Happy New Year! Am I Allowed To Not Drastically Improve Myself Over The Next 365 Days?
That feeling you might end up being the same person at the end of another year and you are okay with it.
Micro Rage
Houston’s weather. Freezing temps last Sunday and heat, humidity, and mosquitos this Sunday. Climate change is the worst.
Macro Rage
George: “God would never let me be successful; he'd kill me first. He'd never let me be happy.”
Therapist: “I thought you didn't believe in God?”
George: “I do for the bad things.”
(The Pilot: Part 1, Seinfeld S4.E23)
This past Wednesday an itchy restlessness agitated me all day. Earlier in December I cautiously admitted to some friends that I felt hopeful for 2023, but as the new year crept closer, I started to notice something else. It was imperceptible, but I felt it. A muted fear of failure and an obnoxious weight of expectations pushing down, just enough.
2021 and the beginning of 2022 seemed to burn away the last of my remaining fucks, and a good chunk of 2022 has been going for all kinds of things. Because if you cannot live through a pandemic and finally let go and put yourself out there and try, when can you? Also, I was fortunate. I had enough disposable income, time, a healthy enough body, old enough kids, and a supportive enough partner to put up titanium boundaries and invest in piano, writing, surfing, and Farsi classes and actually apply myself toward them.
Not that anxiety, doubt, white-knuckle terror, and shame didn’t crowd my brain. I just had enough bandwidth to shove them in the backseat and keep going. To keep practicing piano when I choked at my first recital, to keep pitching when I got rejection after ghosting after rejection. I started to build up a tolerance for the aforementioned rejection and ghosting and utilized that fortitude to apply for the dream job I didn’t even know to dream about before someone shared it.
All of this effort led to tangible progress. I learned notes and songs on the piano. I got one byline and then another pitch accepted and then another. I made it to an interview with the job application.
And that forward momentum left me feeling vulnerable at the end of the year.
Coming up from behind is my comfort zone. It’s how I won matches when I played tennis competitively through high school and college. By letting fear of losing get the best of me until I was down four games in the second set and then fighting my way back and going to a third and playing a tiebreak game.
Maybe I’m growing though? Because that restlessness has dissipated. I am feeling a little of that hope again and mainly an indifference to holding onto outcomes. I’ll keep doing these things I started, one day more, and then another. What happens is out of my control, and I’m okay with that. I wouldn’t mind if I were the exact same person at the end of 2023.
I know I promised you some consistent low key rage, but I think hope and rage might be two sides of the same coin (I am pretty sure I read someone much smarter write that much better). They both seem to be propelling me forward to something better.
How are you feeling about this new year?
A Small Thing
This writing podcast, which validated that spite is the great motivator.
My favorite breakup album, and the most vindictive breakup song I’ve ever heard.
A Big(ger) Thing
Connecting with and being reminded of how incredible the communities I am a part of are this past month. I am excited to keep meeting with my new writing group. I am so incredibly grateful for this faith community and this abolitionist community. Looking forward to another year of growing together.
I love this! There is something very freeing about coming to terms with being ghosted, and not giving any fucks about it. Rage on, Mama!