Welcome to can’t relate, a newsletter from me, Maria Del Russo, that I write biweekly on Fridays. If you were sent this newsletter by a friend (such an excellent friend) or clicked through this link via my social channels, then you can also subscribe by clicking below.
xx MDR
Hello friends! It’s the holidays, which means a few things: I had to strategically plan my next manicure around when my mother needed my help laying the lasagna for Christmas Day, half of my diet consists of Tums and Advil, and I’ve noticed that for the first time in a while, I’m not wistfully projecting my hopes and dreams of a new year.
One thing to know about me is that I love a list. Grocery lists, to-do lists, lists of books I want to read. Nothing satisfies me more than scratching something off a god damn list. I also have a tendency to err into the overly sentimental. Combine those two forces, and it would make sense that I am a person who gets jazzed around the New Year.
If you’ve followed me for any length of time on Instagram (shameless plug!), you’ll know that I have a tendency to write “reminders” instead of “resolutions” and tape them up in my bathroom mirror. They were my ways of trying to project a little control onto my future. I loved the idea of a fresh start, a clearing of the board, and I clung to the hopefulness of it all, convinced that the next year would be when things suddenly swung in an upward trajectory.
This year feels a little different, and not just because we’re heading on two years of a pandemic, which makes hope a little hard to come by. I think it feels different because, in a lot of ways, I don’t feel like I need a fresh start. I’m pretty content with where I am at the moment. And I’m starting to recognize that my previous impulse to make these “how to be better” lists was seeded in a desire to escape the reality I was living in. I needed the do-over.
But maybe, unwittingly, I’ve already gotten it. The emotional turmoil of the past six months has made me feel a little bit like a river rock. I went into this time in my life with sharp, jagged edges. And then the current swept me up, and I got beaten up and bounced around. But now I’m rolling out, and I feel a little smoother. More content. Less worried about what is to come.
I had a future planned out in my mind. I was on the moving sidewalk, being pulled in the “right” direction of what my life was meant to look like, even when I started to see red flags. In my last relationship, I forced cohabitation, and almost forced the issue of an engagement, because I just thought that’s what I was supposed to do. That was part a milestone of prepackaged adulthood. This is the future I’m moving toward I thought to myself. This is what’s meant to come next. And then one day I woke up and realized I was depressed, and that the future I planned wasn’t the future I wanted. So walked away, setting that projected future on fire, and I felt free.
So maybe I don’t want to plan for the future. Maybe I don’t want to resolve anymore. Maybe I’m happy to just live in this version of myself, curious of what’s to come next. It feels like a good place to be, so maybe I’m just meant to hang out right here, in the now, and live in the moment. And if I resolve to do anything, it’s to remember this feeling of contentment, and recognize that it’s always a place I’ll be able to return to. It may not seem profound, but in my little corner of the world, it truly is.
PS: This is my last newsletter of the year, because I will be out of town for NYE, and while I love writing this newsletter, I deserve a break. (And so do you!) I’ll be back in your inboxes on January 6.
Thank you to everyone who has read this little newsletter of mine. I don’t really know what my plan was for can’t relate when I started it, but it’s become such a lovely bit of catharsis for me every week. I got into writing to help me feel more connected to people around me, because I always loved how my favorite writers made me feel connected to them. So thank you for letting me into your corner of the universe twice a month. Thank you for helping me feel less alone. I hope I can continue doing the same for you. Happy New Year, bbs.
This week’s trio
We lost the irreplaceable bell hooks this week, so I’m rereading All About Love. If you haven’t had the privilege of reading her work, please make it a point to do so. She’s part of the reason I do the writing that I do.
I’ve also been listening to Sex and the City and Us on audiobook, which is a huge oral history of the show, to coincide with the release of And Just Like That… (which I wrote about for The Dipp, btw.)
I made this broccoli macaroni and cheese a few nights ago when my period was so bad I thought I’d die, and holyfuckingshit it was satisfying.
xxMDR