To think! We almost made it all the way through December without a word!
Two rather rough colds/viruses, a double ear infection, hefty workload, and holiday stress have bogged down my mind a good deal. I started this month with all these ideas, and now that I’m here I feel like a match that burnt out before the candle was ever lit.
I've been thinking a lot about what I consume: what goes in my body, what goes in my mind. All these bed-ridden sick days have allotted for a gross amount of scrolling (re: TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, Instagram, Work Email, TikTok). When you’re sick and can’t focus on anything and just need distractions, you do what you gotta do. All this phone time, compiled with holiday sales and ads and perpetual guilt, has led me down this rabbit hole of feeling like if I can just change or buy this one thing my life will be complete. My phone feels so heavy these days.
This is not the social-media-is cursed-and-we’re-all-so-awful-and-doomed rant. Without Instagram, I wouldn’t have seen photos from my dear friend’s birthday party, even though I couldn’t be there. And I learn a lot and get a lot of inspiration too, and really enjoy the quality time I get with R. when we sit down at the end of the day and I show him all the TikTok’s I saved for him since he doesn’t have the app. Yeah, I love Pinterest. I love mood boards. But ultimately, I’m finding I need to better manage what I bring in from these experiences. There is such a flooding of information, content, and consumerism from all this media and it’s feeling pretty damning. This idea of if I can just do this one thing, buy this one thing, then my hair will always look perfect, my skin will always glow, I’ll always have the right thing to say, I’ll have a cinched waist and perfect posture and be so put-together. Hot girl gift guides, what I eat in a day, what I don’t regret buying in 2022, how I lost 20lbs, my daily routine. It all cycles around in my brain making me think of all the things I’m not doing, or what I’m doing wrong.
Social media is a great way to blow off some steam with the right parameters set. With the winter season beginning, I’m trying to tune into what I need and how I can be more intentional with my time and limited daylight hours. It’s okay that I spent a good chunk of December on my phone and stressed out and a bit mopey. The winter solstice only just passed. I can light my good candle. I can let the soft parts of my body stay, soft. My feelings of rejection from the world (re: not looking or feeling like the people I see online, not pursuing people-pleasing tendencies, etc.) do not equate to real rejection. I am the one I have to please.
The thing about getting sick, and desperately wanting help, but feeling like an absolute leach on society and the worst partner/employee/friend/roommate, is that feeling that way will not change any of your interactions except in your head. Feeling that way will not make you a better person, nor will it miraculously clear your sinuses.
POV: you’re very sick, you’ve been sent home from work early and you come home, clothes are strewn about, there are dishes in the sink and a full dishwasher, and your partner has only just gotten home from work and probably had a very long busy day. You can’t relax until the bedroom is at least tidy, you don’t feel like you can ask for help, and in your fevered state begin tossing things around the room and huffing all around probably causing more discourse than if you had just said, “I feel so sick and stressed and I need your help putting these things away.” Which is, ultimately, where we landed. No one wants to get mad. No one wants to blame someone else. But when you sit inside yourself too long, you’re going to get ideas that probably aren’t beneficiary. And when you ask for help, you’re going to learn that people are actually very ready to help you, but it can’t be done without asking. No one can read minds. Not even if they love you. And their lack of knowing you’re every need or thought or trigger is not a fatal flaw, the inability to communicate those key components and have them acknowledged is.
And y’know, it felt really good to be taken care of this week. Not because I was dependent, but because I knew that there was someone willing to do it just to take the load off me. By asking for and accepting help, I was able to recuperate before returning to work- and didn’t force myself to go to work for fear of disappointing others despite being horrendously ill. A hard thing to do in the face of capitalism and a real win in my book.
I love being offered help, coming home to clean laundry folded on the bed, or a warm meal. Sometimes what I need more than that is to be left alone for a few hours to deep clean the house, and to be acknowledged for it. My active need for praise doesn’t need to be my downfall, it can be something I ask for. Because when I do, I receive it.
I made my whole week of Christmas cookies on Christmas day and shared them all, like I did pre-pandemic. And tasted each one myself. I called my grandfather, luckily caught right before he went to lunch. I burned the coffee, and it was still OK. I went on a very cold walk and kept walking as my toes lost feeling and I got what could be a great shot of R., or could not be, but felt good, nonetheless. I stitched all our names, mine and my housemates, on our stockings with the silk thread I found at my grandmother’s house many, many years ago. I walked home in the snowstorm, tired and bundled and quiet, even after being offered numerous rides home. I walked home and I walked slow because I wanted to, because there’s only so many times you’ll be 24 and in Maine and it’s snowing and it’s late and it's yours. Pausing with the world. Street lamps few and far between, walking right in the road because the sidewalks are piled high and won’t get cleared till tomorrow morning. Grateful for every orange-glowing window with little lace curtains and candles, woodstove burning smoke pulsing from every chimney. When it feels like the whole world got lit up for this moment. It could only be now. It could only be here. It could only be you.
Happy New Year.
Thank you for being here. Q+A’s, comments, et-cet-era, below:
Absolutly beautiful. So much of what you said resonates deep in my heart. I am so happy to have gained your light in my life in 2022.
it could only be now. it could only be here. it could only be you. SAM. 💛