Edition #157: End of Year Superlatives
Plus, why aren't more people marrying, the best thing to text a friend, and the internet's favorite New Yorker cartoons
I know it’s not Thursday but I’m going rouge this week. Consider this surprise timing an ode to the purgatory-like time of year where rules are meant to be broken.
A Note From the Editor
January: Most Likely to Trick You Into Thinking *This Is Your Year*
As it happened, one of the best days of the year was the very first day of the year, a day typically reserved for hangovers and existential dread. In Costa Rica, a hodgepodge of visiting friends melded into a singular, perfectly balanced unit. We had our cake and ate it too; not sober the night before but strategic with our consumption so the headache free day felt like a bonus round. Perfect weather, a near empty beach, buzzing happiness. Playing in the ocean, deciding to surf in water I had no business being in. Making a connection in the ocean, a slow burn. The year spanning out before us, full of promise and mystery. Dinner at sunset, feet bare, toes in sand.
February: Most Likely to Make It To the Big Screen
A Valentine-less year. Not caring about not being in love with a person because I was falling in love with a project. Two creative friends in town, a twelve page script, two actors, one assistant, three days to shoot, four hours of sleep per night, zero idea what I was doing. The deep pleasure of seeing something you’ve dreamt of come to fruition: writing, directing, and producing my first short film. The frustration, the insecurity, the satisfaction, the awe. First taste of that old, racy, all-in feeling, ike remembering what it feels like to be in love.
March: Most Likely To Make You Want To Die Alone
Started with clunking my head on a surfboard, a fist-sized bump forming immediately over my eye. Lonely because all my friends were gone, my time in Costa Rica coming to a close, only a borrowed dog for company. Indulged my loneliness and ignored the stirring in my gut; dated a man who I tried to stop dating twice but who managed to talk me back into it each time. Worst nightmare came to life: trapped in a confined space with a man who I realized I didn’t know so well, carless and powerless and pretending I wasn’t a little bit frightened. Counting the minutes, texting friends my location, sweet relief afterward. Vowing to never ignore my gut feeling again, hoping some day I might laugh about all this.
April: Sweetest Homecoming
The comfort of returning to New York, my apartment the same as it ever was. The soothing spring weather, the open arms of my dear friends, the jazz musicians in Washington Square Park. The ease and grind of my old life: clean tap water, flushable toilet paper, grocery hauls up five flights of stairs. A book club retreat upstate—piano sing alongs and car ride debates and nine girls boiling in a hot tub and a table full of hibachi. Sipping the sweet elixir of possibility, getting high off it.
May: Biggest Blur
Did May occur? It must’ve yet I cannot recall much, just summer’s listlessness peeking around the corner.
June: Most Misunderstood
On my typical running route, turning around to go home after just a few blocks. Thinking I must be getting sick, I must be overly tired. Two days later, waking up to an orange sky, lungs not doing their best work. Canada on fire, New Yorkers trapped inside. A trip to Tahoe, an escape entailing a second date with a man I’d met just once. Hoping for an authority figure to tell me where to be; hoping for a lack of choice disguised as love. Getting, instead, ordinary moments. Delayed recognition about how special these moments actually were. All my friends living within 30 minutes of one another for the last time in a long time, maybe ever. Picnics on the Hudson, sunsets at our favorite table in Fort Greene park. Windows-down drives and dinners with friendly waitresses and dirty Martinis, rainy hikes and dirt caked fingernails and tossing kale to a flock of hungry chickens.
July: Most Perspective-Altering
Could also call this the most grueling, most shocking, most painful, most tears spilled, most most most. A movie moment: me at the dog park, consumed by whether or not I might run away with Tahoe man; tall but unknowable. A sunny morning, an oat milk latte, a phone call—a car accident, an MRI suggesting the worst, the inevitable. Jogging home to collapse on the floor, remaining horizontal for hours and days and nights. Death pressing on me from all over. Imaging a world without my mother, unable to comprehend it. Realizing whether it came now or later, it would come. Realizing nothing would be easy. The weight of the truth carried with me throughout the month, following me still: you will one day be on your own, you will one day be an orphan. The shock of pain; didn’t know it would hurt so badly as a grown up. Everything scrambled, reassessed, reordered.
August: Most Akin to a Fever Dream
News of potential sickness meant the entire years’ plans would need re-arranging. Canceled a surprise trip I’d been planning since January; planned on showing my mother the little West Maui town where I once lived, fulfilling her dream of traveling to Hawaii. A few days later, Lahaina burns down. Enrolled in and dropped out of a directing class in New York; traded my suffocating apartment for a casita in Venice Beach. Icy ocean, alien plants, temperate weather. Meant to conclude at Burning Man; plans shifted last minute. So many shifts I wasn’t even surprised, tried to swallow my disappointment. A week later, The Playa flooded, people stranded. Second natural disaster narrowly avoided in a single month.
September: Biggest Blur
Normally one of my favorite months of the year; the month I was born. Feeling like a lethargic dog unable to conjure my usual enthusiasm. A list from a dear friend: 31 Things I Love About Meghan. Crying openly on the subway whilst reading, crying while working my way through a pile of birthday cards, crying on a rooftop in Williamsburg the night before my flight West. Squeezing my friends, all selfless encouragement, asking whether it would all be OK. Surprised by the sharp fear in my throat, I'd gone much further for much longer. Change painted all over the walls.
October: Most Likely to Cosplay as a California Girl
Trying on a new skin; skateboarding, falling, falling some more. Waking up, strapping a board to a beach cruiser, squeezing limbs into a wetsuit, riding over to the nearest break—a shitty one, but still a break, still the ocean. Marveling at dolphins and the sea lions. Marveling at hunks of fresh sea bass and perfectly ripe navel oranges, the freshly cut flowers. Marveling at the muscle memory of behind the wheel, at the caricatures of the city who showed up before me on dates: a cameraman, a man who owned a camera company, a child actor.
November: Most Unexpected Wake Up Call
Wake up calls are annoying when you’d rather not hear them, when you’d rather remain asleep. Attempting to make a clean, decisive plan—you will leave New York and move to LA—attempting to force settling down my own open throat, my attempts called into question whilst gazing at a man-made lagoon at a beautiful hotel in Mexico. Arriving in Central America and drinking in the mild discomfort of not knowing the native language, the thrill of meeting people from all over the world and remembering just how big that world is. Leaving with a question buzzing in my ear: how would you spend the next year if you could do anything, if you weren’t so afraid? The answer, so loud and clean before the over-analyzing kicked in: you would see the world.
December: Most Likely to Give You Want You Need
The medicine is always right where you need it. A big slow down; 10 hours of sleep most nights. Knee injured, shoulder injured, body saying please stop, please rest, mind resisting, then giving in. Discomfort with decisions when viewed from the eyes of others; discomfort with the harsh self-judgment I thought I had grown out of. Soothed by Google searches: safaris in South Africa, artist enclaves in Mexico, dreams of warm, slow-rolling waves in Costa Rica. Saying goodbye to LA, returning to the open arms of my family. Drinking wine and laughing at dad’s stories realizing this is where I get it from, the storytelling. Recognizing the moment as one I’ll remember as long as I’m alive. Thinking it’ll all be grand, the big adventures to come and the small moments in between.
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Cheers, my dears, and as always thank you for reading. How are you spending New Years? I’ll be in a cabin in upstate New York with a handful of dear friends. We’re doing a blind white elephant book exchange—where you buy a book you love, wrap it in brown paper, and write a description on the front without using the book’s title—and cooking a fancy dinner. I cannot wait!
More to come on the changes you can expect from this newsletter going into 2024. Until then, I hope you find little ways to embrace the rest of this slow in-between. Bake a cake, go on a long walk and count the number of birds you see, kiss somebody square on the lips.
And thank you for reading along this year. It’s been a weird and wonderful ride!
Three Pieces of Content Worth Consuming
Why Aren't More People Marrying? Ask Women What Dating Is Like. At the end of my last serious relationship, a friend’s mom asked me how I was doing. She met her partner later in life and told me that as I got older, it would get harder—not because I’d be less appealing, but because I’d be more fulfilled on my own. The bar would be raised, she said, and a partner would need to seriously enrich my life to join in on it. This pieces makes an argument that is somewhat similar in outcome—it can be difficult to find a person you want to marry as you get older, especially as a woman—but takes a more modern, anthropological look on why that may be the case.
The Best Thing To Text A Friend. Always love these simple, sweet reads from Cup of Jo. I’d never thought of this phrase before but it hits the mark if you’re trying to be a better friend in 2024, or deepen your relationships in general. It’s the small stuff! Another thing I like to do to show my friends I care: when someone mentions something important coming up for them in conversation (i.e. a big exam, a scary doctors appointment, etc.), I make put it in my phone’s calendar right then and there. On the day of the event, I’ll send a little word of encouragement or love. I have a friend who always texts or voice notes me on my travel days saying “Have a nice flight,” and it makes me feel so cared for!
Where To Go in 2024. The cycle of online media goes like this: Thanksgiving recipes, gift guides, end of year lists. These "where to travel" lists are always something. I can just picture the editors who write these lists sitting in a room, brainstorming a palatable mix of the familiar and the foreign, working under the directive that there must be something for everyone. I'm not typically interested in these lists for that very reason, but I clicked on this one out of curiosity and two places caught my eye: Bhutan and and Lamu in Kenya. Speaking of lists, was glad to see my favorite book of the year made it to this one.
Perhaps You Should…Cry Once a Week
One of my new favorite corners of the internet. Refresh this page every week for a short clip that will make you cry. I just tested it out and, viola, crying! Science says crying relives stress, I say crying is primally satisfying. Thanks to my internet writer friend, Claudia, for recommending this site in her very cool newsletter, Recomendo.
**Bonus Content** (Best New Yorker Cartoons of 2023)
I laughed so hard at these. Pure comedic gold.
Also, shoutout to my fellow animal lovers out there, an Instagram account I used to fawn over in the bygone fashion blogger era, and a reminder to all the non-planners from your type A friend.
A Quote From A Book You Should Read:
“What she had learned was that life, any life, was death and rebirth, death and rebirth. Everything always changed.”
-Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei--Brenyah
This newsletter is best served with a side of conversation, so drop your opinions, reflections, and thoughts in the comments below and let’s get to talking.
Or, share the most thought-provoking piece from today’s edition with someone you love, then call them up to discuss, debate, and percolate. As a wise woman once said, “Great minds discuss ideas.