Here we go again: The cusp of a new year. If you’re anything like me (who’s to say? I’m not so original), you may be feeling a bit superstitious, wondering what will become of everything and everyone, but oneself in particular, in this unknowable 2018 that bears down on us like a slow-moving steamroller. This time last year, I—and pretty much everyone else—was eagerly bent on the blank slate of 2017. All its promise and potential—for good and bad alike. While it’s debatable if 2017 has been a marginal improvement on the free-for-all shitshow that was 2016 or whether we’ve just grown more used to the world as it is—in all its appalling glory—personally speaking, 2017 was a definite upgrade. It was as though the roil of huge circumstantial 180s and enormous leaps of faith had settled into the glassy calm of a lake at dawn. I went through the days of 2017 feeling like I was swimming carefully, steadily through cool still water, trying not to disturb the rippling surface more than necessary.

I have settled into New York living, settled into my job that I do not love but do not hate. I have settled into my little apartment, perched contentedly on my couch. And I have settled into a new relationship with an incredible guy who delights me in every way. All this happy is due very much to the sense of calm, the sense of peace I feel having dealt with the colossal changes of 2016 with relative competence and a great deal of help from friends who apparently, miraculously, love me as much as I love them. I know now that whatever life throws at me henceforth, I am more or less equipped to deal with it, having been well tested. And with that comes an ability to be in the moment, let the constant chatter of anxiety quiet a bit, and take each situation as it comes to me, without trying to mold it to my immediate needs or to calm a continually bubbling sense of insecurity. I rally patience, I trust my gut, and remain calm and quiet until I perceive an action is needed or advantageous. I have released my grip on that which I cannot truly control, and have a firm and patient hand on that which I can. I’m a goddamn walking, talking serenity prayer. On my good days, anyway.

So as we are all about to rumble headlong into the vast new wilderness of 2018 and all the crazy it’s certain to bring, I find my peace challenged a bit by a superstitious worry that my personal pendulum is about to swing back the other way, that this serenity I have scraped together will crumble apart. So, rather than making New Year’s resolutions, I’m going to put together a friendly no-pressure 2018 to-do list that will ensure that my life will have the active ingredients required to maintain some semblance of quietude.

Sage’s 10 Steps to Maintaining Serenity (or Something that Approximates It) for 2018

1. Write at least 4 times a week. Even if “writing” is actually just staring blankly at an active manuscript wondering what the ever loving fuck I’m trying to accomplish, or simply berating myself as a useless hack while writing then backspacing the same paragraph repeatedly for 45 minutes.

2. Try to bake bread because there is nothing more calming and serene than the smell of baking bread. And there is nothing more satisfying that making something delicious that nourishes you and the people you share it with.

3. Do fun shit with Ant. Essentially, doing fun shit with Ant is my new favorite thing, so I want to really commit to it in the New Year. New York is full of fun shit to do; I do very little of it. So doing some of it with one of my very, very favorite people to do pretty much anything with seems like a good plan.

4. Hang out with Ten. I spent eight years living 3,000 miles away from the woman who is the closest thing I’ve ever had to a sister. Living in the same city again has taken some adjustments on both our parts. Surprisingly, a not-small part of that adjustment is actually seeing each other, taking advantage of the fact that we are only a borough apart instead of a country, learning to update our friendship with the updated geographical situation, and understanding who we’ve both become while we were living so far away from each other. We do each other good, she and I, and seeing each other more will only do us both more good.

5. Give exactly the right amount of fucks about the size of my ass. Exercise has been a relatively regular thing for me for several years now. But I’d always berated myself on the days that I opted for a martini over the gym or nachos over yoga. No more self-flagellation. It’s time to trust I’ll keep up with my corporeal needs in service to my mental needs and my love of cheeseburgers and beer. I’m done worrying about the lack of flatness in my belly, the thickness of my thighs, the jiggle in my arms. For a 43 year old woman, I’m doing fine. I’m determined to actually believe that. At least until I get my cholesterol tested again.

6. Continue to avoid going to the dentist. I feel like this is pretty self-explanatory.

7. Take at least two days a week off of Twitter—and any other source of news (i.e., portal through which the shrill, trembling sound of countless shrieks of WHAT. THE. FUCK?! blast directly into your brain in a nearly constant rush of fast-moving toxic political sludge). Also self-explanatory.

8. Go to museums. Even when there’s nothing in particular I want to see there, because you never know when you might see something you didn’t know you wanted to see.

9. Go to movies. Sit in the dark and be entertained by the various talents of hundreds of individuals I’ll never meet. Walk out into the sunlight and contemplate what I just saw, then forget it completely.

10. Be kind. Be understanding. Listen to people. Be earnestly curious about what they have to say. Be a good friend. Be a good girlfriend. Be a good human.

These are my active ingredients for keeping my head from exploding. Your ingredients will probably be different. You may have two or 20 or more. Whatever your list, combine, simmer, enjoy.

Happy New Year, y’all. May we all keep our shit in perspective in 2018.