letter #46

Five recent five-star experiences

My dear friend

I’ve been loving putting together my (Second) Annual, World Famous, One Night Only, Live Christmas Letter Reading (tickets here) ready for next week. It does do exactly what I want it to do and provide a light-hearted, low-key time.

But at the same time, it doesn’t matter how hard I try, there’s always a time in December where it feels overwhelming for all of the reasons that life sometimes does and December does amplify and magnify things. I’ve been in and out of that feeling all week. On top of that, when you start the year with a list of plans as long as the list I’ve got it’s easy to look back and think ‘another year over and what have you done.’ Once you’re on that path, you know it’s not long before you’re in a middle-aged spiral of ‘what have I done with my life, I could have done this, I should have done that.’ The next thing you know it’s two o’clock in the morning and you’re applying to enrol in a visual arts degree even though the last time you took an art lesson it was 1983 and your teacher was telling you that your pot wasn’t worth firing.

I was awake this morning at two o’clock, and I could feel my mind starting to spiral. I tried the trick someone told me about, where instead of listing all the things I’m worried about I should make a list of the things that have gone right recently. And I came up with five five-star experiences.

FIVE FIVE-STAR EXPERIENCES

1. Last week my friend sent a message to a group who sometimes go to see a film together and asked if anyone were free to go to a movie the next night. My natural inclination is to say no, because I’m not very good at short notice spontaneity. But I said yes without even checking the movie. I had such a great time, and I saw the movie Saltburn. I had to come home and read the reviews to make sense of what I’d just seen, and I agree with everything this two-star review in The Guardian says. I agree it’s a two-star film. And yet, it was a brilliant two-stars and I loved it as much as I’ve loved a lot five-star films, and I’m adding it to my list of favourite films. Also the company was great.

2. I went for a walk on the beach to cheer myself up and saw a woman wearing bog-standard active wear, but around her waist a silver-sequinned bumbag. There’s no way you can’t not smile with the joy of things when you see that. I’ve been teetering on the edge of buying a bumbag for a while now, and I think if I found a sequinned one I’d be all in.

3. A few weeks ago (or maybe it was months, I don’t know, what does time mean and doesn’t it fly and so on) I went to the post office. I was trying to clear up a kafkaesque problem which can only be cleared up at a post office but which, even as you walk into the post office you know that the post office won’t be able to clear up for you. It was a problem which had already taken a lot of my time and energy and I was at my wit’s end. NIGHTMARE. After several minutes of me explaining my problem and the woman behind the counter being as helpful as she could possibly be but still not solving my problem she said, ‘If you like I could try ringing while you’re here.’ I said, ‘Look, thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll just leave it because otherwise I’m going to explode.’ And she said, ‘I want to say thank you for not exploding, you’re so lovely.’ I said, ‘Actually I’m not lovely at all, I have exploded before so I’m just trying not to repeat that.’ I’m giving this five stars because even though the problem didn’t get solved, I managed to get out of the situation with my dignity still intact and with not making somebody else’s day worse than it needed to be. Probably shouldn’t feel like as much of an achievement as it does but this is where capitalism has brought us.

4. We did not take the Christmas lights down last year, so when I wanted to put them back on all I needed to do was flick the switch, no need for ladders.

5. Started working my way through my Christmas watching and reading list and so far none of it has let me down. I’ve done: Gavin & Stacey Christmas Special; Vicar of Dibley Christmas Special, Love, Actually (look, I agree it’s a terrible movie, need to lose that whole Colin Firth storyline etc etc etc, but all the same and still), Antonia Forest’s End of Term (niche, but iykyk), Bridget Jones’s Diary (book not movie) and the whole Moody’s Christmas series (which is more than five stars, it’s at least a six).

Making that list kind of did help. I mean it was still two o’clock in the morning, my mind was still churning through real and imagined worries. But I think making a list of five five-star experiences slowed the other thoughts down a bit.

Well my friend, you know me, I might be back next week or next year or in three weeks (which is the same thing as saying ‘next year’ hahaha never gets old that one, does it), and in the meantime I will think of you and send every wish for a gentle December.

With love

Tracy xx