Friday Five: Leaning into December

Happy Friday friends! I know most of you love this month because Chrrisssstmaaaas. I hope it is everything you want and more.

If you have been around for a while, you know I do not fall under the Love All Christmas Shit banner. I lean into the Christmas stuff I do like - Christmas music a few days before Christmas, Christmas lights and sparkly things and mugs (I'll be sharing every Friday on the gram) and ceramic trees, a select few holiday movies (and this year, some Hallmark Christmas movies with Carol), Secret Santa'ing for kids, but it's not my favorite and that's fine. 

I know I'm not alone out here - some of you, like me, simply don't love it in a world that is gaga over it or want to celebrate a week of it and not a month plus - some of you associate it with something hard, or are missing someone or feeling something missing, you hate the commercialization of it, it stresses you the fuck out, you celebrate another holiday, you are struggling with health problems or money, you are finding it difficult to spark joy in this heavy world right now, or a combination of all of those things. If you identify with any of that, luckily December is good for other things as well! Some things I'm looking forward to this month:

1. Ending my year intentionally. Making my swim aerobics classes, scheduling my mammogram and skin check, reaching inbox zero in all inboxes, looking into a CPR course and the quick test now option to get certified, getting all of my shore contracts for next summer out, daily stretching. It's all happening and I'm putting this year in order and to bed gently.

2. Completing three tasks I have been putting off forever. Those three for me are reorganizing basement bookshelves, putting some stuff up on Poshmark to sell and donating some items, and linking my closet with the contact paper I've had for a blessed eternity.

3. Celebrating the solstice. I'm off this year, so I have even more time to get my altar assembled and plan a meal! It is the shortest day, which means more light is coming. Until it does, candles and string lights will do. A day to reflect, release, let go, and set intentions for the new season. To think about how to spend this winter to feed our souls. 

4. Festivus. Airing of the grievances on December 23? Tradition.

5. Rest. I'm off for a good chunk of time the week before Christmas into January. 

Every year on New Year's Eve I send the year off on a good note by donating to two causes that are not my standard go-tos. I invite you to join me in that this year! 

What are you looking forward to this month? 

Seems that I was busy doing something close to nothing, but different than the day before

Happy third workday of January. How are we doing? 

I am not a resolution maker anymore, but I have set intentions for the year at the beginning of most years. I don't only do that then, of course. I've done that quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily. This year, my only intention is to stay afloat.

When I think about what that actually means, I can break it down as I see it manifesting in 10 ways in my day to day. If you like anything from this list and want to adapt it into your life, cool, but this post is not me advising people how to live at this time. My only advice is however you can. This is how I'm doing it right now. I am not here to take a positive piss in your cereal and hand it to you and tell you it's milk. I'm not here to read anything from anyone doing that either. 

1. One day at a time mindset. This is easier for me to grasp since I live with someone in recovery and am extremely familiar with the concept of ODAAT, but as a planner it was still a big change. I am in a 24 hour vision cycle right now. Tonight I'll think about what I'm going to do or not do tomorrow. I used to plan my days out at least a week in advance. That doesn't work in my life right now, so I don't do it.  On weekdays, this includes staying on top of work with a task breakdown and lists. On weekends, it includes whatever I feel like doing that day. Living more by feel. A planner with no plans. Life requires adjustments.

2. No guilt. There is no right way to live through a pandemic and massive societal unrest. I can sleep more, eat more, turn off the news more. Whatever I need to do that day to stay okay or get to feeling okay, that's what I'm doing that day. And okay? That is what I'm aiming for. I'm not looking to be good, great, or positive AF. If I end up being any of those things that day, cool. But my goal every day is to feel okay. 

3. As the title indicates, my day to day is not much different. My intention is have a routine, but make it flexible. I suffered through much of 2020 because I thought I couldn't have a routine at all and I really need a fucking routine to feel grounded. So as an example: I can use my time before work that would normally be my commute time to read, sleep in, walk, write, get something done, sit quietly with my dogs...anything besides sit on my phone and waste an hour on it before I even start doing anything else. 

4. Essentials of daily living - adequate sleep, proper hydration, and food. The first two are self explanatory, no? As for the last, it's a little more than just food...when I first started really cooking, I would try to find something cool to make. Then I fell into the I need to cook to live, here are easy things that I like. In 2020 most things I found creative joy in stopped - cooking was one of those things. It's coming back. 

5. Put the phone down. 

6. Work/life boundaries. Something else I did last year to my detriment is let work bleed over into my time. Sometimes that's the nature of the beast when you are on a deadline but it should not be common practice. I'd get up and just start working and if I didn't have anything happening at night (um hello when were things happening at night never) I'd keep working. 

7. Rest does not need to be earned. I don't need to be productive outside of working hours first before I earn the right to rest. This world is exhausting and demoralizing right now and I'm fucking tired. I know you are too. We can rest. We don't need to front. 

8. Get outside. I don't feel as good anywhere as I do outside. 

9. Joy is not a crumb. Two things can be true at once. Two things can exist at once. Joy doesn't need to be tamped down because there is suffering in the world. If that was true, after the massive suffering we've endured and also caused through human time on earth, we'd no longer exist. So joy is not meant to be the crumbs that are left after everything else is dealt with.

10. Grace for myself and grace for others. There will be more bad days than normal this year like there were last year. People will forget things, I will forget things. We will disappoint each other. I'm giving myself and you more space. 

I tested these things out during my holiday oblivion period. I like how I feel mentally and physically. I'll keep on until I need an adjustment. I hope you're finding a way through that works for you.

Today, the Georgia way also works for me. Never forget this presidency and any possible change in the Senate was delivered to us largely through the blood, sweat, tears, ingenuity, and leadership of Black women. Recognize this and make sure Black women are in positions of leadership everywhere and paid what they are worth. 

Things that can stay, things that can go, and things I hope outlast the pandemic

On the day of the Winter Solstice, I write down a list of the things that I do not want to bring forward with me. Winter is a time to dig deep, reset. When my list is complete, I bury it. I also write a list of things I want to manifest. When it's done, I set it on fire to release it. 

Lighting things on fire is more liberating than burying but both serve a purpose, and both happened yesterday. I sat and reflected. I talked to myself out loud. 

I am not going to share everything on the list of things I don't want to bring with me because frankly the list was quite long and painful to write this year. 

Some things I am absolutely not interested in carrying forward after this fucking year:

-brain fog

-dullness

-no creativity/production

-not drinking enough water

-the inability to find refuge in the pages of a book

-feeling like a shit employee

-lack of routine

-Shit I do not need (things I own but do not need and have not addressed)

Things that can come through in this next season of life: 

-A focus on rest, and not after I have taken myself to the brink, fried my brain, and simply cannot do any more. Planned rest. Rest for the sake of rest, not rest as reward. 

-Set work hours

-True time off

-To do lists

-Commitment to racial justice

-Rekindled joy found in cooking, reading, writing

-Shopping small

-Walks

-Porch sitting and just being

And another little list I've been cultivating. 

Things I hope outlast the pandemic:

-Not shaking hands

-Staying apart in line

-Staying the fuck home when you're sick, yes even with a cold, or wearing a mask 24/7 if you leave your house with one

-Serious hand washing like everyone should have been doing all along

-Curbside pickup

-Giving people grace

-The death of the hustle culture

-The knowledge that missing things is not the end of the world

-Mail in and early voting

-Holes in the schedule

-Keeping with the hobbies we suddenly had time for that are actually fulfilling

-Lack of a commute most days

And you?

Cheers to more light every week going forward. 

Fall Intentions

Look, I am a confident person, but I am not throwing the words To Do or Goals or whatever into the either in Q4 of 2020. I'm a realist. Here are my Fall Intentions. 

• Refrain from waiting until the last minute to do my Show Us Your Books posts in November and December. 
• Resurrect some of my old recipes in hopes they inspire me to cook again.
• Five new dip recipes (fall and winter) to close out Year of the Dip.
• Finish out a few big replacement projects at the shore that were supposed to get done in the spring: some windows, some exterior doors, and baseboard heaters. These are all in the works. 
• Paint some trim.
• Spray paint stools.
• Start Christmas shopping and shop small because this year more than ever small businesses need us to.
• Make it out shelling twice a week. 
• Keep up with my Netgalley advanced reader copies so I'm reading them at least by the time the books come out
• Make the Friday Five a thing again
• VOTE. I'm voting early absentee. 

Do you have any fall intentions?

Clean Slate Fan Girl, reporting in for 2019

If you've read here for any period of time, you know my standing belief is that every day is a clean slate; a chance to change something big or small, start a good habit, break a bad habit, refresh my attitude, cleanse my energy.

That being said, I've been waiting for this day for what feels like all year. The symbolic big clean slate associated with the turning of a year is important to me this year in particular, where it has not been in other years. If I had to guess why, I'd say it's because I spent the majority of 2018 operating from a reactionary position, which is not personally desirable, and struggling to keep my head above water and my house intact. As my friend Gladys said, it felt like one long Tuesday and shit I hate Tuesdays. I learned a lot and grew a lot - a lot a lot - and I don't grow in easy, halcyon days. I grow in the trenches. That’s what kind of year it was. And while it was certainly not the worst year - no year in which I learn and grow so much can be classified as worst, plus I experienced a lot of beauty, fun, time with loved ones, great books, new friends, a challenging in a good way year at work, a new dog, good health, generosity, and support - it was also not my favorite. The lessons were necessary, hard, and took up a lot of space. I’m grateful for them and happy to be finished with that class for now. Today I feel like a graduate staring down a long stretch of open road, inhaling air that tastes like freedom and possibility. I’m not remotely sad to move on with intentions. 

What's the plan for 2019? Be happy, be solvent, consume less resources and things, work for a better world, and mind my energy. If I had to boil it down to a phrase it might be consume less, be more.

I'll write about those things of course, that's what this space is for. I've been thinking a lot about consumption and fast fashion and what I own versus what I actually use. I also promised some posts about why it is important to get involved in local politics and how you might best do that if you want the backdrop of your every day life to reflect a country that involves equity and equality for all people, along with some of the things that must change in order for real people like you and me to be represented in government. This is not a presidential election year or a general election year but that does not mean it's not an important election year. Every year is important, every elected position is important. The dumpster fire of this administration makes it hard to look it in the face every day but you can’t turn away. I won't. You shouldn't either.

I'm also stretching my writing muscles - there will be more tech writing (like this travel post I wrote Friday or the reading raft post from the other week); more highlighting of monthly contributions I make and value to things like Real Justice PAC, Rosa's Pizza to feed the homeless, Ronald McDonald House Philly for families of seriously ill children,  Patreon accounts of women of color who are doing a lot of work to set white supremacy and patriarchy on fire, and Building the North Star. It's good exercise for my mind to get back to short article writing that relies more on information and research and less on emotion and opinion, which helps with some off-the-blog writing I'm planning this year. I hope you enjoy the more article-ish, informative posts but if not, try back the next day. I will write more in general this year as well and try fiction writing which I haven't done in a while, but I don't know if any of that will appear on this blog.

Of course TWTW and Thursday Thoughts will remain staples, Show Us Your Books the second Tuesday of every month, real life/honesty/no sugar coating all the time because you know how I roll...Shit MFD Said will probably make a comeback but I am out of practice writing them down since we spent so little time together last year. I might even share recipes again. I might also have said that last year and never delivered but there's hope.

Thank you for spending another year with me in this space. If you'd like to see me write about anything in particular, I'm your Huckleberry. Leave a comment below or send me an email to lifeaccordingtosteph@gmail.com.

Don't leave 2018 without extrapolating all of its lessons so you are in the best possible position to act on your intentions in 2019. And if possible don't leave without making a charitable contribution to a group or cause that will benefit from it - I like to leave the year with a piece of the best part of myself behind in the form of generosity. Some years it's big, some years small, but it's something every year on 12/31.

Cheers to clean slates and living with intention.