Holy shit is that you?! We haven’t talked since LAST YEAR.
If you haven’t closed out this web page after that horrendous dad joke, then fucking WELCOME.
Welcome to chapter 1.
Welcome to the fresh start, the do over, your second (or third or fourth or fifth) shot at your resolutions from last year. Welcome to the first month of the year, welcome to my first post of 2021 and most importantly, welcome to all of my supportive followers, both new and old.
In light of the last 365 days of chaos, I’ve done a lot of big picture reflecting as of late. It’s been a monumental time in all of our lives. Whether you’ve felt it personally or experienced the chaos secondhand through CNN & Twitter feeds, you’ve definitely asked the universe “what the fuck?” at least once or twice recently.
Let’s just say I’ve had a few choice words with the universe in the past year; I’ve had a few one-sided fights with god, and I’ve just about memorized my bedroom ceiling trying to find an explanation for far too many questions I have yet to come up with an answer for in the middle of the night.
To tack on to my ever-growing 2021 new year’s resolution list (I’m at 24 if you’re wondering). I decided to stop fighting with the higher powers and to instead find peace throughout all this chaos. Instead of choosing to be sad and angry and negative I have decided to pick a different route.
I have decided to choose being “lucky”.
Yes… I said it: I’m lucky.
When you really think about it, we all are.
To be honest it sounds a little silly even reading that sentence out loud when I proofread this. My track record for the past 365 days hasn’t been all that hot. To kick off my 2020, I had a crazy allergic reaction that caused months of a face full of painful, and unavoidable acne, I got a speeding ticket a year ago today, I’ve been working from home in my basement like a fucking hermit instead of living my main character life in Detroit since this pandemic started, TWO of my family members were diagnosed with THREE types of cancer this summer (you can do the math on that one), my house was broken into, my dog got brutally attacked, I watched my mom go through Chemo in the middle of a pandemic, and I had about 156 mental break downs in between it all.
I’ll stop there because this is beginning to sound a lot like a “pick me” college admissions essay and I don’t ask for, nor do I accept pity.
The greatest lesson I have learned this year is that only way out of hell is through it, and if you haven’t figured that out yet, well… then I suggest you stop sending out invitations for your pity party because absolutely no one is RSVPing.
And that my friends is why I have come to the conclusion that I can choose to be sad, mopey and weird about the hell we’ve all been through this year or I can choose to be lucky.
We all can.
When you really think about it, the odds of all of us ending up on in the same galaxy, in the same universe, on the same planet, in the same continent, in the same country, state, city, and 100-mile radius is unspeakably beautiful. The fact that I’m writing this right now where I am and you are reading this somewhere else out there is something so beautiful I think we fail to really think about how much luck is shared amongst all our mundane experiences.
Of the 600 million sperm that set out to fertilize the egg that makes you, you; your sperm was the fastest.
Of the improbable amount of times you could have died: being dropped as a baby, all the times you fell off your bike onto the concrete in adolescence, that one party in college where you don’t remember leaving or what substances you consumed, the time you were way too tired to be driving, or all the times you ran across the street without looking. Of all the close calls you’ve ever had, congrats, because you never kicked the bucket.
Of the hundreds of thousands of people on this earth, the people you call or have ever called your best friends, your boyfriends, your girlfriends, your husbands, your wives, your domesticated partners; your people, are your people… The odds of you being in just the right place at just the right time to meet them let alone add them to your roster of acquaintances is proof that we experience luck and the blessings of life every single day.
I mean truly, think about all it takes for a person to fall in love with someone else. The odds of two people checking off all the boxes each other has, being within the same ballpark age range, being in the same place geographically, being attracted to one another and also god forbid both not being serial killers is a one in a million chance. (although the serial killer thing sometimes is a ‘wait and see’ situation so watch out for that… lol.)
My point is, there are miracles, blessings, and luck around us every day. I don’t know if it’s the universe deciding to align when it feels we deserve it most, maybe there’s some invisible angel that follows us around and steers us out of harm’s way, or it could be that cupid really is real.
Whatever higher entity is the reasoning for the luck we experience in life, it is not as important as to ‘how’ all of this happens, but more so that it happens in general. I believe that coincidences is god (or whatever higher power you believe in) saying “hey, it’ll make sense eventually, keep going!”
January 1st, 2021 was not the pinch to wake us up from the bad night terror we called 2020, It’s not a fairy godmother here to end a pandemic with a magic wand, and it’s not the beginning of the end yet. I’d love to say it is but between the capitol being stormed by the farmers of America and Jeffree Star’s alleged affair with Kanye West I literally cannot even SLIGHTLY promise that this is the end yet lmao.
What this new year is though, is an opportunity to take a step back and look at your life from a different perspective. Can you be more appreciative? Can you find at least one good thing amongst all the bad? Can you be a better person? A better friend? A better partner? Can you love more? Be a little more selfless? Can you give more? Listen more? Understand more?
Are you able for one second, look at all the chaos in front of you and instead shift your focus to the people that are standing beside you?
If you can answer yes to at least one of those questions, then you are one of the lucky ones.
We all are.
Luck is not found, it’s made; and sometimes getting everything, you DON’T want is the luckiest thing life can offer us.
Happy New Year suburbia.
I hope 2021 is your healthiest, happiest, luckiest year yet.
Until next week.
xoxo,
Carlie Bradshaw
Sex & The Suburbs 