Maybe I used to be the light in the room, and I think I used to be a funny girl. I remember being quick witted and brave, and I remember people laughing. It was such a thrill when someone would challenge their wit against my own, and I thrived on friendly competition. I’m still quite funny but in a darker, more self deprecating adult way that goes best with a coffee and a cloud of second hand smoke. Maybe that is quite grown up actually, sophisticated even.

We frame the New Year in a very specific way, and it is the societal expectation around a new beginning that makes me flinch in the waking hours of January. Wild winters don’t feel as cold as I do in the New Year, and I’ll shiver as I try to detach myself from everything that’s come before. I’ve gotten used to the particular brand of suffering of the last 12 months and I made my peace with it. Better the devil you know, or something.

We call the New Year an opportunity. We say it's a fresh start, the clean slate we’ve all been patiently waiting for. I’m not sure about anyone else, but my fresh starts have never come with the chime of a midnight bell. They’ve usually come when I least expect it, taking advantage of the element of surprise so that I learn some sort of painful lesson from it.

Many of us spend the last few hours of the year making vision boards and plotting our personal rebrands. This will be the year we get it together, we’re sure of it.

We’ll save money and consider mindful spending. No more impulse buys. The diet starts tomorrow. We’ll cut down on sugar and drink more water. Maybe we need a Stanley cup for it. We’ll finally figure out our skincare and we’ll be a bit more pretty.

We convince ourselves there is a better version of ourselves up ahead, without stopping to consider if the person we are now is already enough. You really should do that, you know. I never think that the person I currently am is enough, but the thing is, I am an idiot. A very verbose idiot. I know, I’m being too hard on myself but the panic attack is here and it brought self loathing along with it. They’re as thick as thieves, as all old friends are.

My annual panic attack knew I wanted to outrun it. It knew I wanted to hide in shadows and lock myself in cupboards even though I’m afraid of wardrobes because I used to imagine seeing faces in the gaps between the doors as a child. It knew I was expecting it so it gave itself a head start, as a little treat.

Today feels long and drowsy, and I wait for the hours to pass. Clocks move slowly but the ticking doesn’t stop. Waiting rooms are always the loudest to be in, can someone please turn it down?

It’s true that time usually moves fast as we age, except for when we’re really waiting for something to happen. Time is a gift and it’s why I fear it. I fear losing it, missing it, never being able to get it back. In doing so, I lose so much time simply from being afraid of it.

Next year will have its highs and lows, and I will no doubt emerge with more wisdom than before. Same old. The clock in my brain counts down the days, making calculations of tragedies and endings. In my day to day life, I am sunny and noisy so I hate to be a pessimist, but I know fresh hell waits for me in the wings. I sit and I wait. I try to be grateful for the nights I don’t have to spend alone and “When are you free for coffee?” text messages. I count my friends and the ways we like to say “I love you”. I think about the fact I’m about to celebrate a five year anniversary, and that my longest relationship is the healthiest one I’ve had, replacing the toxins from the one that came before it.

People might die this year. I’m not sure who but the odds are, we aren’t all going to survive. I try to figure out when my dog will take his last breath, and make a wager with myself on how many days I’ll cry in a row. I glance at my phone and wonder which numbers will be unknown callers in 12 months time. Some people will be strangers by the end. I tap at my keyboard and use the keys to beat myself up, slicing at my skin with words. I’m so casual about it. Of course they’re all going to leave you, you stupid, dramatic, sensitive bitch.

I can feel my typing get louder. My partner is calm and I try to be calm for him, and at last I think I’ve gotten quite good at masking. He brings me cups of tea when I ask and gives me space when I write, and I am thankful.

I wonder how many times I will fall down this year, and how many scraped knees I will clean up. You poor thing, who is going to kiss that one better? You really only have yourself to blame for everything, so fix it yourself. The self loathing crawls quietly through my brain like some sort of paranoid parasite. It gnaws at my skull whenever it wants to remind me it's there, almost like kicking someone under the dinner table to keep them in their place.

The clock still ticks and it’s still only 9:28pm. A watched kettle never boils, so I pick at my freshly painted nails and listen as my blood thumps through me. There’s that ticking again. I don’t know which is louder, but I know I can feel myself shake from the vibrations.

There’s heat behind my eyes, and anxiety makes them warm and slippery. Soon they’ll give in and I’ll have a good cry. Honestly, I do really appreciate a good, cathartic cry - but I know what’s coming this time. It’ll be one of those ugly, exhausted, terrified cries. The same kind of cry that happens when you have to rush through hospital doors, the kind you never want another person to see.

I know who and what I’ll be leaving behind tonight, and who I am planning to forget because I’ve run out of room for them in my mind. I wonder who’s forgetting me too, and then remember they’ll forget to tell me just as I have done for them. We really can be so careless with other people, throwing them away like cheap jewellery that we loved until it turned our fingers green.

The New Year’s panic attack is one that leaves me swollen and bruised. I’m okay until I’m not. I’ll watch children’s movies so I can pretend I’m not heading into my mid 30s. I don’t know if we’re ever too old to play pretend, and cartoons and cereal are really good for that. But then it happens. It starts with some disassociation, a little heartburn here and there. The acid climbs up my throat and my shoulders start to ache. There are needles in my chest. The hyperventilation is on its way and there’s no point fighting it.

It won’t leave until the job is done, but at least I can be thankful that this is my last panic attack of the year. It occurs to me that I’ve had a lot less of them since I changed my medication, and I feel smug that I managed to beat my own brain for quite a lot of this year. It might have won today, but today is just a day.

It's 10:06pm and I pay tribute to the year that’s passed, lay down flowers on my graves, and let the dead go into the night, right where they belong. I’ll pay my respects with candles and whispers. I’ve got miles to go until midnight.

Maybe I should sleep through this one, or maybe I should just wait for the sun to rise to prove I can survive.

I’ll be okay and I’ll get through it. I’ll smile and laugh and try to live, which is the hardest thing to do. I have survived so much that really, I have nothing to be afraid of.

Perhaps I’ll work on myself tomorrow, or maybe I’ll just be a basketcase with a dark sense of humour.

Don’t be too hard on yourself, there’s always next year.