Paper Trails #16: The New Year, According to the Archives

Most people greet the New Year with resolutions, planners, maybe a gym membership they’ll abandon by mid-February. But if you really want to understand how humans face the future, skip the self-help aisle and head straight for the archives.

Ephemera — those scraps never meant to last — turn out to be some of the most honest New Year storytellers we have. They catch the moment before the moment, the hope before the outcome, the resolutions before the inevitable unraveling.

Consider the New Year postcards of the early 1900s, with cherubs precariously balancing champagne bottles above glittering clocks. Or the mimeographed union newsletters from the 1970s urging workers to “start the year with solidarity.” Or the DIY punk flyers promising that this January’s basement show will be the one that changes everything. Every December 31st, someone, somewhere, has tried to print out hope and tack it to a wall.

And if you look closely, the pattern becomes unmistakable:
 The New Year has always been a negotiation between what we intend to do and what the world insists on doing back.

This year, I found myself sorting through a small box of ephemera labeled, somewhat optimistically, “Future Plans.” Inside were handwritten calendars from the 1950s, a travel agent’s brochure predicting a jet-set decade that never quite arrived, and a long-forgotten resolution card that read, in immaculate cursive:
“This year I will be less afraid of trying.”

No glitter. No cherubs. No unrealistic promises about kale.
Just a person, a pen, and a scrap of cardstock trying to anchor themselves to possibility.

If ephemera teaches us anything, it’s that the New Year isn’t about control. It’s about witnessing the lives that came before us making the same beautiful, exasperating attempts at reinvention. It reminds us that history is not a straight line; it’s a messy drawer full of ticket stubs, flyers, postcards, scribbled reminders, half-finished plans, and the occasional miracle that lasted because someone tucked it away instead of throwing it out.

So as we step into 2026, here’s my archivist’s advice:
Don’t worry about perfect resolutions. Make artifacts instead. Write notes. Save scraps. Tuck things into books. Print the flyer for the event you almost chickened out of attending. Past you and future you deserve documentation.

Because one day, decades from now, a researcher — or maybe just someone you love — might open a box labeled “Future Plans” and discover the shape of your hope.

Happy New Year from Paper Trails.
 Here’s to another year of the stories we keep, the ones we lose, and the ones we didn’t know we were saving.