This week I participated in one of those boomer Facebook surveys that’s like a Fortune Teller Word Search: “The First Four Words You See Are Your Words for 2025.” So I looked casually…if I was searching with true intent I would go line by line but with this I just kind of side-eyed it and let Fortune have its way with me.
Woop
Connect
Alignment
Woop
So first of all I don’t think that woop woop were intended words but if I saw them twice they have to mean something. And what they mean, obvs, is Par-TAY.
Except in my case. Because I don’t drink and because of that I am socially awkward and therefore no par-TAY, thank you.
At best, something will happen that warrants congratulations. Woop! Twice even. Woop woop!
At worst, I’m picturing walking down some slippery stone steps and my feet just, winging out from underneath me…because that’s the noise you make in such circumstances…woop! And then as I’m laying there cold and stunned with my back jacked up, that’s the noise I’ll be relieved to hear the ambulance make…woop woop.
And then alignment. I had my tires rotated over the weekend, which, don’t tires rotate every time you drive the car? (ba dum, ssss. Car joke.) Perhaps my tires will need aligning this year as well. Truly I’m hoping it’s about my back. Especially after that fall down the stairs.
Truly the alignment I need to do is to align myself with what is actually happening with the rest of my peers in reality instead of telling myself silly and unrealistic stories about what everyone else is doing…and feeling worse because of it.
For example: New Year’s Eve is my least favorite holiday because of FOMO. I am squarely in middle age and should be beyond this by now but here we are. The holiday would have us believe that everyone in the world is out at a party wearing an amazing outfit, listening to an amazing band, and they are just the right amount of lit, and they are having a wonderful time with their favorite people and they will for sure kiss someone at midnight and it will be magical. Confetti. Bubbles. Glitter.
Even during the years where the outsides have matched the above reality, my insides have been more: cobwebs, Jack Daniel’s, existential dread. What I need is to cultivate connection with the folks that feel new year’s meh. And remember that surely not everyone was out having fun. Plenty of people were in bed far before midnight. And for every person who jumped around in front of a camera in Times Square was someone freezing their ass off, trying to see the ball around someone’s big fat head and just waiting to go home.
This year, I’m going to work on aligning with folks who go to bed at 9:00. I know you’re out there. And folks whose email gives them heartburn. People who hate Zoom breakout rooms. Ladies who get stressed even though they only have one kid who doesn’t play sports when maybe their friend has three kids who do drama clubs and all the sports and therefore more reason to be stressed. No one owns the rights to stress. I want to connect with people who still don’t know their purpose. And people who feel like they’re bad moms…but who are also too tired to be better moms. And the people who listen to gangsta rap in their car but can’t have difficult conversations with their employees. I know I’m not the only one without my shit together. I’ll align myself with that.
Woop woop.
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