Every January brings the same dangerous mix of optimism and selective memory. I look back on the year that just ended, quietly edit out the messy parts, and convince myself that the year ahead will be different. Hey, I’m nothing if not optimistic! Yes, this will be the year I’m more organized, more productive, and somehow less tired; despite all available evidence suggesting otherwise.
I do this every year, of course. First I make plans. I set intentions. Then I tell myself I’ve learned from experience, even as I repeat the same conversations, start the same projects, and wonder where the time went by mid-March. Still, there’s something oddly comforting about standing at the edge of a new year and pretending, just for a moment, that I’ve got a handle on what’s coming.
With that in mind, it seems only reasonable to make a few confident predictions about the year ahead. Not resolutions. (I’ve been around long enough to know better) Just a short list of things I’m absolutely certain will happen, delivered with the calm assurance of a man who has been wrong about this sort of thing many times before.
Top 10 Predictions for the Year Ahead
This will be the year I complete a home project without inventing at least three new swear words.
Of course this assumes a level of planning, patience, and restraint that has not historically been my strength.
This will be the year I stop starting sentences with “When this project is done…”
A phrase I use the way other people use “someday,” with absolutely no evidence to support it.
This will be the year I lose fifteen pounds and keep them off, through determination and optimistic math.
I am confident that snacks eaten while walking do not count.
This will be the year I finally understand where my money actually goes.
Ideally without discovering an unread subscription I’ve been paying for since 2013.
This will be the year I get together with my old high school buddies, despite everyone living in a different country, city and time zone.
We remain optimistic that someone will eventually commit without first checking three calendars.
This will be the year I stop being surprised by how tired I am.
Especially in situations where the cause should have been obvious from the beginning.
This will be the year my kids stop growing up quite so fast.
I’ve made this request before and it has been politely ignored.
This will be the year I stop believing everyone else has things more figured out than I do.
No doubt this belief will likely resurface each time I open Facebook.
This will be the year I spend less time worrying about the future and more time noticing the present.
Provided the present doesn’t require me to make any big decisions.
This will be the year I actually retire.
Or stop referring to it as “something I might do at some point in the near or not so distant future.”
A Continuation
Jokes aside, when I look at the year ahead, it doesn’t feel like a clean slate or a fresh start. It feels more like a continuation. Same life, same people, same questions; just viewed from a slightly different angle. The list above makes light of things that matter because that’s often how I process them. But underneath the humour is a quieter awareness that time is moving, the kids are changing, and the idea of “someday” is starting to feel less theoretical and more calendar-adjacent.
Becoming Aware
What’s different this year isn’t that everything suddenly feels urgent. It’s that it feels much more noticeable. The milestones are closer together now. The kids aren’t just older, they’re becoming themselves in ways that don’t need my approval or input. I still matter, but differently. Less hands-on, more on standby.
Retirement sits in that same strange space. Not quite here, not comfortably far away either. It shows up in small moments. In the way I look at my calendar. In how often I catch myself doing mental math. And in the occasional, very quiet question of whether I’m building toward something or just keeping things running.
And then there’s time. The way it stretches and compresses without warning. A week disappears in routine, then a single conversation sticks with me for days. I’ll notice it when one of the kids says something I’ve never heard before, or when I realize a memory I thought was recent is actually years old. None of it feels dramatic. It just feels real.
I don’t feel behind, exactly. But I don’t feel ahead either. Mostly, I feel aware. Aware that this chapter isn’t a warm-up. It’s not something to rush through on the way to what’s next. It counts. Probably more than I used to think.
So the year ahead doesn’t need grand declarations or perfectly executed plans. It needs attention. It needs space for change, a little patience for uncertainty, and a bit of humour when things don’t unfold as I might wish. If I can manage that; notice the moments, stay curious, and laugh when my predictions fall apart; it’ll be a pretty decent year.
