#183 - Rabbit Rabbit! Bringin' Back The Classics
or: it's not what you say, it's what you do
The Ins & Outs lists that have taken over social media the last few days got boring, quick.
Not in the "everything on social media feels stale now because it's toothless takes sandwiched between the meanest engagement farming rage bait you've ever read and all the replies are bots" way, in the "everyone is allergic to sincerity and it's tedious as fuck" way.
They should be a list of like three things tops too what's with all the quads of screenshots we all could commit to editing a bit more in 2025.
(A very real year.)
Well, here we are again. Complaining about other people who are putting themselves out there but not fully because there's a semi-ironic shield between them and their audience lest anyone bring squishy fruits to chuck at the stage.
No risk no reward. If everyone is kept at an arms distance for protection, there can be no intimacy.
I got up early-ish today. I took a little walk (shorter than I wanted to because I have blisters on the bottom of both my feet and I only had one blister pad left this morning) and journaled at my favorite coffee shop (which was taking down their very cute and fun seasonal decor and it felt so harsh) and got a bagel because they're delicious and I wanted one.
I'm committing to Doing more this year. I need my feet to heal but I still went back out there and saw a movie by myself (and the cafe was open this time so I got an iced coffee and it was actually just really good coffee I was quite impressed) and wrote a bunch of tidbits and tried my best to feel like I spent the day taking actions, even if they were small.
I got up yesterday and did all my laundry because that felt like a good omen for the new year – to have my apartment clean and ready.
There are parts of the new year stuff that I used to roll my eyes at, but I've decided it's kind of lovely that the human spirit believes in new beginnings, however arbitrary they may be.
It's nice that we get dressed up and make moments out of regular events because life only has as much meaning as we give it.
The other day I got to go see my favorite movie of all time in a movie theatre. I woke up to a text from my friend telling me she was going to dress up for it in the spirit of one of the characters, so I spent some time scouring through Billie Crystal's outfits and landed on a solid approximation.
It lent a lovely sense of occasion to the day, and then we saw the movie and like, When Harry Met Sally is just so good and it holds up so well and I really think it's one of the best movies ever made and it was so incredible to see it on a big screen I felt like crying at least 10% of the time out of sheer joy! But also doing something Special makes everything more memorable, and I've been trying really hard to put more thought, time, and effort into life.
Which requires slowing down adn like uuuugh please don't make me I like going fast it's nice not to have to feel things I'm done with feelings I just want to live and not feel like I'm constantly trying to avoid walls falling down or like I'm stuck in a debate of which walls are worth putting back up – or if it's time to just find a new place to live altogether.
New Years Day is sort of an illusion. I love the energy everyone brings to it, and I'm going to ride that resolution vibe as long as possible. But when it comes to Getting It Together, I know what to do and I know what I've been avoiding it's more that I've lacked the motivation to really commit to myself/my life because it's never felt very...worthy of protecting or investing in.
But when you treat your life as disposable, you end up garnering that treatment from others. Because like, they see how you're treating yourself.
Last year I finally let myself just sit with my feelings and not try and put them in a box or express them at all to anyone.
(I still did because I'm still me and I've never been mysterious for one single second because I'm so desperate to get to the bottom of what's wrong with me so I can sort it out and stop feeling like a misfit all the time because it isn't cute and it never was!)
This ended up allowing me to finally be upset about shit that had happened in my life – but some of it was shit that had happened a really long time ago. It felt like the statue of limitations had passed. I felt stupid for not being upset at the "right time" when I could have "done something about it" but I'm also just upset that I had to be upset. I'm upset that I got treated that way. I'm upset I didn't see that treatment as abnormal. I'm upset that there are patterns of my existence that I was exacerbating by believing in the worst parts of myself, which took soooOooO much time I rarely was able to really appreciate the good.
And getting out of that pit has felt like a Sisyphean task for the last few years, so while I hesitate on this day to make any big declarations I do think I've gained some clarity on what I want and the way I want to get where I'm going in life.
But a big part of that is taking on full responsibility for myself.
It's no ones fault but mine. I set the boundaries. I set the standards. I meet them or I don't, but I'm in charge of the plans and no one else.
When we were discussing our Harry/Sally outfits, my friend mentioned having that first thought of "is this embarrassing to do?" but pushed passed immediately into "no it's fun but also who cares" and I was so glad she did. It's so easy to get caught on the first one even if the thought has no real power when it immediately occurs. It's just a reflex, a social survival instinct check.
But too often now I see people use the metric to dictate their lives, and I'm just so weary of what "other people think" being used as a metric for anything.
Because we don't know! Actions don't always align! Diagnosing people's behaviors to make narrative sense of them will always fall short of encompassing an entire person because we're not characters we're people! We may share motivation but life isn't linear.
There isn't an end, there are no page guarantees. Actions mean something because they happen, but they don't guarantee themselves to happen again.
Cleaning my clothes on New Years Eve doesn't keep them clean for the rest of the year. Maintaining a habit of doing laundry on a certain day will help, but I still have to wake up and actually do it for it to count!
In: caring enough to make the effort and do things.
Out: being too afraid to live life because of what anonymous strangers may think.