the race against inevitable december lag
on holding myself accountable through the end of 2024!
please read in browser, the email tends to cut off!
today is december 13. friday the 13th. and there are only 18 days left in the year.
feel weird yet? let’s hold some space for however you’re feeling.
i know every year as it hits december, specific thoughts start to swirl through my head. often the first one is: how am i going to spend my next birthday?
my birthday is in mid-january and i am a self-described birthday person. i run the gamut of celebratory events + traditions. everything from baking a cake to journaling my reflections on the past year and hopes for the next to crying.
lol, like a lot of crying.
i also host elaborate parties for all of my friends. some of the past party themes include:
a24 - alix’s 24th, dress as an a24 character (and yes, i dressed as howard ratner from the safdie brothers’ uncut gems)
alix’s aquarian 25th - category is: wear black & white, and i wore red!
twenty-six flix for alix(‘s 26th) - come in a costume from one of my 26 favorite films. i did a costume change mid-party, where i started in a sheer white number like the titular character in cleo from 5 to 7 and changed into a dress inspired by the “all i do is dream of you” number from singing in the rain
fittingly, as december 2024 began, i started to plan out my celebration for my 27th birthday. that might be silly, but i like planning ahead, it makes me happy! i came up with an event that i’m really proud of and looking forward to! i designed the invitation for my partiful using all my own found materials (scanned in my trusty, prized scanner) and put the elements together in adobe illustrator. when the time comes, i will definitely be writing about it and sharing all the details!
in another life, i’m an event planner.
another thought that entered my mind pretty immediately was: have i done enough this year? have i accomplished the goals i set out for myself?
i think the best way to approach this question is to look at my vision board. here’s my vision board i made last december for the year ahead. i set it as my laptop screensaver to keep my goals in mind:
this list has only been for myself this year, so sharing it feels a bit vulnerable! but i wanted to write about this and hold myself accountable.
as you can see, it’s got a lot to do with film photography, travel, writing and filmmaking, health, and hosting. i love a good vision board.
looking at the list is bittersweet. while many of the goals are somewhat nebulous in retrospect, i see so many bullet points with things i actively worked on! this year, i took on a lot of creative projects (including this substack 🌟) and am very happy with my strides.
but i also see, as if it’s bold and underlined, “travel widely, to japan & beyond.” i think about the fact that my boyfriend and i were supposed to visit japan for 12 days in march and april and ended up having to cancel. between his school schedule and my changing work schedule, we actually didn’t travel abroad at all this year. which is alright, it happens! but i will be changing that in 2025.
on the last bullet point when i said “greener pastures ahead,” i really meant it. mainly as a reminder for my mental health.
i had been at my job way longer than i wanted to — don’t get me wrong, i loved my boss and the company culture was fun, but i knew i wanted to make the jump into television writing. and with the necessary wga strike lasting from may to the end of september, not many jobs were circulated and i didn’t have the opportunity to get a new job. one of my main goals for 2024 was to land a new job, specifically one working for a writer. in the end of february, i did!
i’ve loved my job so far and found more pieces of myself through it, as well as friends, confidants, and mentors along the way. even though it took longer than i wanted to get my job, i feel like it was the right fit for me. sometimes the universe has your back in this way.
i hosted fun, elaborate dinner parties. i actually hosted a series of them over the summer! i also tried fabulous restaurants the entire year. my favorites that i tried this year in la were probably musso & frank (hollywood), dunsmoor (eagle rock), and cento pasta bar (west adams).
it’s funny seeing “take photographs, sell photographs” on my list because i feel like i’ve been more focused on the bullet above that, “create constantly” and think about things as a creative director would.
i’ve been a gleaner in my own film collection, mainly in the process of making monthly film collages for my instagram. i'm always looking through my photography collection for new zine ideas and ways to elevate my photography.
and here we screech to a halt at the real use for the title of my piece:
the race against inevitable december lag
while it’s helpful to reflect on everything you accomplished this year, way too many people treat december as if it’s not a real month. don’t get me wrong, that’s fair because it’s the holiday season and there’s typically a lot of travel, parties, and lead-up. but that mentality is also quite silly — it’s as if you’re saying you can’t make any real change in december’s 31 days. i’m here to remind you that you can.
it was particularly funny to watch people freak out online on december 1st and scream and cry-out “where’s my spotify wrapped!” i much prefer letterboxd’s wrapped that encompasses my entire year of movie watching!
but back to productivity in december.
one of my bullet point goals for the year was to write a feature-length film, something i haven’t done in completion since i was in my last semester of college! i find that initial ideas tend to sprout very quickly for my main characters or a fascinating person of interest, but as i write out a story area, often i lose focus, passion, or steam. sometimes, i just realize the idea isn’t quite enough to sustain 90+ pages. other times, the characters just don’t feel right. and i find myself not wanting to waste the energy on something i don’t feel myself fully in.
at the end of november, i was thinking about a story my grandma told me. i went to visit her down in newport and we touched on it again very briefly. it wasn’t a new story — she shared it with me years ago and i wrote it down in my notes app to remember it. but something in our conversation brought it up again, and i finally took pen to paper (or keyboard to google doc) and started to write out characters and storylines.
this december has been a fruitful one so far. i’ve watched my grandma’s original story flourish and transform in my brain into something brand new — with a universe of characters, emotions, and dialogue i want to share with the world once it’s ready. i feel reinvigorated. my new goal is that a full outline will be complete by the end of the year so when january begins, i can hit the ground running with all the details laid out and ready to be expanded.
while i find it very easy to fall into the “december isn’t a real month” trap, i’m glad i didn’t this year and kept swimming.
i say all this and still know in the back of my head that when it hits late december, i’ll start to make all of my lists looking forward to 2025. those will include what i want to read, my big goals, some small goals, travel dreams, and more.
but for now, i’m just having fun working through my 2024 goals.
x, your pal al ✯
bro how are we turning 27 What
Ok your birthday party themes are INCREDIBLE. I’m a huge fan of a theme party. I think it’s always fun to look back and see what goals I achieved over the year, but also what goals I didn’t. I laughed out loud reading my bingo sheet from 2024 where I put “walk a half marathon” 💀 December 2023 Brooke was DELULU. I think New Years goals are fun as long as they aren’t taken too seriously!