The In-Between Days

It’s the weirdest week of the year.

The holiday season is over. The new year not yet begun.

Much deserved time off work for many… who spend it sitting on their couches, bored. Aimless. Slightly anxious. Neither here nor there. 

I’m meant to relax. But I can’t. Fine. I guess I’ll do something. But I’m not supposed to. I don’t want to. Ugh.

One thing’s for sure: nobody else is writing their blogs or newsletters this week. Except me.

Do I deserve an award for muddling through The In-Between Days?

No. But I will take the opportunity to love myself anyhow.

I hope this inspires you to do the same.

If there’s any form of activity that deserves to fill The In-Between Days, it should be related to creating lists. End-of-year housekeeping. Record-keeping. For example: what movies did I watch? 

  1. The Constant Gardener

  2. Just Go With It

  3. M3GAN

  4. Blind Side

  5. How Do You Know

  6. A Beautiful Life

  7. Asteroid City

  8. Oppenheimer

  9. Barbie

  10. Monday

  11. Your Place or Mine

  12. Theater Camp

  13. Love at First Sight

  14. Sanctuary

  15. Forgetting Sarah Marshall

  16. Interstellar

  17. Fellowship of the Ring

  18. Love Actually

  19. The Claus Family

  20. The Holiday

Film was not a priority this year — clearly. I visited more new cities/towns than I watched new movies. I suppose I was quite busy living.

My favorite and most important list is that of personal achievements. Not that I expect you to care so much about my accomplishments, but I do hope this motivates you to take a few minutes during this liminal time to reflect on the things — big and small — which you’ve accomplished this year.

Then you can go back to lying on your couch.

In 2023, I:

  • WAS SINGLE FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR (this is the one I’m most proud of — that’s why it’s on top)

  • Began building my travel advisor business because it felt like obvious next step and right thing to do

    • Learned (am learning) to be my own boss. Very much a work in progress.

    • Starting writing regularly for the first time in ages — huge.

  • Left home for five months in Central/South America with one week’s notice

  • Started to learn Spanish

  • Learned to surf

  • Learned to salsa 

  • Embraced the Techno

  • Lived in Amsterdam again, while starting to actively build a community and home for myself

  • Made beautiful new friends from all over the world 

  • Experienced a sense of autonomy and power I’ve never known

This list is missing a few things that, for the sake of professional integrity (ew), I must omit. 

But one can imagine.

—

Lists lists lists. 

I, and everyone else, enjoy listmaking because it simplifies things. Lists appear to simplify our scattered selves. They divide the self into a quantifiable form: the things you’ve done, seen, eaten, thought, tried.

But of course, this is a lie. One of the many pretty lies we tell ourselves.

Life isn’t something you can put into bullets. That’s not what living is. More and more I believe that the real essence of life is to be found lurking somewhere inside those In-Between moments. Those we don’t think to write down. The ones we don’t even remember.

Because we are not the movies we’ve watched, or even the things we’ve accomplished. 

There’s so much more to it, to us, than that.

I’d happily make a list of examples of such in-between moments, but that would defeat the purpose.

Cheers to the In-Between, the Unknown — and Happy New Year.

ONWARDS,

Mag 

Maggie PecorinoComment