A 2018 Recap

In Bellagio, Lake Como, Italy.

My 2018 felt like one long Whit Stillman film: a lot of conversations over dinner tables. I had one delightful vacation (the summer trip to Switzerland) beyond that, I accomplished nothing and spent the year wishing I were someone else. 

I managed to learn a few things in 2018. By coincidence, I saw two quotes that really helped me. The first was graffitied on a wall in the park: "Neutrality favors the oppressor," from Elie Wiesel's 1986 Nobel Prize Speech. It motivated me to voice my opinions and to support activist organizations and to quit being so damn passive. Everyday is a fight against myself and what I worry people think of me. The other quote: "People don't care about you, they are thinking about themselves and their constipation," (I don’t know who said it, but I saw it in a meme) reminded me that really, no one cares.

In 2018 I started my Weeklies, a practice that gives me grief and joy. I love writing them, I love that so many people read them, but I also just worry that they aren't helping me grow as a writer. I look at other writers and bloggers with a lot of jealousy. I secretly want to be popular, but I'm not. So even when I'm looking happily at everything I've done in 2018, I'm also angry. I could have done more. 

When my idol, Anthony Bourdain, died earlier this year the mission of this blog became very clear. I want to explore every human emotion. I want to insert some reality among the smiling faces and beautiful breakfast bowls of Instagram and the Brag-book (Facebook). I'm not a happy-go-lucky, positive person and I want to take away the shame surrounding unhappiness. I know that's a really big, nearly unachievable goal, but in 2018 I decided to try. 

I wish I could say I have an exciting 2019 lined up, but I've got time to make some...Happy New Year to you and yours.