I don’t know exactly when I conceived of my New Year’s plan but it started to take shape in the latter months of the year when I realized I desperately needed a ceremonial break from 2017. For a whole host of reasons, 2017 was a dumpster fire of a year and I needed to put it behind me. I had no plans. I was going to be single on New Years for the first time in a few years. A lot of my oldest friends would be out in the burbs with their families. All I knew was that I wanted to start the year differently, with some clarity, maybe even with some purpose.

The plan was this: stay at home alone, stay sober, turn off my phone, turn off the TV to avoid watching the ball drop, maybe journal or meditate and reflect on the year, get a good night’s sleep, wake up at 7:00AM to go for a run, then head to 7th Ave. Donuts for a marble twist. Granted, the donut breaks the pattern of focused austerity but I was allowing myself the indulgence because New Year’s Day is, technically, a holiday.

I didn’t follow the plan exactly. I didn’t spend New Year’s Eve alone. I hit a couple of parties in my neighborhood and was glad I did. I didn’t meditate or journal because, while I do those things, I’m just not new agey enough to do it on New Year’s Eve.

I hit the major points, though.

I stayed sober. I’ve always wanted to try that. Drinking to excess on New Year’s Eve has always seemed like a forgone conclusion to the point of being compulsory. I’ve been doing it for roughly twenty years. I wanted to know what it was like to wake up feeling good on January 1st for once.

I got to sleep around 1:00AM in preparation for the second phase of my new year plan: the morning run.

It must have been a spate of mild winters that precipitated the idea of a morning run but on January 1st, 2018, when I turned on NY1 and looked in the bottom left corner of my television screen, the temperature read eight degrees Fahrenheit. I had a choice. I could bail on the whole thing, I could wait until the afternoon when it was supposed to climb to a balmy seventeen degrees, or I could actually do what I intended to do and start the year off truly differently.

So, I started putting on layers. (And it was at 9:00, not 7:00.)

The sky was a brilliant blue as I find it usually is when it’s single digits frigid. The sun was shining in a cloudless sky through leafless branches in Prospect Park. The road was white with salt. The wind was blowing but my layers were effective. I could feel the ice in my beard. There were a handful of other runners out making me feel like I wasn’t an insane person. When the running got difficult, I just told myself, “earn the donut, man, earn the donut.” (I got two from 7th Ave. Donuts.)

I came home to my apartment to find that the heat had gone out.

Here’s to 2018, a different new year.