5 / Make Ourselves New

Thank you for checking in! Thank you for being a friend!

From the onset, I promised you no epiphanies here, a foolish vow given the nature of the format (personal essays personal newsletters text). Forgive me for requesting an exception today, as resolutions are on my mind, given the nature of the calendar.

My hope is our expectations of the new year do not become a burden on you and me, well-meaning ideas that distill into guilt if we can't fulfill them. This annual invitation to improve ourselves comes with a pressure to make things right. So we outline a checklist of goals believing "this will fix me," or we pine for habits to increase the percentage of ourselves toward meeting our full potential, an imagined, impossible measure.*

That approach to resolutions hasn't served me for some time. I don't know if I'm a much better person than I was a year or a decade ago. I believe I am kinder, though. That was never one of the January 1st imperatives I committed to. It's just that each day seemed to remind me it's a cold, cruel world out there, and over time I realized the least I can do is try to make someone else's life easier. If I have to be ambitious about 2026, I want to continue to lean toward empathy.

My epiphany as I considered this, though, is that no one was more cold or cruel or unkind to me last year than me. So, yes, it's a cold, cruel world out there. And also, it's me. I'm cold, cruel world. For all my talk of striving for a kinder version of myself, I was the one who said all that mean shit to me, who knew the precise insecurities to linger on and view myself in the worst light.** I was like that awful parent who charms everyone outside their home, reserving their spite for their child, also me. It's a cold, cruel world in here.

It's a roundabout way to arrive at a banal dedication like "Let's be kinder to others and ourselves," or a repackaging of RuPaul's catchy question, "If you can't love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else?" But I needed to write it out to sincerely address this deficit in self-compassion.

I admit that part of this kindness for myself will be the devotion of small favors for future-me, which fall into the traditional resolution categories -- the minor chores, the maintenance of one's body, the limiting of algorithm exposure, the reminders to not be late to one's leisure. The least I can do is try to make future-me's life easier. More than that, I want to adjust the light I see myself in.

*Yes, shoot for the moon, land among the stars, it's an optimistic approach to these goals. If you extend the analogy, though, how can one expect a mismanaged space program and a meager budget to produce a ship that will reach escape velocity with its passenger intact? I dream of space travel, but earthbound, I can also enjoy the nighttime sky, especially while in good company, a hand in mine.

**The problem with a creative mind is how clever it can be with its ill work. My brain was like Kendrick as my anxieties spiraled, gloating, "I made a hundred doubts, and I freaked it (I freaked it)".

A few dope things that I made last year:

1. A physical space to work on projects - I outfitted a modest workshop in our basement to make better use of my hands and said creative mind, un-attached to a mouse and keyboard. Here I've re-potted plants, built simple furniture, and even put together a holiday present for Alexis -- the latter two pictured above. I also created a new digital space to work on projects, which you are taking a tour of this very moment.

2. Another go at journaling and to-do lists - I know my Hobonichi Techo evangelization led many of you to pick up the planners. But my 2025 book saw little activity for most of the year, due to the aforementioned internal struggles, so I didn't expect to purchase one for the new year. I changed my mind, as I'm allowed to, as I'm allowing myself to, when I returned recently to nightly gratitude journaling. I even found a use for all my untouched Field Notes books last month, adopting a weekly version of Dave Fogler's To-Do List system that's worked for me. It's easy to fall in and out of these practices, which I often do, but they're there when you want to pick them up again and find some help in them.

3. An effort to have more conversations with strangers - Working from home and content to enjoy most of my evenings there too, I don't get out or talk to others enough. So when I did get out last year, I pushed myself to speak up more at the book clubs, French classes, and grand jury duty sessions I sat in. And I continued the small exchanges with folks who said hello at plays, restaurant bars, author talks, and shows. Some of the people I met became friendly acquaintances, and others became stories I got to tell my partner when I returned home.

♫ It's almost the end of the show ♫

I appreciated that moment in The Holly and the Ivy (1952, dir. George More O'Ferrall), when Rev. Martin Gregory tells his daughter Margaret: "You know, this... this talk we've had, there's been truth in it. If not in the words, then between the words or between us. And that's why I'm grateful to you because it's not often I have a real talk with anyone." Hit reply and share your ideas for how to be kinder to yourself this new year.

5 / Make Ourselves New

Credits: This letter's title comes from "Seven Views of Cork City," the Doireann Ní Ghríofa poem I mentioned to you last October. The complete line is, "We make ourselves new, and it is a difficult birthing."

And the leading image is a screenshot from the English translation of Moomin (1990, dir. Hiroshi Saito), animated by Telescreen Japan and Visual 80. Shout-outs to Tove and Lars Jansson.