Rather than giving things up, perhaps we should think about taking things on instead?

How are we all doing?

When I imagine what Limbo must be like, I assume it must resemble the state of lethargy you find yourself in at this time, that weird wasteland between Christmas and New Year; bloated from the ‘balanced diet’ of toasted cheese sandwiches and the coffee flavoured Roses that no one else could bring themselves to stomach.

Are you still hungover from St Stephen’s night?

Cringing from the 2am vodka-fuelled certainty that your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend could be The One, despite that fact you broke up with him/her for valid reasons such as a) they thought Michael Buble’s version of Santa Baby where he calls Santa ‘buddy’ was ‘fine’ and not a travesty that warranted setting the world on fire or b) they thought golf was an acceptable pastime for anyone below the age of 60.

Going out in your hometown over the holidays is like living in your own nightmarish version of The Ghost of Exes Past, while you get asked if you’re still single while a montage plays of diamond rings on outstretched hands.

I wasn’t expecting it at all, you’re told firmly, even though we’ve been dating for 10 years and have two children. Such a surprise!

Add into this mix the awkward conversations with elderly family members about ‘political correctness gone mad’ and ‘at least Peter Casey isn’t afraid to say it like it really is,’ where you end up sounding hysterical because you said inclusivity is important and isolating an already marginalised group of people might be a bad thing.

Is it any wonder that our nerves are shot?

All many of us are capable of is binging Netflix shows (I would recommend Elite, and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), reading as many books as we can get our hands on, and asking aloud in a haunted voice if the walls are literally closing in on us or if we’re simply imagining it?

Then we’re faced with the bleakness of an impending January; deprivation encroaching, withdrawal from all the sugar and alcohol and fairy lights that we’ve been mainlining all December… Grim.

I usually spend this time going for very long walks and then taking very long baths, before getting back into one of the ten pairs of new pyjamas I inevitably received as Christmas presents but this year, my boyfriend and I have rented a little cottage in the wilds of Connemara.

We won’t see each other on the day itself so we’ve decided to celebrate our own Christmas today, the 29.

We’re going to decorate the place with tinsel and holly (by which I mean he’s going to decorate the place with tinsel and holly), then cook the full turkey dinner with all the trimmings (by which I mean he’s going to cook the full turkey dinner with all the trimmings).

My job is to sit and watch and offer ‘helpful’ and not at all annoying advice about his cooking/decorating skills.

There will be crackers and resents and carols and mandatory offkey renditions of Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas is You, and it will be glorious, I tell you.

We’re staying in Connemara until January 2 which seemed like a great idea at the time - because New Year’s Eve is the worst, obviously- until I realised I would be missing my cousin’s black-tie and very fancy wedding.

(Side note – isn’t NYE a great day to get married? It’s a giant party with all the people you love in one room, with the added bonus of not having to endure horrifically long queues for the bathroom/bar.)

Nonetheless, I’m looking forward to a quiet night in, just the two of us.

I haven’t gone out on New Year’s Eve since 2015, I think, and I’ve never regretted that decision.

I like to stay in, examine the year that’s passed, and imagine what I would like to happen in the year that’s yet to come.

My mother says she doesn’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions – she doesn’t do guilt or self-recrimination, which is astonishing for an Irish Catholic woman and she should be studied for future generations – because she says they’re too punitive.

And I wonder now, that rather than giving things up, perhaps we should think about taking things on instead?

This time last year, I was hoping to be more adventurous in 2018.

I went to drama classes, I tried my hand at pottery and vegan cooking, I went falconing and attempted to make a gingerbread house.

I said yes when a cute guy I barely knew asked me on a date, rather than dismissing it with a ‘I’m too busy for relationships’.

I ate foods that I previously thought I hated, realised my eating disorder had lied to me for years and that everyone else was correct, Irish butter is AMAZING and should be eaten in massive quantities on piping hot toast.

I exercised more, I cried more, and I tried to sleep as much as I could.

I turned off my social media and I tuned into the silence that followed.

And what do I want more of in 2019?

I want to be kinder to myself, and to stop comparing myself to others.

I want to say yes more, but I want to feel able to say no more too.

I want to keep working towards accepting myself as I am now rather than constantly striving to be something else, something better.

I know too that I might not achieve all of this in 2019.

I know that this is a lifetime’s work, and I know that’s okay.

Louise says

Read: Milkman by Anna Burns. You have a few days left in 2018 to read this year’s winner of the Man Booker Prize.

Equally funny and disturbing, this is a book that is worthy of the hype.

Watch: I went to see The Great Gatsby at the Gate, the chance to be fully immersed in one of Gatsby’s legendary parties.

This is spectacular – beg, borrow, and steal tickets the next time it’s on.