I’ve started this three times over the last month, but each draft was bumpy and lumpy. So, the first thing I want to bring into the new year with me is a smaller need to be perfect on the page. With my projects I aim for great, not good enough. But this blog was meant to be breezy and easy. It hasn’t been.

Neither has this year. My long term relationship ended. Then the owner of the NYC building I live in filed paperwork to try to evict all the tenants and tear it down.

A horror movie I wrote got a huge producer attached. Then the writer’s strike hit. It all fell apart.

I consult on tv pilots and features. The strike killed my income.

But back to my relationship ending. When it did, what I thought would come up didn’t. Instead, the foundation I’m built on cracked open. For ten months it was a rock by rock excavation. There were things I had thought my way through in the past, but never really felt my way through. Shame, fear, rage, grief, terror - it all came up.

The biggest surprise was how freeing it's turned out to be.

My friendships have shifted. Some are deeper, some friends I speak with less. My ex and I own a house together (he’s lived in it full time since the pandemic and I’ve mostly been in the city), and we have a dog who’s ten and can’t handle the city. I still go up monthly for a week or so, and after a tense start it’s gotten mostly easy.

I’m consulting again, teaching, and I sold a few drawings.

My projects are getting looser on the page. I wrote a new pilot that's nothing like anything I've ever written. The horror I wrote, Caligari, is part of a trilogy and the storylines felt like they wrote themselves.

Two weeks ago I said to a friend, ‘I’m thinking about producing my horror movie myself.’ I mentioned this to others and immediately started running into a slew of people who have produced their own work. I’m getting advice, contacts and more.

This morning a close friend mentioned that, instead of thinking about what she wanted to have happen in the new year or what she wanted to leave behind, she was making a list of what she accomplished this year. This struck me. The world outside spun further out of control, my world changed from the foundation up, and what I’ve personally accomplished hasn’t been at the front of my thoughts. But thinking about it, it's a great way to bring in 2024.

The first thing on my list is how I got way out of my comfort zone and stayed there. Today I'm going to get quiet and write a full list for myself.

Last night I went to a fantastic NYE party. It was filled with people I know really well, people who know me very well. There was a Vasilopita cake, a Greek New Year cake that has a hidden gold coin in it. Whoever gets the slice with the coin has a years worth of blessings. I got the coin.

There's more I want to say to make this essay feel more resonant. I want to finesse it, shape it, cut this, add that. Instead, I wish you the happiest New Year and all kinds of blessings in 2024. May you even have some good discomfort.

If you’re on IG, I’m @pamelaharris339. I’d love to see you there.