Ruth Sadelle Alderson

Oh, goodie, another hard year. Having my major dental surgery at the end of 2023 knocked me out of my routine, including changing how I ate for months, and it's only now in the last week of 2024 that I feel like I'm getting back to normal. There was some hard stuff at work this year. The state of the world is, you know, how it is. I wear a mask in stores and am frequently the only one doing so, which hurts my heart and my deep sense of justice and care for other people. I did a lot of zoning out on TV and Tumblr posts instead of doing things that would be better for me.

While they feel like they were drowned out by all the bad things, there were some really great things about this year. I started a new book club to replace the one that ended in 2023, and sometimes we talk about books and sometimes I just spend an hour on Zoom chit-chatting with the one or two people who are there. My other book club continued to meet regularly, and a person who had dropped out came back and told us lots of fun stories about her kids. I had regular masked matinees (watching a TV show or movie while all three of us are masked) with my friends who have long COVID and aren't up for much else. Regular family lunches were a delight. My brother graduated (again) and it's a real joy for all of us that he got into first the grad school and then the specific lab he wanted to work in, especially because he's close enough to come up for the day for holidays. I watched a TV show and emailed about it with my bff and we and another friend did a couple of Discord movie watchalongs I got to spend a very enjoyable afternoon with my childhood best friend and her family and had breakfast with her that same weekend. The friend I watch bad movies with and I got together as often as we could around her cycle of toddler in daycare sickness, and she said she really appreciated that I kept reaching out to her. I went to the beach and replaced worn out clothing and bought a piece of art in a charity auction. I found a second congregation whose livestreamed services I enjoy. I got deeply into a couple of TV shows and wrote some fic.


Create. I kept up my weekly journaling practice most weeks, did some drawing, did some fic writing, wrote some Dreamwidth posts, and did some baking. After the election, I saw a Tumblr post from someone who says that aside from their anarchism, they recommend making something, that they forced themselves to create the day after other hard things and it helped. With one exception, I have written at least one sentence and drawn at least one tiny sketch every day since then, and it does help. I also got very excited about making vegan buttercream frosting this fall.

Get absorbed in stories. I did this! I watched a lot of TV shows, including all eight seasons of House, which is an old-school show with mostly 20+ episodes per season. I read some books I got deeply involved in. I got absorbed in some fic.

Bring new things into my life. I didn't do so great with this. I don't know how I would do this, and I didn't really seek out new things.

Strengthen connections. Nearly everything I can think of as highlights from my year were connecting with other people. I will continue to do this.

Connect to God/engage in Jewish practice. This was hard! I kept up my Shabbat practice, took a class, and went to a Jewish art making workshop. But I don't set time aside for this, especially when I'm not taking a class, and I don't have a community for it.

Improve/maintain my mental/physical health. This did not go well at all. I've been using my end of year time off to try to get myself back into a regular schedule so I can get back into this.

Go to the beach. I did this! It was amazing. I did nothing and learned nothing. I walked or sat on the beach, took a couple of scenic drives, ate delicious food, and stayed in a beautiful room in a beautiful place. It was a good practice in just being present. I will be doing this again.

Buy a new couch. Alas! This did not go well. I went to one place earlier in the year, and to three places at the end of the year. I still need a new couch, so this goes back on the list.

2023 was a really hard year. I had a midlife crisis about fandom. An institutional unwillingness to stand up for and support queer people filled me with rage and heartbreak and caused me to leave an organization I've belonged to off and on for most of my life. I had major dental surgery (the first part of replacing my front four bottom teeth with implants) that took up a lot of my energy for several weeks and kicked off dental work that won't be fully done for months. One of my book clubs ended. I continued to feel really lonely in some very specific ways. I'm still extremely cautious about COVID so I don't really go places or do things. The world is, you know, the way it is.

There were also some good things about this year: I had some really great afternoons with my family. My roof got replaced. I got my own Costco card. I got to hold a baby and be the bedtime story guest reader and a toddler sat on my lap for a bit. I continued to be very good at my job, where I got more responsibility, a significant raise, and my own office. I talked to one of my oldest friends on the phone at least once a week. My BFF and I watched TV shows together and emailed back and forth about it. I read some amazing books and watched some really excellent TV shows. I ate an orange while thinking about liberation on Passover and now I love oranges and have opinions about the best varieties.


Create. Oof. I did not do a lot of this. I did at least some journaling all but one week, did a little bit of fic writing, did some small bits of drawing, and did a little bit of baking. It was a hard year! I didn't have much creative energy.

Strengthen connections. This is still one of my favorite things to fill out in my weekly check-ins. I saw my family every month, talked to a friend on the phone every week, hung out with my local friends, and went to book club meetings. I forgot that I had a specific goal to get better at texting with people. I did a little bit of texting with a few people, but didn't really figure out how to feel comfortable over text.

Connect to God/engage in Jewish practice. I kept up my weekly Shabbat practice. I also took two classes. The most exciting one was Alef-Bet Basics through SVARA, which is a yeshiva specifically by and for queer and trans people. I didn't know until I was in it just how much it would mean to me to be in a queer Jewish space.

Improve/maintain my mental/physical health. This did not go well! I stayed up too late a lot and didn't go walking that frequently and had a depressive episode and a midlife crisis. I can always try again.

When I look back at my weekly check-ins from 2022, I find that I spent a lot of time not going for my morning walk and not going to bed early, and that is kind of what I felt like this year. I felt very lonely for some long stretches. I had a depressive episode where I struggled to literally get out of bed. I haven't hit the right equilibrium in my brain - it frequently feels empty in a bad way but also I've been able to really use my intellect in my job. That said, there were also so many good things about this year. Some of them are very straightforward: I bought new food storage containers and new sheets; I talked to one of my oldest friends on the phone at least once a week; my family had regular family lunches. And some of them are bigger things: I love a lot of the things I get to do in my job; I stood up for queer and trans people/rights in two different venues; I brought up issues of fat justice and disability justice in a context where they were listened to and acted on; my family had a good, solid aging parents conversation.


Writing. I wrote almost no fan fic this year, and most of what I did write was just for me rather than something for posting. I did write a couple of posts about movies, and I kept up a weekly journaling practice.

Strengthen connections. I had things to put down for this on my weekly spreadsheet every week, be it phone calls or book club meetings or emails. I think I did a good job with this one, and in addition to strengthening connections with people I'm already very close to, I had some opportunities to make connections to other people related to both my job and my religious congregation.

Connect to God/the divine. I continued on going to a virtual service every Friday night and observing Shabbat (at least partially) all year. I found some of the other Jewish practices really meaningful, particularly Yom Kippur. I'm still trying to figure out doing this more.

Be more weird. I have a few weeks where I did weird Facebook or Twitter posts, but I'm not sure I really hit the weirdness this year. I do think I was much more successfully myself in the world outside the internet.

Feel my feelings. My notes on my check-in spreadsheet for this range from "yes" to "eh" to "yes?" A work in progress!

Keep up with my life around a job. My job is only 30 hours a week (which I love), so it was pretty easy to work in some reading time around that. I also kept up my Shabbat practice. I did not do as much baking and cooking this year.

This was in many ways a worse year than last year. I, like many other people, hit a wall in February, and I literally struggled to get out of bed every morning for several weeks. The second-largest wildfire in California happened near enough to me that we had air quality too bad to be out in for literally two months on top of our horrible summer heat. The unemployment extensions ended, which meant I had to both go back to worrying a little bit about money (Don't worry about me - I'm fine! But not having a current source of income is scary.) and get more serious about the soul-sucking process of job hunting. The pandemic continued. I gave up on doing anything with my life other than reading. I read a lot of very bad romance novels and thrillers and rewatched GBBO constantly because I just did not have the emotional reserves to deal with anything else. Much of this year feels like a blur that I have no memory of. And also this year there were vaccines. I got to hug people again. I rehired my house cleaner and got my teeth cleaned. A boat got stuck in a canal and we could make jokes about it because there wasn't anything for us to do about it. I became a person who listens to podcasts (Maintenance Phase is A+ and I'm currently working my way through The Worst Bestsellers back catalogue). I baked a lot. I can usually come up with a lot longer list of good things even in a bad time, and there are a few more in the categories below, but this year is such a blur I'm having trouble remembering them.

Writing. I posted so little fic that it feels like I didn't do much writing this year. Looking back through my DW posts for the last year, though, I did some pop culture commentary writing, which is good. I did some writing! It's the kind of writing I'm proud of. I also continued my weekly journaling habit. I've never managed to successfully keep a journal before, so I'm very proud of myself for having kept this up for over a year. I've gotten back to the habit of writing at least a little bit, if even just one sentence, every day for the last few months. And I wrote one of my Yuletide things all in a rush one morning at the end of October.

Strengthen connections. I'm so glad I have this on my goals tracking spreadsheet so I can look back at all the ways I connected with people. I got my second vaccine shot at the end of April, so I was able to see people in person (and hug them!) for more than half of this year. Even before that, there are a lot of things on my spreadsheet. My mom and I continued to watch dance and theater things online and talk about them in the first half of the year and we went to a play out of town (in an outdoor theater) during a summer pandemic lull. I got in the habit of texting my brother jokes a couple of times a week. My bff and I exchanged emails constantly. My sister by choice and I talked on the phone once or twice a week, about both deeply serious and very fun things, for much of the year. My book clubs continued to meet on Zoom, letting people who live out of town join us, and my fully vaccinated sci fi book club started having occasional movie afternoons with snacks. I sent postcards to my niece (the sister by choice's daughter) every week or two. I chatted with my parents when I went over to hang out at their house every other week while my house was being cleaned. A friend and I returned to having occasional bad movie evenings. There was a little segment of the pandemic easing when my yoga class went back to in-person before returning to Zoom. I had take-out lunches to catch up with one of my best friends when he was in town. I took two (Zoom) classes with other people in my religious congregation. My dad and I had some good email exchanges. My family continues to have lunches together - in-person since we've all been fully vaccinated - every few weeks.

Connect to God/the divine. I have mostly done this on a weekly basis. I found a congregation whose Friday night services I enjoy that I've been watching on weeks when our congregation doesn't have Friday night services so I get to go to my favorite service every week. I've continued on with my Shabbat practice of staying away from the internet for at least the morning on Saturdays, and away from news sites and Facebook all day. I've (virtually) attended Saturday morning services when our congregation has them, and been extra delighted that they started up doing occasional chanting minyan services (where instead of the traditional service, we do a series of chants that reflect the essence of the service). I've been to most of the congregation's holiday services. I found doing the full experience of Yom Kippur (fasting and all) to be really meaningful this year. I also took an adult education class offered by our cantor and signed up for another class with our other spiritual leader that's still in progress.

Be more weird. Mostly on my spreadsheet, this is occasional Facebook posts and some tweets. I also shaved my head, which I guess is kind of weird. For my holiday cards, I did crayon drawings of birds just because. It's hard to exercise weirdness when I'm just at home alone doing the same things every single day.

Feel my feelings. My check-in spreadsheet has a lot of "eh" and "oof" in my weekly check-ins for this one. It also has some successes. Sometimes I did okay with feeling how I feel in the moment. I had a couple of experiences of reminding myself of good things that help and recognizing what was actually going on with my feelings. I also borrowed a practice from an interview I heard last year of "contact points" - when I notice myself feeling really anxious, I bring my attention to the places my body is touching the floor or chair - and it helped when I remembered to do it.

This year, uh, obviously did not go to plan. And yet there were still a lot of good things about it, and many of those good things came from or connected to the goals and intentions I set for the year.

Writing. I didn't write a lot this year, but I'm pleased with the experience of the writing I did. All of the fic I wrote this year was fic I wrote just because I wanted to write it. I started a weekly journaling practice that has been an interesting experience. I wrote some posts about things I'd read or watched, which reminded me again how much I love writing pop culture commentary. I entertained myself by writing tweets and Facebook posts that frequently entertained me if no one else. Since what I wanted from this goal was the experience of writing, I think this was a success.

Strengthen connections. This obviously took a different shape than I envisioned when I set this goal last year. However, I was really happy to fill out my goals tracking spreadsheets at the end of each week and month and note down how many ways I connected with people. I sent mail and texted and had Zoom lunches and emailed. My list goes on, and I'm really happy about it. I also got into more of a habit of taking pictures to share with people, although I did laugh about that one a bit since being at home all the time means most of my pictures were of food or my face. I'm just starting to feel like I'm getting the hang of texting conversations here at the end of the year.

Connect to God/the divine. I tried to notice when I was doing this more often and made a conscious effort to do the guided meditations that give me a good God-connection feeling. In the second half of the year, I found my way back to Judaism (again) and started a partial Shabbat practice. This has been so lovely. I've been attending a virtual service or doing my own candles/singing/prayer practice on Friday nights and then observing Shabbat in a way that involves staying away from the internet on Saturday mornings at least. Friday night services are probably the template for my idea of spiritual practice, and I always love them when I return to them. I'm finding my Shabbat practice really valuable too, in terms of giving me defined time to be quiet by myself, do at least a little bit of reflection, and remember that the internet is not that urgent.

Be more weird. Weirdly (ha!), the way I experienced this most was to be a lot less bland in terms of what I posted on Facebook. I did a whole series of selfies with run-on sentences that began, "Today's hairstyle is," which were hilarious to me if not to anyone else. I reposted things I said on Twitter (where I have a different audience and therefore tend to post different things). I made a lot more jokes that, again, were at least funny to me if not to anyone else. It was interesting how much this made me feel a real sense of freedom and unleashing of myself.

Yoga study and practice. This one did not go quite the way I anticipated. I did a lot of yoga! I had already started being deliberate about doing more of a full practice at home, so I was doing that early in the year. After I was laid off, I remembered how nice it was to do yoga twice a day when I went on a yoga retreat with women from my yoga class, so I made myself a daily schedule (uh, I am a person who functions best with structure) that had designated times for morning and afternoon yoga, and have stuck with that with very few exceptions. I tried out some yoga videos and learned some new to me yoga poses. I listened to the Yoga Is Dead podcast. On the flip side, I became increasingly skeptical about how much I agree with yoga philosophy and how it can - or can't - be translated from its cultural background into our culture.

This was a weird year for me. Between whatever physical trauma there was from breathing in the smoke from the fire, the emotional trauma of the fire, and my worrying about what it was going to mean for me, I caught two back-to-back colds and was sick from the middle of January until the middle of February. I had gum graft surgery on one side of my mouth in the middle of July, and spent four solid days zoning out on the couch and another three weeks or so until I started feeling more normal. At the end of September, I went on two back-to-back vacations, then went right back to work, which was clearly not okay with my body because I caught a third cold at the beginning of October. October is our busiest month of the year at work. Then at the end of October, I had gum graft surgery on the other side of my mouth. I feel like that one took a lot longer to recover from, probably because I was already a little run down and then the first anniversary of the fire was just a week after I had the surgery. Between all of that, I estimate I had about three months total out of this year that I was in some sort of illness and recovery mode, and maybe a few more weeks that I felt like I was still recovering mentally. I also had an interesting year in that I realized while 38 was arguably the uppermost limit of mid-30s, 39 was definitely almost 40, so I spent a lot of time thinking about what I want my life to be like in my 40s and making changes toward that end.

Write. I'm not sure how much I really achieved what I wanted with this this year. I did have some times when I really felt my way into the experience of writing. I also spent a lot of this year feeling somewhat fuzzy and unfocused. I am leaning into the idea that some times are like that, and that's just what I needed to do this year. It was a fallow year; next year will be different.

Strengthen connections. I did so much of this! It still makes me really happy to put all these things down in my tracking spreadsheets. I sent a lot of emails, texted, started sending mail to my niece, hung out with people from my yoga class, went on vacations and to local cultural events with my mom, went to the movies with friends, enjoyed both my book clubs, and got to see some of my best friends who live far away. One of the real highlights is that I have a better relationship with my brother now, which I think is mostly because he's changed, but my getting a cell phone so we can text each other now probably helped. I also met a potential new friend right at the end of the year (the joke I've been telling myself is that the post-work holiday party mood is: I'm in ur Facebook befriending ur partner), so I'll see if she wants to hang out earlyish this year.

Connect to God/the divine. It turns out I wrote down a lot more things on my tracking spreadsheet than I thought I did. I have the sense that I'm still really struggling with how to do this in an ongoing way. I think part of what I need to start doing is noticing the divine element of times when I'm not specifically trying to make that connection. For example, the day after we did Thanksgiving Friday at my house, I was singing along to Kesha's Rainbow while washing dishes from having hosted my family, and I thought, "This is a devotional practice."

Get more sleep. I think I did much better on this one. I still wrote down that I was tired more weeks than is ideal on my check-ins, but I have the sense that I wasn't as exhausted this year due to not getting enough sleep reasons.

Cut out the mindless internetting. Hoo boy. I did okay with this. I definitely spent less time doing mindless internetting and more time reading books this year. However, I also spent a lot of time doing mindless internetting during all of the rest and recovery from illness and dental surgeries time. I think this is something I need to keep being mindful of.

Take a vacation. I did a lot of vacationing this year! In fact, this week is my only staycation all year. My mom and I went to San Francisco in February to go to the ballet and in May to see Hamilton and go to the SFMOMA. In August we went to Ashland to see five plays in three days. In September, I went to Wisconsin to visit lakeeffectgirl and we went to see the JoBros with one of our other best friends. Right after that, I went with my mom and a handful of other women from my yoga class to Asilomar for a weekend yoga retreat with our yoga teacher. This does not need to be on my list for next year because I already have two out of town cultural events with my mom and a two Louis Tomlinson concert dates trip planned with lakeeffectgirl.

Prepare to move. I didn't have to move! I did clean out some things from my cabinets and have a few things fixed by the apartment people.

Volunteer/get involved in a cause. This did not happen at all. I think partially it turns out it's not really a high priority for me and partially being sick so much put me off doing anything that took more work.

Address problems earlier. I did okay on this. I have a lot of things on the fixed problems row of my tracking spreadsheet for the beginning of the year. I'm not sure if I slacked on this or if there just weren't a huge number of problems left in the later part of the year.

Share my interests/enthusiasm/excitement. I sent a lot of emails to friends, and talked about some of the things I was interested in at family dinner, plus there were my two book clubs. I also talked more about my interests on Facebook this year.

Be more weird. It's really hard to be weird when you're out of the habit! I did some singing and dancing in my car at stoplights, had post-lunch one-song kitchen dance parties for a few months in the summer, and was much more willing to be weird in terms of what I posted on Facebook. I'm still not sure how to be more weird.

Big Goals/Intentions

Writing. I dove into a new fandom and ended up writing some for that. A lot of that has been really fun to write, so I think that's getting to what I was looking for with this.

Connection. This year I had three tabs to my goals tracking worksheet. I put strengthen connections on the weekly one and strengthen local connections on the monthly one. Those rows are so full! One book club met every month and the other almost every month. We had family dinners every month my parents were in town. I went to protests and Costco and dance performances with my mom. I hung out with people from both my book clubs outside of book club at dinners and lunches and movies and parties. I emailed with friends every week. I visited with friends who came to town. I had dinner with my yoga class a handful of times. All of this made me really happy.

God. I'm still not sure how to really incorporate this into my life in a consistent, ongoing way. I was enjoying the monthly contemplative service until the rabbi started reading a book about the divine feminine and bringing ideas about the divine feminine and the divine masculine and the "divine marriage" of the two into the service (as a lesbian who believes in the full humanity of trans and nonbinary people, I'm opposed to the unnecessary binary gendering of the divine). There is imagery from one of her guided meditations from last year that I've found helpful to keep in mind. I also started doing the visualization from Danielle LaPorte's Light Scanning Contemplation semi-regularly (sometimes just thinking my way through it, sometimes listening to it). I find it's a helpful way to get the filled up with light feeling I was looking for with this goal, and I frequently write a bunch easily after I've done it.

Singing/Chanting. I felt much less self-conscious about singing around the house this year, which is good! I also make an effort to find things to sing along to in the car on the way to work as a good start to my day. (I am that person singing and dancing in my car at stop lights.)


Practical Things To Take Care Of

I kept up with weekly check-ins, and took at least a few days off each quarter. I did get to leave my town for one quick overnight to the Bay Area with my mom to see the San Francisco Ballet, which was awesome. I did not get the gum grafts done, but I've eaten a few things this month that made my teeth hurt, so this has to be a for sure thing to do next year.


Stop Doing

I did a pretty good job of not doing these things. Success!


Bonus Accomplishment

During the smoke from the Carr Fire in the summer, I figured out using the treadmill for my morning walk (including triumphing over the weight/dieting culture aspect of the displays as much as possible). It's not as good as going outside for various reasons, but it gives me an option when it's smoky, raining, or cold outside.

Usually I do a check-in and post the next year's goals all at once. This year, I'm doing the check-in today and the goals for next year tomorrow or Tuesday.

Do regular life check-ins. I did two things around this: one is that I created weekly check-in sheets. The other is that I added weekly and monthly tabs to my daily goals tracking spreadsheet. I originally intended the weekly check-in sheets to be more of a reflective exercise, and then they started to feel like kind of a slog instead. Looking over the collection of them all at once, though, I think that's more about the year than about the exercise itself. Most weeks, my didn't work was one or both of (a) staying up too late and (b) being cranky - which really brought home to me how much that was not a temporary state of affairs. This is not great about my year, but super useful for thinking about 2018. I thought the weekly tab for my daily goals spreadsheet was useful as I went along, especially when I got to reflect on the ways I spent time strengthening connections each week.

Create and strengthen connections. I did so much of this! When I made a highlights list of this year, almost all of the things on it were about relationships and connections. I made new friends from one of my book clubs who I've hung out with somewhat regularly, and I really enjoyed hanging out and talking about books with both book clubs. I have a better relationship with my brother, and I had a lot of fun having dinner with my family on a regular basis. I had a really great, ongoing email thread with lakeeffectgirl, and I did some real sharing about myself and how I felt with my whole group of internet friends. I got to spend some quality time with my childhood best friend and her family.

Go on vacation/take time off. I took at least a few days off every quarter, which was good for me, and something I will do again in 2018. Molly and I took a vacation that was a mix of hanging out at my house and going to the beach in Monterey.

Attend to my spiritual life. Doing something inspirational every day as a goal felt more oppressive than inspirational. I made an effort to make it to the new rabbi's monthly contemplative service, which I found really inspirational and something that lit me up inside. I'm not exactly sure how to carry that concept forward, but I want to, because that feeling was one of the very best things about this year.

Make time to take in art. Oh dear. I didn't do well with this one, which I think makes it clear that it wasn't something I really, genuinely wanted to do.

Speak up. I'm still struggling with how to do this. I wrote something non-fiction every week for just a few weeks, and then dropped it. I do still want to write more non-fiction, and I've been working on doing that on DW more.

Take care of my health. I did not get the gum grafts. I did start taking melatonin before it got really hot, and it helped for much of the summer, and then I was a mess in September and October.

Part 1: I feel scared to talk about how scared I feel for fear that the admission of vulnerability will make me more of a target, for either negative comments or well-meaning dismissal of my fear. I'm a woman, a lesbian, and a Jew. One side of my family is Jewish. The vast majority of my friends are women, queer people, people of color, and/or people with ongoing health issues that require care. I feel terrified about what will happen to us, to other vulnerable populations, to our country, to the world in the next year, four years, however many decades the next president's nominees sit on the Supreme Court.

Part 2: A prayer for the new year and always:

May our hearts be open.
May we be thankful.
May we choose love over hate, kindness over contempt, compassion over fear.
May we choose creation over destruction, peace over war, hope over despair.
May we choose the liberation of all over power for the few.
May we believe the stories of others and may our stories be believed in turn.
May our wishes for life, health, and happiness extend beyond the borders of our own families, our own communities, our own countries.
May the entire universe be filled with peace and joy, love and light.
May our hearts be open.

You may remember that one of my intentions for this year was some sort of spiritual refreshment. I want to be able to talk about that, and also it's an area where I feel very sensitive and vulnerable, and where it would be really easy for other people to unintentionally hurt my feelings. There are two things I want out of talking about it: (a) the opportunity to talk it out and (b) nonjudgmental listening. So first of all, I'm posting to LJ instead of emailing people about it because if no one responds to my LJ post I won't be upset where I would feel ignored if no one responded to that kind of email. Secondly, I'm going to change my usual if you write a comment I will reply to it approach to comments for these kinds of posts. If you want to empathize, ask questions, tell me about your experience, acknowledge the reality of my feelings, that would be awesome and I would love to have conversations with you! If your comment tells me I'm wrong about what I think or feel about my own experience or tells me what I should do when I haven't asked for advice, I'm not going to reply to it. That might seem like a lot of verbiage, but I think I need to be clear about my expectations and boundaries around this.

In a case of when the student is ready the teacher will appear (or the student will notice the teacher, since I have read one of her previous books), I followed a link to Danielle LaPorte's website, read almost all of her posts, and then bought her most recent book, The Desire Map: A Guide to Creating Goals with Soul (I promise I'll make a post about the book itself when I'm done with it). I've read my way through the theory part, and am just started in on the desire mapping process/workbook part of the book. (Note: she has a whole book club associated with the book; if anyone else wants to also read it and do an online book club, I would totally be into that.) The basic premise of the book is that you figure out how you want to feel (what she calls your core desired feelings) and then build goals that will help you feel that way.

The workbook section of the book starts with what she calls "soul limber": a bunch of prompts designed to "loosen some of the calcification from your intellect and get you closer to your heart." The first one is, "I crave," and I wrote down "ATTENTION." I then spent the next few days getting the weirdest feedback on fic, which reminded me that sometimes when you ask the universe for something, you get it. So then I started thinking very loudly, "Okay, universe, when I said 'attention,' what I really meant was 'positive attention.'"

Maybe a month or so ago, I was doing yoga, and I thought to myself, "All I want is for someone to pay attention and listen to me," and then burst into tears because it's such a fierce wish, and such a deep one. (Also in my list for the "I crave" prompt: "to be heard.") I have a hard time untangling how much of that is a response to junior high trauma and how much of it is a basic human wish to be seen and heard. I listened to this interview with Danielle about desire mapping, and she talks about how some people look at how they want to feel and say that it comes from a wound, and her response to that is, "So what?" Even if it comes from a wounded place, it's still something you genuinely want to feel. I really like that framing, and particularly the way it says it's okay to want to feel however you want to feel.

So back to wanting attention. There's an episode of The Simpsons where Bart jumps around the room saying, "Pay attention to me!" I think it's supposed to be a joke about his attention-seeking behavior and how he can't stand for Lisa to be the center of attention even once, but I think about that scene a lot because I feel that way a lot. My want for attention often feels needy, greedy, and desperate. (Which is probably related to the cultural idea that attention-seeking is a bad thing, which means that wanting attention that much is also bad. Or maybe there's something there where I don't quite feel worthy of more of it.) I really like Gretchen Rubin's happiness commandment of "spend out," and that's what I've been trying to do: when I'm feeling ignored or not paid attention to, I spend out by paying attention to other people, or when I'm feeling not exactly unloved but not as loved as I want to in the moment, I spend out by sending someone else a love note (emailed or on paper). What's harder is to ask for attention. I've done it sometimes, mostly on Twitter, but I try to save it for those times when I'm having a really bad day and really, really need the support. I don't know if this a good strategy in that it does get me some attention when I'm feeling icky or a not good enough one in that I could get that need for attention filled more often if I just asked for it. The scary part is: what if I ask for it and no one gives it to me?