#55 - Week 31 Has Begun

At my job we make Notion pages for each work week. They’re full of plans, one off pages of information, calendars, event prep, and at the end of the week we take ten minutes and fill out a Crushed It list at the top, because if we take that time and recap the things we were proud, happy, and thrilled with we can actually go back and look. When we do our month recaps, we always say the same thing: “oh wow, we got a lot more done than I thought we did” because everything has progressed even when it doesn’t feel like that. Yes, even the weeks where I couldn’t stop bursting into tears or rage-filled tangents on Zoom, we still managed to make our way through the world and create. But, the reason I actually started talking about Notion is because at the beginning of this year, we numbered those weeks, and it’s been a really passively helpful way for me to frame the year. We’re in week 31 right now, which feels SO close to 52 in some ways that I started to panic. Have I done…enough? What is my Crushed It list in life going to look like this year?

But I think one of the major things I’ve had to rewire my nervous system around is the ability to live in the moment and realize that it’s all of my actions now that determine the later.

July is a tough month for me, it’s smack in the middle of summer so I’ve forgotten what it feels like to wake up and not be in a pool of my own sweat but it’s not close enough to the end for me to get my hopes up about the impending switch over. But then this morning, this glorious August 1st, I woke up to dreary rain, overcast skies, with light sprinkles and broken humidity.  I put on pants. I went for a walk. I wrote under a massive umbrella outside of a coffee shop in the rain and realized that no matter how disconnected I feel from my Irishness, it’s so fucking present all the time. I walked around smiling at nothing in my neighborhood. Below 70? In my summer? Perfect, amazing, how quickly everything can change and seem hopeful and new again.

This July was better. I said yes to life, yes to sandwiches, yes to tequila shots that I definitely felt the next morning. July was still July, and I can’t tiny fan away my seasonal affective reactions, but I did my best. And that was enough. I made it! Not every month has to be a blockbuster of growth and new abilities. Some are for resting, recharging, getting ready for the next. For the last two years, I’ve said fall was going to be my season and then, in separate instances…had massive fallout that completely altered my life course. So I’m not putting all that pressure on this autumn. I’m going to keep plugging away, a week at a time. Making things for the sake of making them. Finding new music, learning to dance again, practicing French because Duolingo has really tapped into my goopy gamified brain and I like learning and doing it in a super low-stakes way has reminded me of my long forgotten academic achievement-driven side. I’m reading more again—which is good even if it has caused a bit of sleep deprivation (I have not gotten better at putting a book down, I’ll just read until I am asleep).

It’s not an easy time in the world right now, we’re lacking leaders, there’s a whole pandemic that culturally we’re ignoring, and our brain chemistry is being toyed with by a bunch of asocial marketing techies who demand growth in their bottom lines with products that were ostensibly created for connection. There are only so many people, and we only have so much money, not everything can grow all the time, can’t Disney just be happy with their billions? Maybe your shareholders should be less greedy folks! Instagram gave me back the regular feed this week after a month of weird full-screen purgatory so, they at least got a little scared of the backlash. Good! The workers make the company, not those who dictate the labor. We are the labor, and it’s really really good that we’ve remembered that. Like, as a collective. Or even…a union.

I don’t want to regret, I want to be excited about what’s to come. Little changes add up. Progress is still progress. Moving something up one step every day will get it to the top eventually.

I had one of those “oh shit this is my life” realizations while talking with a friend about what we were going to order for dinner. I looked around and realized that my life right now is what I always envisioned my life to be when I was younger. Like, I live in an apartment in New York City (younger me would not have known where Ridgewood is so we’re going grandiose here!) with my two quirky little cats, my best friend lives down the street, I love my job and feel like it’s making some modicum of difference in the world, and my wardrobe is coming together in ways that feel actually representative of me and my style because I have finally figured out where my waist is (and am no longer afraid of what my belly does to the silhouette, which was really the thing holding me back). (I had this moment when shopping with a friend where she pointed out that she knows I have great taste, but she realized that other people may not know that by my outfit. Whiiiich was really the whole ball game. Like, oh, fuck, I’m not letting people in. I’m blocking. I’m doing the “you can’t fire me I quit” but with possible connections. And I’m doing it in ways I definitely didn’t mean to. So, I bought better fitting clothes and I’m standing up straighter because I realized that I was trying to shrink myself for years via hunching. Which actually just made my boobs look weird more than anything else. Not the intended effect! Roll those shoulders back and cement them down, we’ve got things to say with our full chest.)

So, welcome to August! I hope it’s filled with self-determination and the knowledge that whatever we can get done and through while living in this bonkers world is great, and we are deserving of the good things that come. Growth and change happen in increments, but they all add up.

And I would recommend making Crushed It lists! Whether its about work, or personal habits, or things you want to remember and be proud of. Self-flagellation has been in for far too long, I truly never want to read “I did a thing” again, especially if it’s coming from a writer online. Oh, you mean you wrote a book and incredible accomplishment? Let’s not diminutize ourselves just because we’re all so fucking haunted by that one episode of Sex and the City where Miranda’s date is suddenly unattractive because she’s “too full of herself”. (…is that just a core memory for me? who’s to say!)

A few months ago I read a thing about the act of learning to love ourselves is a really high bar, and we can take some of that pressure off by first learning to love being ourselves. (If there’s anything that Twitter discourse has made extremely clear, it’s that we’re all individuals coming with different perspectives and experiences.) I think focusing on the act of being myself rather than trying to parse all of my loveable attributes and offering them up as tray-passed hors d'oeuvres of personality traits has been the best thing I could have done. Overthinking is the enemy!

Anyway, I hope you have a great day/week/month/rest of your year! Write about things you want to remember! Jot down five things you loved doing this week or weekend! Make a Crushed It list (and bonus offer, I will happily and excitedly shout the list back at you  because my loud loud voice is helpful for drilling in that we all should be proud of ourselves for our accomplishments. Other people’s excitement is infectious!) because I promise it’ll be a fun thing to have regardless of if you ever look at it again.

Okay, that’s all. Rabbit rabbit!!