It’s a new year – new-ish, anyway. There’s a new, female-er, progressive-er, more representative congress, thank gods! New Mueller indictments are coming down the pipe. It’s a six-foot sewer pipe. Lewis CK is digging himself a deeper darker hole to crawl into and rot than we ever thought possible, and millions of women in India are standing up to demand gender equality for themselves and their daughters. RBG is mercifully still kickin’ it on the bench (even if she did miss oral arguments for surgery today for the first time in 25 years,) and a big beautiful freshWOman cohort has just been sworn into congress. Some things are looking promisingly good in 2019, after two long years of increasingly horrid OMGWTF moments. Also – Cyntonia Brown got clemency today and is going to be free soon! Fuck yeah!
The new year feels like a fresh start. Or at least it feels like it should feel like a fresh start. We are supposed to make resolutions to finally, once and for all, and for the last god-forsaken time, transform ourselves into smarter, thinner, fitter, better versions of ourselves – only most of us end up feeling like mediocre, inadequate failures at best or like terrible, unworthy specimens at worst.
The only New Year’s resolution I’ve ever truly kept, if it was even a New Year’s resolution to begin with, was to floss my teeth daily. That was at least 15 years ago, so who can remember? All that matters is I have hardly missed a day since, even when I birthed my children! That’s just how dedicated I am capable of being when I make up my mind to do something. Crippling paranoia and recurring nightmares about the health and longevity of my one and only set of teeth also helps motivate me to continue.
Of course I have had my share of dismal failures, spectacularly unfinished projects, and dilettantish interests in my life. Some were broken NYRs, some were just regular old unkept promises to myself. I don’t need a new year to be disappointed in myself! I can be relied upon to begin and quit new hobbies, habits, passions, etc. on a pretty regular basis, but I don’t even think that’s a bad thing. Sometimes it’s healthier, safer, smarter, what have you, to simply stop doing something that isn’t working for us, or perhaps isn’t working anymore, than to force ourselves to continue because of some arbitrary cosmological tradition.
When my ambition to be “better” gets bigger than my gumption (or what is humanly possible,) the best thing I can do, and by extension, the best thing any of us can do, is give ourselves a fucking break.
For the record, gratuitous swearing will never be something I resolve to give up. It makes me way too happy and feel way too badass. If anything, I will resolve to be less worried, to give zero additional fucks about what people think of my swearing. It’s who I am. And sometimes I’m a little much.
You think it’s vulgar and shows a lack of education? Too fucking bad. Did I mention you can call me Dr. Vulgar-and-Uneducated? I AM capable of reading a room and a crowd and code switching as needed, though – I’m not a total pirate! (No offense intended to real pirates. Some of my best friends are pirates.)
But the best NYR I can think of, if NYRs there must be, is more kindness. More kindness for me and my anxious, hamster wheel brain, more kindness for others, including my beloved, mostly patient husband. For people I know and love; for people I know and don’t like much; for people I don’t even know exist. More modeling kindness for my children.
Sometimes I will fail miserably. With a baby and a six-year-old, my patience is often on the fritz, so at least I have fresh chances multiple times each day to do better. What more could anyone ask for but frequent opportunities for improvement?
For starters, I wish it were easier to overcome the little demons that encourage me to lash out or lose my temper. I wish the first things that came into mind in a tense moment were empathy and compassion rather than exasperation or even anger sometimes. I would prefer for it to be easier to think the best instead of automatically imagining the worst intentions. I’m working on it!
My blog has been up for a month or so now. It was something I had been wanting to do for a long time. I allowed, arguably even looked for plenty of things to keep me from it: the birth of my daughter, taking care of my son, taking care of my mental health after all the bullshit leading up to finally getting pregnant with my daughter, fear, lack of confidence, being out of practice, more fear. But fuck that. I’m done.
I’m done with fear! (She types as she thinks of all the things that scare the shit out of her and that she will probably let get the better of her in the future at some point, maybe tomorrow.)
Or maybe I’m done with fear today. And tomorrow I’ll wake up and be done with fear then, too. It’s ok to have to remind ourselves. It’s ok to forget occasionally. And when we inevitably do forget, we can just remind ourselves about that kindness vow.
So, where are you at with your fear? Can you name it? What’s the worst that can happen if you face it and blow right past it to do something you want to do?
I finally got to a yoga class for the first time in almost two years. It was difficult and I was stiff and it made me wince and feel great at the same time. At one point, as I was teetering on the brink of falling while attempting a lunge-twist with hands at heart center thingy, the teacher said,: “now open your arms and hearts and reach for what you want.”
Writing has been a scary but irresistible urge for as long as I can remember. I’ve kept journals (which I guard with my life against prying eyes,) notes, records of funny anecdotes and interesting tidbits since I was a teenager. I wrote a fucking dissertation while my son was a baby for god’s sake.
What this blog or my eventual writing career will look like is anyone’s guess, but that’s no reason not to get on with it, now is it? Will I ever get paid to write? Maybe! Will I ever value my thoughts and words enough to make sure that I get paid for my work? Yes. The answer should be yes. The answer IS yes. I don’t have to always be “right” to be true and honest in my approach, to engage with my subject matter authentically, and to challenge myself to go deeper.
I can do this. I WANT to do this.
What is the worst that can happen? Criticism from friends/relatives? Rejection by strangers? Being heckled by internet trolls? Being ignored completely? Those things probably don’t feel good, but I can survive them.
More kindness. Less fear. Strive to be open and reach for what I want.
Write more. Dare more. Be superlatively me.
If there’s one thing I learned writing my dissertation, it’s that writing begets more writing. Thinking about writing works to a point, but sooner or later, one must put pen to paper, fingertips to keyboard. Once that initial terrifying inertia is overcome, it becomes much easier to just keep going. Momentum builds and ideas flow from ideas, sometimes too fast to get them all down, no matter how fast I type. Just thinking about what I want to write isn’t doing it for me anymore. Making myself write this post has already proved that to me again. I’m on my third or fourth revision, and I keep having more ideas to tweak or add in here and there.
It’s kind of magical.
I can do magic! I’m a fucking word witch!
This blog – the whole thing, not just this post – has morphed several times already in it’s short existence. The thing is, when you start researching blogs, you get endless offers for “free trainings” from people promising to help you earn a 19 figure salary blogging and doing all kinds of incredible things that probably only a tiny fraction of people ever actually manage to do successfully. Some of these mini-courses provide good information about how to use WordPress or Canva or how to make the most of social media to reach readers, but ultimately, they want to sell you another, bigger, better, more informative course for the discounted price of only X hundred dollars.
But aside from the nuts and bolts of blog functionality, I’m not interested in what they’re selling. I tried half-heartedly for a minute or two to be interested. I’ve just never been very interested in making money. I like having money to spend – don’t get me wrong – and I’m extremely lucky that my husband makes enough for us to live on so I can make a tiny salary doing things like getting a PhD. in French literature only to teach for a few years and then decide I need to be home with my daughter.
It’s not that I don’t want to work. I’ll work very hard on something I care about (and taking care of children is very hard work,) but I am more likely to volunteer to do a thing than to seek payment for it. It’s a thing a lot of women do – not affirming the value of or expecting payment for our work. Or maybe we just tend to step up more readily than men when there are committees at our kids’ schools to sit on or events to oversee. But, I digress.
I don’t really want advertisements on my blog. I don’t want to sell products. I don’t want to chase after sponsorships and I don’t want to post things on my blog that are not entirely mine. I’m difficult like that. Remember that episode of Parks and Recreation where Tom is trying to sell his “Snake Juice” and asks Ron for an endorsement? Ron responds that he never endorses anything he doesn’t use exclusively. After a taste, fast-forward to uncharacteristic dancing and gushing about how amazing Snake Juice is.
Maybe that anecdote doesn’t exactly do what I wanted it to do here, but god I love that episode. I just wanted to point out that I am a total Ron Swanson about my writing. I only want to use it for things I believe in and think are important. There. I said it.
But first I need readers!
So, if you’re reading this and you find any redeeming qualities whatsoever in what you see, I would love for you to share it with your friends. I’m shit at asking for help, but I do need your help to be read and I am deeply grateful for any assistance you’re willing to give me.
Got comments? Hit me with ‘em! Got suggestions for other blogs I should be reading? I want to know about them. Want to commiserate? Let’s do it.
Thanks for reading! Take care and Happy New Year!
Did I just make a New Year’s Resolution in a post about how dumb New Year’s resolutions are? Dammit.