Happy (?) New Year!

on fear, aging, and the sadness of a New Year

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by Phoebe Wahl

My NYE was a lovely, calm, cozy time of making pizzas and doing a murder mystery puzzle in front of a fire. My partner and I were in bed by 9:30. It was perfect. I needed it after family was in town and my mom and I were diligently dodging Flu A in our home.

I always feel sad around New Year’s and New Year’s Eve. I know that’s a common thing. It’s just sort of a sad time. In my teens and 20s, I built it up and wanted to be at the best parties making sure I had someone to kiss at midnight. In my 30s, the overwhelming urge to stay home and cozy won out over parties, even though I would have some fomo. Now, at 40, having had my first NYE of my 40s, I’m even more content on staying in—and I have no fomo whatsoever.

The New Year always brings up feelings of disbelief: “wow, this is my life!” (derogatory and not). My life is nothing I thought it would be and this isn’t bad. It just is. I have grief around not having things, of not doing things, of not experiencing things. I’m being purposefully vague, because this is for me (and my therapist) to know and not the internet (at least for the moment). There is a grief in walking a path that is different than others—even if the path you (mostly) chose is good.

I also just really struggled in 2025 (I know we all did). 2025 was not a kind year. All things considered, I did okay, but it still felt like a year to survive not thrive. In the last few months of 2025, I had rape flashbacks anytime I laid on my back when exercising. I cried more than once mid-Pilates (at home, thankfully) because I was overcome by feelings of terror. “Damnit,” I thought. “I’m still dealing with this.”

Sometimes I feel like my trauma healing is not as far along as I think it should be by now. Trauma is like that. C-PTSD is like that. Healing is like that. Sometimes shit just bubbles up and all the coping mechanisms in your toolbox can’t move it through. It is a grief that is always with you. Time does not erase the wounds, the scarring, the damage. Time does not give me back what was taken from me.

As a newly 40-year-old, I am slated to get my tits squished for the first time (mammogram) on the 15th and I’m terrified. I guess I had hoped that by the time I had to do this, there would be a better, less trauma-inducing way to check for breast cancer and abnormalities. My health anxiety wants this exam. The rational part of me wants this exam. The other parts want to flee; want to cancel. I am scared of the potential pain, the holding of my breath and being still (and it causing a vasovagal syncope response), and the results. I am scared because I know shit happens.

Aging, for me, means doing all the things that I know are good for me. Some are not fun (like mammograms), others are (like coloring). I do all the things that will make me feel good—eating well, exercising, yoga, being outside, getting on my vibration plate, meditating, taking my vitamins/supplements, journaling, sleeping enough, and somatic self-support exercises. The older I get, the more things I seem to add to my daily routine. Things that have to be non-negotiable—not because I’m anal, but because my mental and physical health feel more precarious than they did when I was younger.

I’m still decreasing my Zoloft (I’m on my second taper—now at 75mg, down from 100mg), and though I’ve felt mostly similar to how I felt on 100mg, I know this could change any minute. It is a full time job taking care of ourselves and I wish we all had the time, energy, and support to do it well.

It’s just a lot. Life is a lot.

I’m stuck on the fact that I notice more than I ever have before. C-PTSD and hypervigilance have my interoceptive anxiety at an all-time high. Where do you hide when you’re afraid of your senses? What’s a girl to do when her entire body feels like a bomb that could explode at any second? What happens when that bomb does explode? Will there be people to help with the carnage? Do you know what it’s like to fear moving even the slightest inch, because what if it shakes something loose that you can never get back?

I have trained myself to hope for peace over happiness, but then I think of that quote from The Golden Girls where Sophia says: “We’re not in this live for peace!” Can we be though? Life is hard enough as it is. Why does it have to be even harder? I know I can’t feel peaceful all of the time, but I have rarely felt it in my life. I would like to feel it for even just at five percent.

I would love to both be at peace with myself (how I am and who I am) and also find happiness there.

I wish that for all of us.

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I wrote this week’s newsletter before the murder of Renee Nicole Good happened in Minneapolis. I am horrified, as I’ve been horrified each time ICE has killed someone. It was also surreal for me to find out that Renee had been following me on Instagram. It all just makes me realize how close we all our to each other. We are extensions of each other. From here to Palestine. Fuck Ice.

1. The Lonely Days of the Soul - Alison Rose Reed

2. Venezuelan migrants attempting to seek asylum in the U.S. return home to conditions worse than what they fled - Liliana Frankel and Cecilia Rangel López

3. Hibernating your writing - Caroline Donahue

4. 2025 Was a Year of Collective Mourning for Disabled Communities - John Loeppky

5. They’re Going to Sell You the Lie of Provocateurs - Margaret Killjoy

6. The spiral of suffering: For people with chronic illnesses, the relief and recognition of online communities can set up a toxic psychological trap - Siddhant Ritwick and Tomi Koljonen

7. The State of Anti-Surveillance Design - Samantha Cole

8. The Cost of Staying Human Remarks from a vigil for Renee Nicole Good - Kelly Hayes

9. The Housing Market Isn’t for Single People - Renée Sylvestre-Williams

10. this song has been in my head for days (not complaining):