#177 - String Beans & Chardonnay are stoked to scribe: The Twelve Days of Smokemas Day 7 | How I Want to Feel in 2k25

The culinary highlight of my year is the pickled ginger green beans from Birds of a Feather in Williamsburg.

Crunchy! Tangy! Exactly what I want every single time I take a bite!

After a spontaneous dinner reservation occurred, we ordered a perfect smorgasbord of vegetables and cold peanut noodles (the noodles taste so rich and perfect and no matter how much you eat the bowl does not lose any volume), cute drinks, and mini pork buns. Nailed it! Love a great dinner!

Going out and having experiences is something that I am easy to talk out of. I'm a homebody by nature and it's easy for me to convince myself that I'll have more fun staying in and going out.

This year, my indulgence was at an all time high. The reasons vary throughout the year as to why but I'm ending the year with a better understanding of what actually makes me feel fulfilled vs. what allows me to numb out (which makes me feel like I'm "destressing" but I'm really just getting out of my head in ways that aren't constructive).

I love to set goals, but this year my goals ended up feeling weirdly overwhelming (because I was checking out of my mind/body for days/weeks at a time and having and responsibilities ended up being something I used to make myself feel shame for not doing them) but I also kind of set them in this arbitrary "maybe THIS will make me feel fulfilled/better about myself/like I've accomplished something" and that's not a bad thing but it lacks specificity, which means the goals were my best guesses and ended up focusing mainly on measurable creative output.

To solve for this, my goal setting for 2025 is going to be focused around determining how I want to feel and then finding ways to engage with the world around me to get there.

Feeling accomplished can come from work, but it can also come from keeping my apartment clean for longer stretches of time.

At the end of my day, I don't want to feel like there was nothing that I did on purpose.

I want to read more. Because I love reading, books are so important to me, stories matter, reading creates empathy, there's so much to learn, romance makes my fingers feel a little tingly, biographies help me understand the contexts of history in new ways and the impact of one person within a system, personal essays range from hysterical to devastating–often within the same piece. All of those reasons are good reasons to read! And will contribute to me feeling like I spent time in ways that allowed me to really engage with the thoughts and observations of others. Reinforcing and questioning my worldview with every page turn! It's so easy to not read and I'm genuinely terrified of the literary crisis but ALSO I know I'll read more if I'm not reading tweets.

And I must get off Twitter. Especially now that it's disinformation nation (my friend would want me to remind everyone that "misinformation" is just a nicer way of saying "lies") and all my favorite helpful journalists have fled the platform, all that's left are people who process their emotions via routinely posting them on a public forum, bait accounts, and bots that respond to the bait accounts.

The discourse is circular and circling the drain. Booooring and unimportant and divisive and mean. We cannot have yet another round of thoughts about if Taylor Swift is the most famous popstar again, we just can't we must move on that's not even a metric that makes sense ahhhh!

Okay, right, back to feelings.

Or like, emotional metrics I would like to orient my life around in order to try and feel like I'm living in alignment with my values. (If you spent too many nights sleeping funny your spine will reflect the lack of support!)

Here is a probably incomplete list but hey, we gotta start somewhere.

Active

Whether this is walking, dancing, weightlifting, cleaning my apartment, going to get coffee, anything that gets me up and moving and not sedentary.

I always feel better when I've gone somewhere and done something. Getting outside first thing in the morning used to be theeee goal of the day because once I go out once, I'll go out a million more times.

I want to take care of my body (which includes care and recovery), I want to feel strong, and I want to make sure I give myself the best chance to get out and see something new every day.

Engaged

Not trying to float through the world without taking notice of what's going on!

I want to get hooked, I want to feel enraptured, I want to make sure I'm participating actively in the world instead of letting information wash over me and hoping I remember all the things I wanted to make sure I remembered later.

Life takes practice.

I'm not expecting a magical relationship or new job to magically solve all of my problems by radically altering my life. I think the desire to veer sideways and give myself a new set of problems instead of incrementally working through my shit in order to get to the pre-planned destination has often left me with...the same shit. Plus the added bonus of getting back on course after skidding out!

Anyway, can't be passive, can't expect other people to solve my problems. Application! Supplementation!

Thoughtful

I'm a blurter.

My brain moves quick, but I want to make a habit of–wait for it–learning to pause and think before I speak.

Gift giving is a time of thoughtfulness and I want to make sure that throughout the year I'm paying attention to people. Asking questions. Checking in on things in their life that I know they're going through without expecting that they'll bring them up if they want to talk about it.

Take a deep breath! Think about if what I'm about to say is being said to the appropriate audience! Make sure I'm not just speaking to fill the silence because I'm worried if I'm not entertaining at all times there's no reason for me to be around!

Remembering important dates, making sure that I'm not barging ahead without consideration, and reflecting with intention. Let's goooo!

Grounded

On the days I wake up late, I don't journal. I don't take deep breaths (or whatever approximation of meditation I'm doing) and I rarely slow down and I kool-aid man my way through the day just bursting into rooms and looking around as if I'm going to need to find an escape route at any moment.

So: breathing, yoga, putting my feet on the ground, journaling, taking another five deep breaths, tapping, whatever helps me stay present but also present in my choices. I'm not trying to wing it anymore. I don't want to use the threats of deadlines and procrastinate, I've done it and it's a habit that protects me from the quality outcome of my work while also preventing me from ever feeling fully satisfied (I did well with what little time I had vs. this would have been better if I was more disciplined and gave myself more time between draft & edit).

No more!

Lock in, ground down, we've got a body and brain to link up and inhabit simultaneously!

Curious

This year I realized I didn't know how the moon worked. I knew I could usually see it at night (but not always) and pointed out any day moons I've ever seen. But it took looking up how moonrise/set worked and modeling the rotations of the earth/moon/sun with a pencil and my phone in an attempt to explain the shadows to a friend that it all finally clicked.

I'm sure I learned how it all worked at some point, but I don't talk about the physical reality of space that much (partly because it doesn't come up that much and partly because it freaks me out real fast), so the knowledge slipped away.

Getting it back was kind of embarrassing! But worth it so, who cares!!

What flower is that? Why is the Empire State Building that color tonight? What happens if I put myself out there in this way? Do my neighbors need anything?

Contributory

I feel like I keep having conversations where we solve most of modern society's problems by reinventing church.

But I do want to contribute because I do think life is one big group project and we can't all be the kid sending in the slides late! Projects don't get done if we expect someone else to do all the work! Effort babeeey!

Gotta put something in to get something out.

This will probably take form in volunteering, organizing, and/or developing trainings to help other people with the first two things on the list.

Creative

Love to feel creative, love to be creative, love to have creative output to show for my time spent working on things!

I think I'll aim for another 52 of these next year (maybe more, who knows!) because I think it's a great way to give myself a consistent and ongoing deadline, and will also encourage me to get out of the house more so that I have shit to write about.

Scripts may happen, novels may be attempted, watercolors splotched, handlettering will probably get practiced on the iPad over and over again with no noticeable improvement for another cycle!

Being creative makes me happy, makes me grateful to be alive, makes everything better. I'm so glad to have a creative spirit and I'm so in awe of all of the people in my life who are creative in entirely different ways and mediums than I foray into. I think it's neat we're all creating a massive tapestry (and that there are people creating literal tapestries) and tailoring what we want to get out of the experience we're putting so much time into.

Grateful

Gratitude rules!

It's not a platitude to feel some gratitude
So show your Bratitude to the world today

(Someday soon an essay will appear detailing the direct link between my love of the terrible 2007 live adaptation of Bratz and 1995's Paul Verhoeven classic Showgirls.)

Changing my approach and attitude doesn't happen overnight and having one emotion or lens to have as an anchor is really helpful.

Being grateful to friends, to service workers, to volunteers, to the lady who held the door on the subway, it all adds up and especially if you write it down it helps illuminate other moments to be appreciative of.

So I'll be doing just that!

Train your brain!

Organized

If I wake up and there are dirty dishes in my sink, I'm starting at a deficit that day already.

If my desk is cluttered, it's a visual representation of me literally not being ready to work.

If my laundry is everywhere I feel chaotic and messy and I can very easily slip into "your room is never clean enough" mode in which I spend hours berating myself for not being "naturally" more clean instead of just acknowledging the fact that I live alone so if I don't clean it, it doesn't get clean, and having clothes on a chair is not a moral failing but if it bothers me that much having clothing on it does indicate that I'm mid self-sabotage so, clean up on aisle Claire!

I have what I need (okay maybe I need like three more sets of drawers actually) and it's mostly about just not being lazy and leaving things on the coffee table and putting things away (and making sure that everywhere has a home because otherwise it will float forever and bother me each time I run into a problem I should have already solved!).

I don't want to get stuck in planning stages, I want to figure out systems and stick to 'em. Even if that system is just telling myself I have to do the dishes before bed no matter what and forcing myself to not make excuses. No one likes doing the dishes!!! I'm not missing out on some special neurotypical superpower I am just lazy and hate dishwater and scraping bits aggghhh but I refuse to be unclean and feel disorganized first thing in the morning.

Love knowing where everything is at all times because I have one million little baskets and dishes and my keys go in the strawberry and my wallet in the crate. Gotta go the distance now though!

Ready

Feeling unprepared is disempowering.

I want to feel ready. From the confidence of knowing that I'm ready.

Capable.

Able to stand on my own regardless of the dodgeballs I'm deflecting & catching as I frantically keep myself in a game I'm not sure I even want to be playing.

Again, I feel like I've survived my life but it's a lot of smoke and mirrors and skin of my teeth type stuff. This year I'd like to figure out how to support myself in ways that I have previously wanted to rely on others for.

I don't think I have an entrepreneurial spirit necessarily, but I do have a "there is no problem me and the computer cannot solve together" mentality. I've done hard jobs, I've made big moves, I just forget to give myself any credit and then I feel woefully unqualified when similar situations with known solutions arise.

Unlike the other emotions, I really have no idea what makes me feel ready. Maybe no one ever really does, maybe everything is trial by fire and lots of people are faking their way through (and mostly succeeding).

But apparently I'm going to spend 2025 finding out. And isn't that exciting!