The new year brought with it the onset of my luteal phase, forcing my only true ‘New Year’s resolution’ to be to get the fuck through the first few days with your sanity and relationship intact.

I’ve always been a stickler for resolutions. My black-and-white, routine-craving autistic brain, teamed with my triple-Earth sign astrological makeup, has made for some rigid and often outright bizarre intentions, as the years have rolled in.

There was the great liquid fast of 2015, where I blended the entire supermarket fruit and veg aisle for about a week or two before drunkenly falling into a McDonald’s, and reverting to a binge-and-restrict trash panda. How glad I am to have recovered from my eating disorder(s).

There were the years of writing and reading challenges, which I followed obsessively for a finite period and then dropped entirely by the wayside, leading me to do less of both in the long run due to my all-or-nothing brain.

Now that I’m somewhat more self-aware: a year on from my autism diagnosis with almost eighteen months of sobriety under my belt, my fastidious balls-to-the-wall approach to resolutions is metamorphosing.

I still have rampant self-actualising Capricorn energy coursing through my synapses, but in a more daydreamy, supplementary manner than the success-crazed militant who once resided in my grey matter.

It’s the 4th of January, and I’ve not exercised, written or eaten particularly clean. I have, however:

• Set a gentle reading target of 10-30 pages a day (I find it easier to put a number on it, otherwise I just put the book down a couple of pages in and suddenly find myself mindlessly scrolling - yikes)

• Made two hearty vegan meals from scratch: a roasted garlic and chickpea soup, and butternut squash and cashew ricotta cannelloni. Please do not be fooled into thinking this is standard fare: I decided on a whim to make both in one day and was thoroughly sick of the sight of the kitchen by the end of it - but I would like to make one meal a week from scratch, perhaps (thankfully, Charlie’s the resident chef in our house)

• Researched how to supplement my protein a little, as I tend to exercise a few times a week and find myself lacking in that nutritional department somewhat. So we’re adding in calories this year, not taking them away. 2015 Ebony could never

• Told myself that I would start another diary this year, but it isn’t the end of the world that I didn’t start it on January 1st. I spent that day partially in bed, crying, in the guest room of my boyfriend’s friend, whom I’d just met for the first time the night prior. Luteal phases are the devil’s work

• Sat and watched the snow fall in our back garden, whilst silently percolating on the things that I can do this year. The things that I want to do. There are big, scary yet exciting plans on the horizon in the coming months - which I can’t write about just yet - but I’m about to move into one of the biggest pivots of my life thus far. Instead of going absolutely bananas on a bi-hourly basis about the enormity of this, I’ve opted to try to focus on the day ahead only

• On the note of things I want to do: I’ve subscribed to a print magazine again! I used to love collecting Vogue years ago, with fashion and writing being special interests. For my own writing, I’ve developed a strange itch to buy a dictionary and scour through it in its entirety, documenting the words that I’m not au fait with yet — I always did wonder why “go read a dictionary” was an insult back in school. I’d like to learn Spanish to converse with one of my best friends in her native language. Charlie bought me old school Guitar Hero for Christmas(!), so I’m keen to get stuck into that again. None of these things come with laborious schedules or milestones; they’re just there if my brain fancies picking them up

• SLEPT. After ten days of socialising with family and friends in the UK over the holidays, plus a twelve-hour journey back to the Netherlands, we have been hibernating for an average of nine hours a night. On top of that, I’ve been napping between five and seven pm each day. In the past, I’d have lamented this as wasted time, but knowing my brain loves to process at 42% harder1 than a neurotypical brain, we’re allowing it

Happy New Year! Do you have any ‘all-year’ resolutions for 2026? Let me know in the comments.

*I’m hoping to sign up for this Diploma in Autism & Mental Health, to contribute to my Continuous Personal Development as a neurodivergent-specialising coach/counsellor, so any coffees purchased would be put towards that and very much appreciated!

More reading:

On being afraid of women

How many women are misdiagnosed with BPD over autism?

How alcohol built me a neurotypical life

3 ways I’m fixing my life as an AuDHDer

500 days of sober, as an autistic woman

3 ways quitting alcohol has changed my life

Love and (un)masking

How a late autism diagnosis set fire to my life (hopefully temporarily)