32 Days of Christmas: Day 25
When you’re new somewhere, anywhere, everything feels louder than it should: the silence, the laughter, the pauses between conversations. They all carry meaning you don’t yet understand.
As a new kid at work, for instance, you start noticing patterns almost immediately. You see who secretly wants the CEO gone and who laughs a little too hard at his jokes. You figure out who is best friends with the Finance Manager and whose approval actually matters beyond job titles. You learn, through hushed conversations and meaningful glances, who is dating the marketing girl and who is pretending very hard not to. You quickly pick up on who doesn’t want the interns around, who guards information like it’s a family heirloom, and who generously explains things without making you feel small. You see, and deeply wonder, how some people got the job in the first place and how they’ve managed to stay for years doing what looks like the bare minimum. You also notice the ones who are simply here to clock their hours and leave—souls already checked out, bodies present only because bills must be paid. Somewhere along the way, you spot the prettiest corporate baddie walking past your desk every morning, and for a brief moment your coffee slips from your hands and your professionalism with it.
Gradually other things begin to make sense too: why everyone hoards their leave days, why December is spoken about with near-religious reverence in the office. Why there’s a mad rush to the countryside at the end of the year. You realize that for many people, this is the only time they get to sit with their parents again, to watch their children without rushing, to remember who they were before deadlines and performance reviews took over their lives.
Deadlines..
But being new is not exclusive to offices and open-plan desks. It’s a recurring condition of life. You are new in cities, in relationships, in grief, in joy, in adulthood itself. Every time you step into unfamiliar territory, you become that quiet observer again—watching, learning, mispronouncing names, misunderstanding jokes, overthinking small interactions.
When you move to a new neighborhood, you start to learn which shopkeeper extends credit and which one pretends not to see you. You learn which neighbor smiles but never means it, and which one looks grumpy but will show up when your car won’t start. You begin to understand which roads are safe at night, which matatus you should avoid, which corners carry trauma stories no one tells out loud.
When you’re new to a friendship circle, if you’re one to read the room well, you sense the unspoken hierarchies: who everyone listens to, who gets talked over, who is always late but forgiven, who disappears and is never asked where they went. You test your laughter and your silences, adjusting yourself slowly, hoping you don’t reveal too much too soon.
Being new in love is its own kind of vulnerability.
You pay attention to everything—the tone of messages, the gaps between replies, the way their eyes linger or don’t. You learn their history not through stories but through reactions: the flinch at certain topics, the guarded jokes, the walls that appear out of nowhere. You wonder how other people before you were allowed in so deeply, and how they managed to leave. You question your footing constantly, unsure when to speak and when to stay quiet, when to ask for more. Even when the love is gentle, being new makes you hyper-aware of how easily things can be taken away.
There’s also the discomfort of being new to responsibility. The first time you earn real money, the first time people depend on you. Or the first time you realize rest is something you have to schedule intentionally. You watch older versions of yourself in other people—those who look tired but capable, distant but steady. And you wonder how they got there. You learn quickly that no one really knows what they’re doing; some people are just better at hiding the confusion.
Being new teaches you humility. It brings the illusion that there is a manual everyone else received except you.
Sometimes it means being invisible. Other times it means being painfully visible. You make mistakes that feel bigger than they actually are. You ask questions you later replay in your head at night. You carry the quiet fear of being found out, of someone realizing you don’t fully belong yet.
But you also experience small kindnesses more intensely: the person who remembers your name, or the one who explains a shortcut. The colleague who invites you to lunch, the stranger who says, “You’ll get used to it”. Such moments anchor you and remind you that everyone was new once, even the ones who now seem permanent and sure of themselves.
Eventually, without noticing when it happens, newness fades.
The office politics stop being fascinating and start being exhausting. Mr. Dimples’ city becomes navigable. The faces become familiar. You accumulate your own stories, your own grudges, your own reasons for staying or leaving. One day you realize you are no longer observing from the outside, you are part of the ecosystem now.
Inevitably someone else arrives, wide-eyed and uncertain, asking the same questions you once asked. If you’re a gracious soul you watch them quietly, recognizing yourself in their hesitation and their curiosity. From outside you see how being new is uncomfortable, but it is also honest. It forces one to pay attention. It reminds you that nothing is fixed, that a sense of belonging is built slowly, and most importantly that everyone is learning as they go. Maybe that’s why newness, despite all its awkwardness, matters so much: it keeps us awake in a world that constantly tries to make us numb.
✍🏽Reagan.