RESOLUTIONS CAN SUCK IT
Today I deleted a number of my email subscriptions. DELETE. DELETE. DELETE.
My year in isolation from society at large didn’t prevent me from connecting with oodles of companies, shops, stores, non-profits, news sources, and organizations, all of whom - EVERY. SINGLE. ONE - felt compelled to write me and say in some form or other, “glad 2020 is over, eh? Eh?”, use the word ‘unprecedented,’ and end with something glib and hopeful about 2021.
I’m not there yet. I’m not on the resolution bus. I am not interested in reviewing the pandemic that defined 2020 or reflecting on all the silver linings amidst the protests and forest fires. I haven’t had the luxury of contemplation.
How do you recuperate when you work from home, surrounded by never-ending to-do lists? How can self-care happen, when you’re literally wiping the bums of the humans around you? When is the right time to rest, when you struggle to sleep at all thanks to a brain that wants to remind you at 3am to buy more salt, send the doctor an email, and check car insurance rates?
My god, life can be so hard. YES, it is also monumentally, painfully beautiful, filled with heartrending joys and love limited only by the confines of the physical body. I’m looking at you, coffee.
Really though, the smell of my baby’s neck. The sound of a bottle of Nasty Woman Wine being opened. The satisfaction of slamming a door after a perfectly timed retort. A favorite t-shirt. The space that opens in my chest in the presence of thundering ocean surf as far as the eye can see. The pride in a job well done. The singular sadness of reading the final line in a fantastic book. I acknowledge those moments. But it’s been a year of shit and I’m allowed to be angry and grumpy and tired and fed up with the massive amount of time that was NOT those moments.
My Instagram proves I baked bread, explored new hiking trails, and finished that impossible 1000-piece puzzle. But it doesn’t capture how I felt trapped in the confines of my home but was anxious the moment I left. How I missed my friends but forgot how to talk to them when we attempted masked porch visits. I failed at homeschool and most certainly yelled too often. I struggled a lot this year. It was so hard to be a good daughter to my aging parents, who fumble with technology and distance. I doom scrolled my social media feeds, addicted to prettier people doing quarantine more successfully than me. I was incredibly judgmental and cranky. And I obviously signed up for way too many company newsletters.
2020 was so damn hard. And despite excessive time at home without friends and family, I don’t have the mental space for resolutions this year. 2021 is here. And I do NOT have advice for you. Set an intention for the year with a single word. Alternatively, nail down a resolution with a specific and attainable goal. Or screw resolutions and 2020 altogether.
But don’t delete NASTY WOMAN WINES. Stick around. Introduce us to your friends (no really, forward this to your besties, as we want to make money at this job we love). We get you. We ARE you. Surviving, hawking our badass wines, introducing you to some truly stellar Nasty Women, and being real. We have great wine, on-point snark, zero f*cks to give, and a resolve to be joyful damn it!
Whatever your poison, I will toast to you with a glass of Boss Lady Bubbles. This I can do.