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Here are some things you probably don't need: anyone's take on whether 2021 is a clean break from 2020, whether we have reason to hope or start fresh or feel anything new; more thoughts on resolutions. I think everyone reading this is an adult, has been an adult maybe even for a decade or more. Ten or more adult January firsts, ten or more chances to think about your relationship to habits and resolutions and incremental or sudden change. 

Last year my resolution was to only share links to articles on social media if I'd read the articles first. It was a small thing that took me one step out of the panic/anger reaction cycle. A bit of good citizenship, too, but mostly for my own peace.

I've probably resolved half a dozen times to stop biting my nails, more if we count other days on the calendar; at some point I just transferred my aggression to my cuticles. Now it's a cycle, on a much smaller scale than a year, between resolve and resignation. It's always worse in winter.

I decided today, while placing one of my loathed biweekly grocery pickup orders—one of my most intense longings for the trivial pre-pandemic world is the peace of leisurely grocery shopping—that I'd start, with each order, buying one vegetable outside of our habits (of frozen broccoli and kale and diced mixed veggies, mini cucumbers the baby chews and spits out, and mushrooms he never deigns to try) so that Miles, now almost twenty months old, can keep trying new foods. For tomorrow's pickup, it's iceberg lettuce, an easy on-ramp to someday salads. Hopefully this is a resolution that won't last the year, it should take fewer than 52 weeks for us to try every vegetable, for nothing to seem strange or new. 

Beyond that, if there were things about myself I could change, I would have changed them. My pile of clothes on the bedroom floor, my scroll-refresh zone-out hours, my low-effort workouts, my professional jealousy and shredded cuticles. 

If you want actual advice about changing habits, think of what you can add instead of subtract. Iceberg lettuce, a weekly newsletter, your vitamins and a bottle of water every day.

See you next week.