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I’ve been meaning to write something this week, but I’ve had so much work-writing that my brain power reserved for personal-writing does not exist. It checked out. Left the building. Hope she comes back. Instead of waiting for her triumphant return, I decided to just start typing, pen pal style, and see where we end up before I need to leave for work. Let’s see what happens, shall we?
Okay. Hiiiiii.
Good morning, cute people of this newsletter. I’ll paint you a picture of my vibe right now:
I’m in bed, and have about 30 minutes before I need to workout and walk into work. It’s beyond hard to get outta bed because the sky looks so, so pretty right now, and I have front row seats from my very cozy bed.
Woah. Anyway. I’ve been up for a while, just poking around. I’m in bed with coffee (iced, black, only a few cubes because our ice tastes weird and we don’t dilute our coffee in this house). No pants. Surrounded by a stuffed elephant named Albert, my kindle, my phone playing JB’s new album, and 2 identical thermometers.
Am I sick? Nope. Why the thermometer? Why 2? Cam’s been sick and although we LITERALLY kissed through saran wrap because we were so sad we couldn’t kiss, I’m still nervous I’ll catch the bug before we travel this weekend. I woke up in the middle of the night feeling hot — which, I generally always do, but anxious Taryn immediately thinks this time is different — and grabbed my thermometer. It happened to be next to another and I thought, huh — what if one gives me a shit reading? What if the batteries dead? Where do you even get these little tiny batteries if I ever needed to change it? Whatever — too many factors to just grab one, so you bet your sorry ass that I took my temperature twice on two identical thermometers, then slept like a weird little health-anxiety angel, nestled next to her medical devices. God, I’m wild.
In honor of the 2 thermometers, here are 2 thoughts I’m thinking about this morning:
Same place, different you.
I was looking at all my travel plans so far this year and most of them are places I’ve been before. Actually, they’re places I’ve been like… 3-15 times. Vegas. Kauai. Cancun. A tennis tournament in Palm Springs. Amsterdam. And I honestly couldn’t care less. It’s honestly the opposite — I cannot wait. Let’s talk Cancun for a second. I’ve gone every year since… honestly, since I can remember. My parents let me bring a friend or 4 every year. Yes, the place is the same. The activities are the same. The meals and the condos and the weather, mostly. It’s all the same. But it’s different every year because I’m different every year. Some of my wildest personal moments have happened in the same spot of the same pool in the same month, over and over again. I’ve cried with a stranger. I’ve had a panic attack. I’ve decided I was in love and decided I wasn’t. It’s wild. So, when my brothers or my friends who’ve gone before ask, “You’re doing Cancun AGAIN?” I say yes, but I want to say, “Yes, I’m going again. But also a new me is going this time. Old me and new me. We’re gonna have fun.”
Different place, same words.
Speaking of same and different — how crazy is it that you — yes, you! You in all your you-ness — are reading these words wherever you are in the world. In an uber. At your desk. At school. At your wedding , which, please put your phone down. In London or Africa or Iowa. You are reading the same words that someone else is reading somewhere completely different from you, or maybe the next house over and you don’t even know it. Like, have you ever been in a book club and felt some weird kind of closeness to the people in it, because you’ve both just spent all this time sat there reading the same sentences, wondering the same things, googling the same words because what the fuck does that one mean? There’s a weird community in shared experience, but especially when it comes to shared reading. Because you’re really shared thinking.
So, if you feel alone right now, just know this. There are lots and lots of other people reading this exact word right now. How cool. I hope it makes you feel a little less lonely.
Alright, cool. I gotta get up.