2026 Ins & Outs

A personal guide for the new year

Every year, we pretend change happens all at once when the clock strikes midnight. It doesn’t. It happens quietly, in small decisions made again and again. These ins and outs are my way of naming those decisions—what I’m leaning toward in 2026, and what I’m gently, firmly releasing.

Ins

1. Going Analog
   An old-school alarm clock by the bed. Vinyl records through real speakers instead of Spotify. Sketching instead of doomscrolling. Brainstorming on paper instead of defaulting to ChatGPT. Reclaiming friction, texture, and slowness.

2. Shopping Secondhand
   Thrifting, estate sales, yard sales, consignment shops. The thrill of the hunt. Lingering over racks and bins. Finding something beautifully made from the ’90s—affordable, distinctive, and yours alone because no one else will have it.

3. Fun. Joy. Play.
   2025 felt like a dumpster fire (because it was)—one we couldn’t look away from. In 2026, awareness stays, but obsession goes. Laughter returns. Spontaneity returns. Play becomes non-negotiable.

4. Unmasking
   Removing the armor. Letting go of old habits and coping strategies that filtered who I really am. My quirks are not obstacles to overcome—they’re non-negotiables.

5. Overdressing
   Personal style has always been one of my creative languages. Somewhere along the way—between capsule wardrobes, body discomfort, and deep inner excavation—I dimmed that expression. I’m ready to turn it back up. Wearing what delights me, when it delights me, without explanation or apology.

6. Reading Books in Intentional Pairs
   I’ve always read in pairs—one fiction, one nonfiction—guided by mood alone. In 2026, I’m choosing pairings deliberately, letting books speak to one another and deepen my understanding of shared themes. First up: Monsters by Claire Dederer and Art Work by Sally Mann.

7. Statement Pieces
   In clothing. In art. In music, cinema, experiences, places. Seeking out what moves me—what makes me feel alive. Less filler, more feeling.

8. Underconsumption
   Thoughtful purchases. Intentional spending. Fewer things, chosen with care. Paying more for what lasts, what resonates, what I truly love.

9. Solo Dates
   In 2025, I fell in love with dating myself. Museums. Bistros. Long hikes. Early-morning kayaking. Quiet bookstores. Dedicating unhurried hours to what lights me up feels reverent.

10. Sensuality
    Being so present that everything softens. Stirring oatmeal becomes meditation. Folding laundry becomes peace. Bare feet meeting cold wood floors become a small, daily delight.

11. Going Slow
    Cooking slowly. Speaking slowly. Moving slowly. When I slow down, I feel everything—and feeling everything is sensual as fuck.

12. Mystery
    Explaining myself less. Asking fewer questions. Answering only a few. I no longer need to be fully understood to feel whole.

13. Energetic Boundaries
    Knowing what they are. Honoring them without guilt. Saying no to what isn’t aligned—without explaining why.

14. Magic
    It’s real, and it’s everywhere. Believing your life is magical is the fastest way to make it so.

15. Making Bad Art
    Because creating feels good. Because mess is medicine. Because losing track of time and space is transcendent. Because not everything needs to be good—some things just need to be made.

Outs

1. Overconsumption
   Buying out of boredom, anxiety, or identity hunger. Accumulating instead of choosing. More things does not mean a fuller life.

2. Operating on Autopilot
   Default choices. Unquestioned routines. Letting days blur together without intention.

3. Material Items as Identity
   Objects as proof; possessions as personality. I can love beautiful things without using them to explain who I am.

4. Clutter
   Physical, mental, energetic. Anything that dulls the senses or makes it harder to breathe. This is the year of space.

5. Self-Surveillance
   Monitoring myself instead of trusting myself. Editing my truth before it ever leaves my mouth.

6. Doomscrolling
   Whether it’s consuming catastrophe as a form of vigilance, mistaking awareness for agency, or escaping into apps designed to numb, dumb, and silence me. I’m not doing it anymore.

7. Mindless Phone Use
   Reaching for the screen to avoid a feeling, a pause, a thought, or myself.

8. Saving for Special Occasions
   Later is not promised. Beauty and pleasure are not rewards.

9. Over-Explaining (or Explaining at All)
   Especially to people who have already decided not to understand me.

10. Accepting the Givens Without Question
    Compulsory heterosexuality. Work as virtue. Endless productivity. Taxes. Even death. If it’s presented as inevitable, it deserves examination.

11. Translating Feminine Power to Masculine Language
    Forcing intuition into logic. Softening knowing into something palatable.

12. Speed
    Fast replies. Fast decisions. Fast forgiveness. Urgency that serves no one.

13. Capitalism in Creative Spaces
    Funnels. Metrics. Creating for the algorithm. Monetization as the first question instead of the last—or not a question at all.

14. Overscheduling
    Crowding out silence, spontaneity, and spaciousness with obligation. Magic happens in the empty moments.

15. Shrinking My Mysticism
    To sound sane, grounded, reasonable. No more dimming what is alive, strange, and true.

with bare feet on cold floors,

-Kelley