i think it's brave: five lists
in place of resolutions, apparently?
Inspiration in Transit
continues to be a source of inspiration for me when I feel like my head is swimming and my fingers are itching to write but I don’t know what to put on a page. It’s funny, I could never be a morning journal girlie because I just value my sleep too much to wake up earlier, and my brain also needs time to buzz to life. But I’ve found myself taking my laptop out on my commutes lately, typing away my thoughts during that 50 minutes in and out of the city. I’m not sure why it feels more approachable. Perhaps because it is a slot of time where I can do whatever I choose, another practice of listening to my body. Do I want to sleep? Listen to a podcast? Read a book? Scroll Instagram? Depending on my energy level and my motivation, I can be as productive as I want to be, twice a day, 3 days a week. It’s kind of a blessing, now that I think about it like this. And that’s why I love writing. By the time I get to the end, I have learned something new about what or how I think about the topic at hand. If this was my full time job, it would mean that I should take the last sentence of my first draft and use it to start the second. But alas, we are only here in the off hours, unpaid and writing for the love of it. Which brings me to this week’s newsletter, a play off of the last. The Isolation Journals recommended that instead of setting resolutions, its community should answer the following 5 questions. Make 5 lists. Use them to reflect upon the year behind and the year ahead. I quite liked the exercise, especially since I gave myself a few days for my answers to marinate. Would love to hear your answers in the comments :) It always makes my day to hear from just 1 person who found a piece of inspiration in these little outposts. Five Lists.
What in the last year are you proud of?
In the last year, I am proud of myself for a lot of things actually! But, the first thing that comes to mind is surrounding my (and Aidan’s lol) wedding. At the beginning of the process of planning a wedding, I felt a lot of overwhelm. I distinctly remember one train ride back into New York City where I handwrote a list of all of the things I wanted in relation to the wedding, the weekend, the day of, etc. It wasn’t necessarily a guiding light throughout the process, but more of a brain dump. Trying to make sense of all of the emotions flooding my veins, pumping my blood at a faster pace than normal. There were a lot of societal expectations, and personal expectations, that I never realized I was holding. That list helped me release a deep breath. And when I looked back at that list after the weekend, so much of it had happened. That was the result of a handful of things. I constantly reminded myself that:
A wedding is just a moment, amazing but fleeting, and the whole “best day of your life” thing is a hyperbole. It’s the one time in your life when all of those people will be in one room, that’s not a hyperbole and it is the actual thing you need to take a second to process.
Everything outside of the marriage doesn’t actually matter. All I remembered about friends’ weddings were the feelings I had and the love I felt. Not their shoes or the linens.
The people who are there are the ones who matter in that moment. In a way, when I looked behind me, clocking the collection of people in the pews that day, it didn’t have the makeup I had once expected. But I realized that’s the beauty of life. As I said in my speech that night, all of the people there were there for a reason, whether we had known them for a lifetime, a long time, or a short while.
On absolutely no one’s 2023 Bingo Card was me being called a chill bride, but amazingly, it happened multiple times. And I am so proud of my type A ass for that. I had the best time. I oozed excitement and love for every single thing and person present. I gushed hello at our DJ, cried over the florals (crying at everything really), screamed at the top of my lungs on the dance floor which I never left. I kept calm when things went wrong, pivoted from the original plan in a way that is unlike me. Aidan and I took time together that whole weekend, creating our own special memories outside and inside the chaos that is hosting 148 people for 3 days. I am proud of myself for creating a weekend that felt like me, and like Aidan, and like us. Sometimes I feel lost when making those types of decisions, but I am confident in every choice we made, especially the biggest one in choosing each other. That is something that I’m proud of.
What did this year leave you yearning for?
This is an interesting question. Instead of writing a long thing, I think I’m going to list everything that comes to mind!
Yearning to celebrate more wins
Yearning to waste less time
Yearning to get outside more
Yearning for more videos
Yearning for my wedding photos which have still not been delivered to me 17 weeks later
Yearning for better notebook organization
Yearning for a more challenging job (fixed that though!)
Yearning for the next steps
Yearning for a better handle on my closet / getting dressed more often
Yearning to commit myself back to writing
It’s a short list. I feel like I did so much in 2023. So many celebrations of love, friendship and family. My first huge trip to South America, exploring Chile with my new husband. Dinner parties, game nights, all fostering deeper friendships with key people in my life. Switching to a new job in the midst of absolute chaos, maintaining my composure and diving in despite things being different than I had been promised. Sure, there are things that I could have done more or less of, things I wish I had accomplished or completed, but when I sit and try to think of things I yearned for (def: have an intense feeling of longing for something, typically something that one has lost or been separated from) I don’t know if there is too much. It was a good year, really.
What’s causing you anxiety?*
Whether or not I’m making the right decisions. I’m reading this book called The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and it’s about a girl who makes a Faustian bargain with darkness, and is forced to live a life where she can live forever, but no one remembers her. At age 300, she meets a boy who can remember, and the book unfolds from there. However, there is a chapter that talks about this boy, and how he sees the world. He feels like the world is moving too fast, like everything is passing him by. He is overwhelmed by making decisions, because in choosing one path, he is forfeiting so many others. Leaving behind so many unopened doors. The concept itself is something that I mull over every once in a while, when I have a dream I’m back in college or talk to a friend who has a job I would’ve liked. What would it have been like to go somewhere different for school? To have written my college essay about something else? To have gone abroad junior year? Been a Spanish major? Not taken the JP Morgan job? Known what I wanted to do and started from day 1 at college? There were so many big decisions that I made at what I now know was such a young age, and sometimes they haunt me. Most of the time I recognize that I cannot change the past, that I have grown so far beyond that girl and towards new passions and values. But now there are new big decisions, like leaving the city and trying to find a home. Like when to have a baby. Like whether or not I made the right career pivot. These types of decisions, though I am reminded that there is never “a right time” or a perfect decision, cause me anxiety. There is only 1 life, and without a doubt it will be wonderful, but no one wants to regret anything. I realize though, I writing this, that regrets are more of a mindset than anything else. That all of these closed doors and forfeited paths were not meant to be a part of my story. I can only look forward, continue to hone my internal navigation and intuition, and keep going.
*The definition of anxiety vs stress vs. overwhelm was one of the most valuable things I learned in 2023. You can read it in Brene Brown’s Atlas of the Heart, but there is a quick summary here and here
What resources, skills, & practices can you rely on in the coming year?*
Continuing to honor things that make me feel good. Continuing to listen to my body and what it wants. Taking that extra minute to ask myself, but not being afraid to push further. It’s an interesting concept, actually. I have gotten better at this in the realm of working out. Without the structure of a workout packet and run test training, I have been able to tap into what my body is in the mood for. I’ve been learning this over time but this past year for some reason was when I really started to notice it. Like the other night I had this itch to go run outside in the cold. In honoring that urge, it was like my body wanted to remind itself that being outside in the cold was something it likes, something that’s thrilling, exciting. It worked. I was reminded, my body LIKES the cold (if it’s dressed properly).
I will also continue to rely on my organizational and planning skills, as they have always served me well. I would like to use those skills to better practice one of my “ins” for 2024: finding adventure without having to travel. I can research and plan day trips and fun activities. With way less wedding obligations this year, I could even plan a long weekend getaway that gets us hiking again, something Aidan and I both said during our honeymoon we would like to seek out more often. I think I need to stop saying I don’t have enough time. I definitely have time, I just need to prioritize differently.
*This is a good exercise in looking at what you’re good at and how you can leverage those unique skills to get what you want or practice new things.
What are your wildest, most harebrained ideas and dreams?
Is it bad that this is difficult? First would be to really crush my new job in sales. It doesn’t come super intuitively to me, sometimes I struggle with the interpersonal aspects of speaking to complete strangers about their jobs that I am clueless about - but I know there are a lot of parts of the job where I’m really strong. And to take 2024 and show them what I’m worth and bring in some big checks along the way, I think that’s up there towards the top.
Maybe it’s also that I’m able to grow this newsletter in tandem with Vivian’s, that we can monetize enRICHed in a meaningful way that supports Aidan and I in buying a home faster. Our buying a home seems like a wild dream right now, but I’m hoping that doesn’t stay the case. My two kids books ideas are actually not harebrained at all, but the concept of bringing them to life seems to be. Children’s book publishing is so not my space, it is so far off to bring the characters in my head to life.* I have a dream that people continue to find my writing and enjoy it, no matter what avenue they are reading it on. Now there are two! Here and enRICHed! To have another would be pretty sensational.
I need to do more of this dream writing, manifesting if you will. There is a reason that so many people do it, and there is really nothing lost if nothing happens as a result… Ah more musings…
*I gotta say, I wrote this while eating dinner before Vivian’s book tour event on Monday and proceeded to sit next to and meet her entire team from Penguin Random House and introduced myself and they want my email and wtf is the universe !!! Whatever it is, I am here for it !!!
be bold! be brave! xo meigs