I guess this is progress.

What a weird day this has been. New Years. The first day of 2025. The year my husband and I will be celebrating our seventh wedding anniversary, and a total of 11 years together. The year where I’ll greet the eighth anniversary of my mother’s death and the third anniversary of my dad’s.

It’s the year I’d like to finally get pregnant and, most importantly, carry that baby to term. I’d also like to, unironically, lose weight. I’d like to make more time for art, rejoin the workforce full-time, and start living life to the fullest. Naturally, it makes me wonder if this will also be the year I develop cancer.

The New Year’s holiday has long been controversial for people with OCD (like me). For some, it’s the fear of being a bad person or setting the year off to a bad start if they set the wrong resolution or intention. For others — like me — it’s the jump into the unknown that’s scary. While everyone is reflecting on their goals and hopes for the year, I’m catastrophizing, worrying about miscarriages, cancer diagnoses, and the loss of pets. It happened in 2020, 2023, and 2024 — why should 2025 be any different?

When I said all this to my friend, she responded with a meme she’d seen earlier that said something along the lines of intending to have a good year doesn’t mean bad stuff won’t happen. After all, that’s life and we’re all just along for the ride.

“Well, I hate that,” I responded with a laughing emoji to which she replied, “Yeah, I thought that was probably the wrong response immediately after sending it.”

But the thing is — that’s not the wrong response. It’s logical. But my OCD hates it. My OCD craves the luxury of knowing I have a clear horizon. Anything less is confusing, disheartening, and frightening.

But something else happened today that rattled me. In years past, the start of the year came at the height of my grieving season. It usually started in September around my birthday, then got worse around Thanksgiving and my mother’s birthday. By Christmas, I was usually a wreck and by January, I knew I was creeping toward the worst of it: the anniversaries of my parents’ death. For five years, it was just the approach toward my mom’s death date that got to me but with their passing being within eight days of each other — Feb. 20th and Feb 28th — it feels like I’m being hit with a water cannon. It’s a double whammy. A punch to the gut once…then twice. It’s driving all the way home from Target only to remember that you didn’t buy the toothpaste you went there for.

But today’s melancholy (if that’s even the appropriate word) wasn’t due to those incoming dates. No, rather it stemmed from a little bit of OCD and weirdly the sadness that the year was over.

For years, the emergence of a reset button was warmly welcomed. In 2023, it meant that I had survived the year my dad died. In 2024, it meant I was officially leaving behind the trauma and tragedy of New Jersey for a new year — a new life — in Florida. And what a wonderful year it’s truly been.

There were hardships, both physically and financially. Our marriage wasn’t immune to the normal arguments that couples who have been together for 10 years have. We ran into some pet troubles, and while many of them were scary, they also worked out perfectly fine. This past year, we learned to rest. I no longer need him to babysit me in the bathroom as I take a shower — immense growth and progress from the past year. I’ve even cooked a few times! Some areas still need improvement, sure, but in comparison to years past, I flourished.

And somehow waking up to that realization still makes me sad even though it’s something I’ve not only worked toward — but wanted — for years. I joked around with my friend, saying, “There’s no pleasing me is there?”

But I think this is all growth. I think it’s part of the natural order of learning to move forward after grief. I’m scared of bad things happening in the new year because I finally had a good one.

My friend is right — there is no stopping what bad things could come to me this year. But whatever comes my way, I know I can handle it. Even if my OCD is trying hard (like really hard) to convince me otherwise.