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Happy Holidays from Midlife Mixtape

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Maybe it’s because my church did a Blue Christmas service yesterday, during which we made space for the feelings of grief, loss, and worry that ride along with some of us during the “EVERYBODY MANIACALLY HAPPY HO HO HO” holidays. Maybe it’s because, without Nutcracker-rama for the first time since 2008, we finally made it out to a friend’s Winter Solstice party where the now-grown kids continued their tradition of lighting a breathtaking mess of firecrackers to ward off darkness during the longest night of the year.

Maybe it’s that at the same time I’m thrilled to have both girls home again for the first time since August, half of my attention is 3,000 miles away on my now-86-year-old mom and what my siblings and I have come to characterize as “all the air going out of her balloon.” Or possibly because the elation of having a book that I’m proud of finally out in the world comes with the flipside discomfort of feeling like I’m bothering people with self-promotion, of begging for reviews, of scrabbling for coverage and interviews to spread the word so this debut author can someday sell another book.

Or maybe because next year, we have another presidential election, and I’m still not recovered from the last one.

Any/all of these things may be why I’m searching hard for things that are good right now, taking the lessons I learned from writing The Thank-You Project and working out that muscle called “positive recall bias” – that is, getting better at noticing positive things by… noticing positive things. Here’s what I have, today.

  • People digging into the hard work of protecting our democracy, with a sense of fun and joy. I just got an email from HeadCount.org, whose founder was a past podcast guest, saying that they registered over 33k new voters on Ariana Grande’s tour alone. Get on their mailing list – registering voters at a concert that you then attend for free is the most chill way to save democracy I know of. Unless it’s Waking Giants, founded by another podcast guest, which has the funniest/most real subscription Survival Kits for your Fox/CNN blended family (the holiday kit includes a Keanu Reeves Prayer Candle and Hand Wringing Cream.) We all know how important it is that we hold together in the coming year and we’re not going to do it by losing our sense of humor.
  • A year full of great music, and more to look forward to. Because of the book schedule I didn’t hit my customary number of shows in 2019 and I couldn’t review all the ones I attended, but there were some epic nights: Lord Huron and Khalid, plus did I tell you about the Jamestown Revival meet n’ greet at Amoeba Records where there were maybe 25 people in the audience on the day of their sold-out San Francisco show? That was memorable. And hurray! I’m back to stockpiling tickets for 2020. What about you?
  • So many great books, and more to look forward to. My favorites that I read this were “Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens, “Dear Girls” by Ali Wong, “How to Do Nothing” by Jenny Odell, and “Circe” by Madeline Miller. I’ve pre-ordered past guest Eric Thomas“Here for It” that comes out in February; I already know that’s going on my Best of 2020 list. What about you?
  • Youse guys. Some of you I know IRL; most of you I don’t. But it doesn’t always feel like there’s a distinction. Your enthusiastic response to blog posts and podcast episodes fuels my creative energy and challenges me to do better. I am sincerely grateful for every one of you who reads or listens to my work. These are posts and episodes that you guys seemed to particularly like in the past twelve months.

Blog posts

Podcast episodes

I hope that, whatever darkness may be present in your life or the lives of people you love right now, you can look around and find a breathtaking mess of reasons to hold hope for the future. I’d love to read yours in the comments!

Wishing you all the best for the holidays!

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Thanks to everyone who has bought and read The Thank-You Project: Cultivating Happiness One Letter of Gratitude at a Time, and spread the word to friends and family, left reviews on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million, Goodreads, or just let me know what you thought of the book.  (Just heard from my brother’s college roommate who particularly enjoyed the story of how I locked my brother in the basement for no reason one day.) And when it comes to last minute gift-giving, this was a cute idea I saw on Instagram btw…

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