Happy Girl New Year. Apparently.

I found out it’s Girl New Year.

Or was.

Apparently, it was September 1.

It’s now the middle of September, which means I haven’t just missed my own New Year. I’m almost two weeks late for my personal fresh start.

Somehow, that feels very much like me.

I had no idea we had our own New Year.

Nobody sent me an invitation. I haven’t bought champagne. I haven’t even finished the last one.

But apparently, Girl New Year marks the start of fall. A fresh start. A chance to set new goals, build new routines, and head into fall as a better version of yourself.

Just reading that made me tired.

And now that half of September is already gone, I’m starting to wonder if it might be too late.

That would be such a relief.

The thing is, I already have a New Year.

It falls on January 1, and that one also comes with a completely unreasonable expectation of personal growth.

That’s when I’m supposed to get my life together and generally evolve into that woman I apparently am always about three good habits away from becoming.

It usually goes really well.

Until about January 8.

Then life starts up again.

And now someone has apparently decided we need another New Year.

As if I need another date on the calendar to confirm that I still haven’t gotten my life together.

I do get the idea. September feels like a fresh start. Summer is over. People go back to work. Kids go back to school. Calendars fill up, and suddenly all of Sweden is walking around with a vague feeling that this time, we’re going to get our shit together.

And somewhere, a woman is sitting there with a new notebook, a beige water bottle, and a gym membership, thinking:

This is it. Let’s fucking go.

I love her.

I’ve been her.

Many times.

The problem is, I also know the woman who, three weeks later, is drinking coffee out of that water bottle because she can’t find her travel mug.

That’s also me.

Apparently, you’re supposed to keep relaunching yourself.

New year, new me.

I’ll start Monday.

After vacation.

After Christmas.

And now: Girl New Year.

I’m starting to feel like the old me isn’t really getting a fair chance.

So naturally, I did the only reasonable thing.

I started looking into what you actually do for Girl New Year.

I shouldn’t have done that.

Apparently, we’re doing a reset now.

I’m a little unclear on exactly what that means for a human being. My experience with resets is mostly limited to the router, and even then, the results tend to be inconclusive.

But apparently, Clara needs to be reset.

That feels ambitious, considering I still have a box at home labeled “miscellaneous” that’s followed me through two moves.

But okay.

Goals must be set and routines established. The home must be organized. And then there’s journaling.

That last one worried me a little at first, since I run a business and already have enough paperwork, but it turned out to mean writing down my thoughts and feelings.

That’s reassuring, at least.

So far, they’ve been running wild with no documentation whatsoever.

Then comes self-care.

For a long time, I thought self-care meant occasionally getting to lie on the couch and eat chips without anyone asking questions.

Apparently, it doesn’t.

Self-care seems to involve a surprising amount of administrative work.

There are morning routines. Evening routines. Walks. Stretching. Breathing. Gratitude. Recovery.

I’m starting to suspect I need to take a leave of absence to find time to take care of myself.

And ideally, the day should start at 5:00 a.m.

There’s a particular category of people on the internet who get up then to have a peaceful start to the day.

I’ve never understood that.

If I get up at 5:00 a.m., my first thought isn’t:

What a wonderful opportunity to invest in myself.

My first thought is:

Who died?

Girl New Year Clara, on the other hand, makes the bed immediately. Drinks water. Meditates. Works out. Showers. Eats a nutritious breakfast.

All before I would normally have even found my glasses.

Then she goes to work focused, efficient, and present.

I would really like to meet her.

Mostly, I’d like to ask if she could take a couple of my meetings.

And of course, she needs new workout clothes.

Apparently, you can’t start going for walks in the same workout pants you stopped going for walks in before summer.

Those belong to the old you.

The new you needs matching sets.

Preferably in beige.

All personal growth seems to happen in beige, by the way.

Workout clothes. Notebooks. Coffee mugs. Blankets. Possibly a scented candle.

I don’t know why enlightenment has that color palette, but apparently, no one has ever found inner peace in a neon green fleece.

And then there’s the water bottle, of course.

The kind that suggests you’re either taking a very proactive approach to hydration or about to cross the Sahara.

I already own water bottles.

The bottles haven’t been the problem.

But maybe the new one will work better.

It is beige, after all.

At this point, my Girl New Year has gone from a charming idea about fall and fresh starts to a full-scale corporate restructuring of Clara.

New routines. New sleep schedule. New wardrobe.

Possibly a new personality.

And this is about where I realize I don’t actually need any more projects right now.

I already have a few.

There’s work. The business. Finances. Next month. The next assignment. The next invoice. The next solution to whatever should have been sorted out yesterday.

And when everything around me finally goes quiet, it still keeps going in there.

Like a board meeting nobody called and that, for some reason, never adjourns.

The future is a sneaky bastard, too.

It requires nothing of me right now, yet somehow manages to take up a substantial part of my workday.

What will next month look like?

What happens if …?

How are we going to solve …?

Apparently, the brain loves questions that don’t have answers yet.

Preferably at night.

So when September announces that it’s time for a better version of me, my immediate reaction may not be:

Oh, how inspiring.

It’s more like:

Could the current version get a little peace and quiet first?

I’d be very happy with a night when my brain doesn’t feel an urgent need to sort out the company’s finances between 2:48 and 4:12 a.m.

That actually feels like a reasonable goal for September.

So I’m going to celebrate Girl New Year.

I’m just lowering the bar a little.

No new Clara.

No 5:00 a.m. routine.

No fall wardrobe symbolizing the woman I’m becoming.

I’m going to keep being more or less who I already am.

Hopefully with a little less worry, a little more sleep, and finances that eventually stop being a group project where I seem to be the only one doing any work.

And if, against all odds, I wake up one morning, meditate, drink two liters of water, work out, journal, and feel a sudden urge to buy a beige notebook, I won’t fight it.

I am open to personal growth, after all.

But until then, this version will have to do.

She’s made it through every other New Year, too.

And since half of September is already gone, I figure the statute of limitations on personal growth must surely have expired.

Thank fucking God.

Happy Girl New Year.

Belatedly.