Thread by @tressiemcphd

This #2020 thread sponsored by these Manhattans (catered and masked, please be peace)

(It isn’t 6pm and I am already drunk as a skunk and this is planned to go for hours. You bout to get these tweets.)

I planned for months to be able to have a cocktail tonight. I feel like Batman for pulling it off.

What. A. Doozy. 2020. WTF.

I lived in one place when this year started. Now I live in another place. I MOVED DURING A PANDEMIC.

I care so much less about so many insignificant things at the close of this decade than I did at it dawn. That is very exciting. The reasons for that growth, however, are then exciting. But that is life.

Many of my babies grew up this year and this decade. I don’t know how parents take it. My heart, it grows too big, too fast.

This decade I started learning that rushing is a power dynamic. And by the end of this year, I have almost stopped rushing. I recommend it.

How it Started. How It's Going

I lost people but my people’s privacy is their own (unless they’re in Wikipedia like Phonte). Some people passed on and others passed through. I try to think of it as balance.

I’ve combed my admittedly poor memory and so far, the best thing I learned this year? I swear it’s smartwool leggings. I will never be cold again!

My substack failed this year. Spectacularly. The platform was fine but the structure of audience and my own self-imposed expectations doomed the whole experiment . We should leave most of the people on there alone, except for the professional provocateurs. They like it.

Lauren talked me down into a nice, sensible, collaborative newsletter mailchi.mp/tressiemc/dece…

And, of course, this changed my life

I finally stopped trying to like beets. It was the most elegant break up of my life.

I get lots of advice, less good counsel but some. The stand-out this decade is from my friend Nancy who told me: “you aren’t the patron saint of Black girls. You don’t have to sacrifice your happiness for theirs.” Oh.

I took one good picture this decade. It’s this one. I won’t be taking any questions.

Okay I’m running down now. I think that’s all I know, learned and experienced. 2021 will be hard too and I’m trying to stay reasonable. But it may also be better. Being an adult is holding both of those things at the same time: better and bad.

I am writing a new book and have a new job and go to farmers markets now. Life is wild.

Happy New Year. Please wash your hands, get some smartwool leggings, order some Intelligentsia coffee, learn a little something but not a conspiracy theory, work on your double-consciousness and eat vegetables but not beets. That’s all I’ve got.