Happy New Year!

I love the concept of New Years, it's just the reality of it that can be difficult.
 
The reality involves cover fees higher than my weekly budget (if only I were organized enough to have a budget!), a paralyzing expectation to look not just good but glittery, and a general inability to find transportation to or from anywhere. The actual night is an ordeal you put up with if you’re still single, and avoid like hell if you’re not.
 
But the concept of New Years is glorious. The concept of New Years involves resolutions.
 
Resolutions are one giant, institutionalized excuse to analyze the crap out of everything you’ve done with your life and everything you want to do next AND talk about it openly with other people like spending the night journaling the roadmap of your life is totally acceptable. 
 
I am a constant resolver. If I didn’t have to “make a living”, I would pretty much spend all my time reflecting, plotting, and reflecting some more. This may sound responsible or maybe psychotic, I can’t really tell. But what it means is that I am perpetually dissatisfied with myself. I am painfully aware at any given moment of all the ways I could improve. But before you close this email with rolled eyes at my shameless self-pity, it also means that I think if I just resolve hard enough, I can pretty much do anything.
 
This murky potion of self-disgust and over-confidence is the wondrous force that fuels my life.
 
I will spare you my many pages of resolutions but here’s a weird thing that happened. After writing furiously about the ways I vow to change in 2017 I noticed I did not resolve to change a single detail about my body. For the first time (in about twenty years) there was no thought of exercise or dieting or physical change of any kind. Before I move on, let me clarify. This is not because I’m in an exceptionally strong place on this front. Age, as some of you may have realized, brings the brutal destruction of one's precious metabolism. But, turns out, it also brings perspective!
 
I can’t begin to form words around the relief and pride this brought me after decades of letting weight control my life. What I will try and articulate is the sadness that comes when I think of the grown women, young girls, kids, even, who are perfectly healthy but because they are not magazine-cover worthy feel flawed, pinching their sides like pieces of meat, disgusted with their own flesh, letting other people’s expectations shape their entire existence.
 
Resolutions are great, but so is celebration. Of who we are and all we can become, every inch of us. For me this new year is about celebrating and channeling the power of women. In proper newsletter form, here are a few who struck me recently: Lauren Duca shows us what it means to be patronized and stand up with grace against bullying. Krista Tippett on the necessity of nuance and how technology is outpacing our ability to put it to good use. Zadie Smith on the beauty of writing, the three pillars of our existence, and the silence of motherhood. Aimee Lutkin on society’s inability to accept being alone as a satisfactory end state. Michelle Goldberg on the shaky state of feminism in a post-Trump world.

And of course my heart breaks for the legendary pair, Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds. Reynolds was a silent hero, rebuilding herself many times over, and Carrie was an inspiration, sharing her struggle with mental illness and vocally opposing misogyny and ageism in entertainment. If you haven't watched Fisher's interviews or scrolled through her hilarious Twitter feed, you must.
 
Finally, so we don’t forget the forces of evil at our doorstep, here are a few select nuggets to remind us what we're up against: a heartbreaking display of the deep misogyny (in both men and women) of the GOP and what institutionalized racism and sexism looks like in the everyday.
 
I’m excited to have some time alone this holiday for writing. I’m working on a piece about the burden of emotional labor, a kind of “dummies guide” for men who don't really think about it, and a piece about resolving to be loud in the face of subtle sexism. I'm continuing the endless labyrinth that is editing my novel about me “a woman in tech” and toying around with an essay about the joy and shame of being a childless child during the holidays. And with that, I will leave you with this. Happy holidays from my crazy family to yours.
 
To a new year, with lots of love,
 
Emily