I’ve written a lot on this blog about being an “all or nothing” person. I’ve always been the type to live in extremes, if I did something it was 100% or not at all. And that was nothing I’ve ever felt ashamed of or something I thought I should examine a little closer. I just figured that was how I operated in the world, and there wasn’t much I, or anyone else, could do to fix it because it didn’t need fixing.
And then 2020 happened.
What a weird freaking year, right guys?
I’ve thought about blogging a hundred times since my last post back in February and have an alarming number of drafts saved in my WordPress folder, that will never see the light of day. By late March, I started to get the feeling that maybe I picked the wrong year to re-start this blog because in the middle of a pandemic, while people are dying and everyone is sheltering at home and some are losing their jobs and there is so much uncertainty, who the eff cares what I have to say?
Truth be told, I didn’t have anything to say. I didn’t know where to begin. So, every time my mom, (who I still think is the only one who actually reads these things anyway), asked, I told her it didn’t feel appropriate. When really, I was just at a loss for words for the first time in my entire life.
Which caused me to retreat inward. I think a lot of us did that. I mean, we got blindsided by an effing pandemic, what were we supposed to do?
And while I was in there, in my head and digging deeper into my subconscious (with a little help from an incredible woman named Lacy Phillips, who I highly recommend you get to know), I figured a few things out, and well, I guess I found those words I thought I lost.
Life is really gray. I don’t mean that in a depressing way, although, life this year, as we all know, has been very gray and gloomy. What I mean is the world and how we operate in it, isn’t as black and white as I once thought it was. Trying to operate as an “all or nothing” person is actually very hard because it’s so limiting and what this world has to offer on a daily basis, even in the middle of pandemic, is not limited, it’s gray.
Maybe gray is the wrong word choice here. It doesn’t paint a very pretty picture, does it? It’s not gray, it’s nuanced and detailed and shaded and colorful. Colorful. I like that. Life is colorful.
I’ve been looking for the nuances, the “colorful” if you will, more lately. When the pandemic started, “colorful” was having days where I’d get up early and write for hours and other days where I’d be lucky to get out of my pajamas by dinner time, judgement-free. When it comes to my dry year, “colorful” is sipping on an alcoholic komubucha last night while simultaneously crying into a bag of French fries watching Obama give his speech at the DNC and not feeling “bad” about it. (I’ll blog more about the dry year thing later, promise.) When it comes to politics, it’s really hard to find colors, but they’re there. There is a bright, colorful middle ground somewhere and I think the only way to find it is to ensure the guy currently sitting in the White House, who loves to pit things and people against one another, labeling them “good” and “bad” and “right” and “wrong” and “black” and “white”, gets his eviction notice on November 3rd. And when it comes to each other and how we move forward from all of this, we’ll start seeing more colors when we start listening to one another.
The world seems so divided right now. It looks so black and white, everything feels so all or nothing. Take it from a girl who lived in those extremes for most of her life, it’s not the way things are meant to be.
I have a lot to say about this year, so don’t worry, I’ll be back soon. But in the meantime, keep your eyes open for a little more color, and let’s try to paint a prettier picture than what we’ve seen in 2020 thus far.
Presently Sober 