Here we are, embarking on another year of this thing.
I can’t help feeling enchanted by 2022 for its repetition alone. A quick Google of “222 angel number meaning” points optimistically toward new beginnings. Known in numerology as the triple mirror hour, 222 represents balance and harmony. The kind of symbiosis you and I might hope to achieve through this newsletter.
Some would reduce us to writer and reader, but we both know that we are dance partners. And what we lack in elegance, we make up for in energy—in flinging our bodies between words and phrases that ultimately bond us as one unstoppable unit.
The floor is lava! We must keep moving.
I have this running playlist called “5 Miles” and over time, it’s grown into something way longer than what it takes to run 5 miles. One of the OG tracks that always sneaks its way into my top plays on Spotify Wrapped is “Baila Baila Baila” by Ozuna. Dance, dance, dance. And so I’m running, listening to a song about dancing—movement within movement.
This sense of layered, ongoing motion inspired me to choose “kinetic” as my personal word for 2022. I’ve never chosen a word for a year in my entire life. Historically I’m the kind of person who’d be skeptical of anyone who has. How arrogant to think an unpredictable, 365-day chapter might surrender to some corny adjective. But kinetic just sort of roundoff-backhandspring-backtucked into my lap, which feels exactly how that sort of thing should happen, anyway. (Let the record show your inner cheerleader never dies.)
For the last two years, I have desperately tried to adopt a narrative of self-care and slower living. I thought enjoying hard work was some toxic byproduct of hustle culture absorption. But 2022, the mirror year, revealed an inner truth: that I was shrinking behind excuses for laziness. I found myself waiting for right times and right places that never materialized, buses blowing by me on the corner, retreating home in shame. Pleasure and relaxation blurred into virtues unrecognizable in their constancy, until they were no longer virtues at all.
My ideas have legs. They need proper fuel and long runs and late night cha-chas as badly as I do. So 2022 is about hitting it full speed, volume up. Because when my heart is pounding and I want to give up is when I feel the most alive.
Now, let’s get into it (yuh), shall we?
Drinking: 365 Whole Foods brand lime seltzer in the wake of some mysterious Topo Chico shortage. Who has the plug?
Listening to: “Liverpool Street In The Rain” by Mall Grab. I had a little NYE gathering and some hammered stranger kept stealing my phone (which he eventually spilled a drink on and didn’t even acknowledge) to play music. Honestly, he has fire taste. No one tell him, though.
Obsessed with: The beauty products I received for Christmas. One thing about being obnoxious about everything you love is that people have a uniquely easy time buying you gifts. Andrew got me a spinning brush (a la Clarisonic) that polishes your face into a freshwater pearl. Additionally, his sister, who just transferred from Kering to Chanel, got me the Chanel hand and body creams among other yummy goodies. Super thick and fragrant, both make getting ready feel extra luxurious.
Currently Watching: The Sex & The City reboot, And Just Like That. Reviews are (understandably) terrible. I polled my Instagram followers and had an interesting mix of replies. I’m in a weird limbo of enjoying the plot lines and loving the comfort of seeing some of my favorite characters again, while still feeling the undeniable cringe toward the cultural references. In a single episode, they’ll be confronting the gender binary and clumsily pursuing BLM ally clout. It’s trainwrecky, but still lovable IMO?
Thinking: About Jia Tolentino’s marriage announcement on Instagram. This was excruciating to read. If you’re a Jia fan and you’ve read Trick Mirror, you know the New Yorker writer has long been publicly anti-marriage. Watching her cheapen this union to a political statement about healthcare, so anxiously justifying going back on her word, I wanted to shake her and be like, “Girl, just be happy in this new season of your life. We do not care.” She certainly looks happy in the photos (lol).
I’ve had a lot of thoughts on marriage lately. This is nothing new. In my heart of hearts I am still 13 years old, peering out the window from my top bunk, begging the moon for everlasting love. But things are especially potent after reading this Atlantic essay on a writer’s divorce in favor of pursuing some nebulous “life beyond” her husband. No shade to her. Freedom looks different to everyone. I just abhor the way modern culture convinces us our dreams of corporate girlbossery and microdosing and lesbian sex will suffocate under institutional monogamy. They only will if you allow it, beloved. American society fails to celebrate enduring relationships and a family unit (kids or not). We are always made to feel that something more meaningful and exciting exists beyond the home. But why aren’t we just making the home more meaningful and exciting then? Hmmmm…