Does anyone else feel this weird fear of time at the start of a new year?

Now that we’ve entered a new year, it feels like everyone’s expectations suddenly reset to “high.” New goals. New timelines. Big plans that are supposed to magically work out because the calendar changed. And while part of me wants to be hopeful, another part of me feels a tightness around time itself.

What scares me isn’t effort, it’s accountability. The feeling that time is watching. That months will pass and I’ll have to answer, to myself and to others, for why certain plans didn’t work out. Why I’m not where I thought I’d be. Why progress doesn’t look linear or obvious.

I’m autistic, and my relationship with time has always been… complicated. I feel it very intensely. Days can blur together, but years feel heavy. I get attached to plans and timelines, and when reality doesn’t match what I envisioned, it feels disorienting like the ground shifted without warning. Changes that other people adjust to quickly can take me much longer to process.

There’s also this pressure to “use time well,” and I struggle with that. I need more time to rest, to think, to reset after being overwhelmed. That doesn’t always translate neatly into visible achievements, and that’s where the fear creeps in this sense that time is passing faster than I can adapt to it.

I’m trying to remind myself that growth doesn’t have to be loud or obvious. That surviving, adjusting, and learning how to exist in a way that doesn’t burn me out counts. But at the start of a new year, when everything is framed around goals and outcomes, it’s hard not to feel like time is something I’m failing at.