Hello friends,
Exciting news: Sam and I closed on a new home!
This will be my eighth move in the past nine years. I love moving. It always feels like a fresh start, even if it is just a 15-minute drive across town. Moving is a reset. It feels like New Years Day or a birthday. A time to reflect and re-evaluate and most of all, purge.
I used to be a pack rat. I saved every note, every gift, every piece of clothing.
The worst was when my decision to save something I barely used was validated. I once saved an argyle sweater that I purchased freshman year of high school because I thought, “What if I need this for an acting role? Preppy school girl?” And then I landed a role as a hipster obsessed with Lena Dunham and totally rocked that sweater and it was perfect.
So when it comes to the feedback loop, getting rid of stuff has to feel better than keeping stuff or you’ll continue to hoard. Being on my own for most of those moves and without money to hire movers made me realize that the easiest thing to do was JUST GET RID OF IT. The less I moved with, the less stressed out I felt.
You have to ask yourself, “Do I really need this? Do I even want this? When was the last time I used this?”
Now I think of everything as weight. Things and stuff weigh me down, physically and emotionally. So that long string of rope light - that works great and is so pretty but I have not used it in years and have nothing to use it for - is going to Goodwill. It took me two days to come to this conclusion. The old part of me is still asking, “Are you sure??” But the new part of me is floating.
New home. Clean slate.
Blog of the Week
I made a rule for myself to publish an essay each week. At 18 weeks, it’s gotten easier with every post and made me a better writer and my readers can always count on me. It’s a win-win-win.
But it’s not always easy. When it’s not easy I try to think of a tiny idea. A Seth Godin idea. He writes powerfully small posts that pack a punch. Whenever I’m struggling I tell myself I’ll write a Seth Godin idea. So that’s what I did this week.
I wrote about being 36 weeks pregnant because that’s what I am right now and it’s pretty crazy and how many times in my life will I be 36 weeks pregnant?? It’s not as tiny as a Seth Godin blog post, but it’s tiny for me. [Read the post here.]
Dark Comedy
Alyssa Limperis is a comedian most known for her viral mom videos.
Her impersonation of her Rhode Island mom IS my mother-in-law. It’s uncanny. And that’s what makes the videos so great - she’s a mom we all know.
I did a deep dive on Limperis this week and was pleasantly surprised that not only does she make the funniest laugh-out-loud videos, she’s also a talented writer. Of the 25 pieces of writing on her website, over 20 are about her Dad and his death. He was diagnosed with brain cancer and died a year later in 2015.
I know very little of grief and loss but felt drawn to read everything Limperis had to say about the subject. In my favorite post Limperis explains that she does not believe in the stages of grief:
“I just screamed into my pillow. I screamed and kicked and snotted. Like a kid. Like the moment it happened. Like I was surprised. Like it was new. It’s been about three years… and I reacted as if I was surprised. As if someone had just told me the news.
“There are no stages. There is no number of years that make it better. There is no better. There is just days where the grief is hiding, days where grief is building and days where grief is driving.”
But let’s not end on a sad note. Limperis never does. She even performed a solo comedy show about her father’s passing called No Bad Days. Limperis recalls:
“All these awful things are happening to me and I can either just pity myself or I can take all these things and find what's the humorous part? What's the light in this? Because there's always humor in it.”
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Wishing you all find humor in the dark places.
Take care,
Charlie