Nothing is always an option
Sometimes, it's the best option
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Dear Writer,
This will be the last Dear Writer of 2023, as I am deep in drafting now, and am likely going to forget when Monday happens, as I did last week.
I let it go without comment or apology because I figured y’all are busy, too. Holidays are complicated; some people love them, some people hate them, some people are too busy to notice they’re happening and then, suddenly, it’s the New Year, with all of its Resolutions and Expectations and Fresh Start Goddamnits and…
… fuck, it’s exhausting.
Here’s the thing about me; I am a body that is almost always in motion, until I get exhausted and crash. It is this lather-rinse-repeat cycle of ooh I could do this thing! followed by whee I’m doing this thing! followed by I’m sorry, did you say something? I wasn’t paying attention because I’m doing this thing! and then three days in bed because I exhausted myself doing the thing.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
After decades of trying to change it, I decided to stop trying to be different from what I am. Instead of resisting, I’m leaning in. This is what I do, this is how I do it, I love you all, thank you for taking care of the dishes, I’m going face down into my pillow now.
But part of being this kind of person means I say yes to almost everything, almost all the time. Sometimes, my yes is just to the idea of something, then I play with that for a while and if it doesn’t work out, well, it doesn’t work out. I live in about five different possible futures at any given time, and I understand that only one of them will actually happen next.
We’re going to live on a boat!
We’re going to move to New Zealand!
Hey, everyone, it’s #vanlife for us!
Ian has been on board for all of the possibilities since we started dating. We got together because I woke up in the middle of the night thinking a friends with benefits situation would be good for both of us, and he was like, “Okay!” About a month after that, we were both like, “Oh, this could be a thing,” and we ran with it. We met in Illinois for a really fun weekend in September of that year, and in December, he came to visit me for Christmas in New York. Toward the end of that two-week visit, he was like, “You know… I could just move in,” and I was like, “All right!”
That was the first six months of dating. After he moved in, we started talking about moving abroad since healthcare in the U.S. is a dark abyss of greed and death, and none of our politicians seem to care that children are going to school in a war zone. We’ve flirted with New Zealand, Germany, Portugal; he has always wanted to live in a boat or a van, and I’m excited by those ideas. Our future has always been a series of possibilities, a shared Google Sheet of research and dreams. We never did all the things we talked about, but we usually did something, even if it was just moving to a new apartment.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, he came to me and he was like, “How about our New Year’s Resolution this year is to go one year without changing anything?”
I cannot express how quickly my heart said, Yes.
I get bored easily, and I love change. I am always excited for the next adventure, and if I stay anywhere too long, I get itchy feet. But right now, we have a life that I’m really happy with. I love our new apartment, I love that I’m back to writing novels, I love that I get to do all these things with Ian, who is the most fun I’ve ever had.
Change nothing?
Hell yes.
So this year, for your Fresh Start Goddamnit, as you set up your spinner wheel with all the possibilities for what you want to accomplish this year, may I suggest that in one of those colorful wedges that will define the direction you set your compass to in 2024, you write “nothing”?1
Have a wonderful holiday season. I’ll see you in January.
Everything,
L
But if your spinner wheel lands on “Get that Novel Written in 2024,” might I suggest applying to be one of the Year of Writing Magically cohort? Applications are open until December 16.