2009/2019

Hello! I’ve missed writing to you so much but I also don’t know why I stopped. It wasn’t my intention because writing to you has been cathartic but I guess life just got busy and boring all at once. Or maybe it made me sad to tell you about all the nothing that was going on. I think talking about nothing was our specialty. We could do it all day! And we did. Often.

Of course, this reminds me of one of my favorite lines from one of our most favorite movies –

‘The odd thing about this form of communication is that you’re more likely to talk about nothing than something. But I just want to say that all this nothing has meant more to me than so many somethings.’

Kathleen Kelly, ‘You’ve Got Mail’

I wonder if Nora Ephron wrote that about her sister. It seems right. I think sisters do nothing together better than anyone else.

So 2020 is around the corner and there is this trend going around where people post a photo of themselves from 2009, then another from 2019 to show the comparison. 2009/2019. It’s a way to see how you’ve grown and changed and, in some cases, just brag about how good you still look.

I hate it. So much.

I often joke that if I didn’t have highlights and a good dermatologist, I’d look like a president at the end of his term – old and withered and 100 years older than I am. And, as you always reminded me, there’s some truth in every joke. I am old and withered and feel 100 years older than I am.

I feel so jealous of the people who post these photos and look at them as a laugh. Hasn’t the last 10 years been something? Isn’t it funny to look at me back then? Isn’t it fun to think about all that’s changed? I can’t even imagine that feeling right now.

Like I said, I hate those posts.

The last 10 years have been the worst of my life. I feel like I lived 4 lifetimes in that time. When I think back to December of 2009, you know what I remember? Hope. I thought that we had survived Daddy’s death to some extent and were finding ways to pick ourselves up and live again. I thought the worst was done, at least for a while.

It feels so foolish and naive now. How dumb was I to think things would be ok? Less than 1 year later, we’d know Mom had brain cancer. The beginning of the end of so many important things. We had no idea.

I started rewatching Sherlock last week. I couldn’t put my finger on why it had been calling to me but as I watched, I realized it was you. Our last day together, we watched it – you for the first time. I can’t remember how far we got but definitely not beyond the first season. That little detail feels like a heavy metaphor now. Somehow it also comforts me. Us. Together. One last time.

With all these year and decade reviews in the media, I guess I was missing you to look back with me – to remember the terrible with me but also how we found ways to laugh amidst the horrors. I guess I just selfishly want you here to help me laugh through all the terrible things in life (and there are so many right now). Just laugh and do nothing. What we did best.

And now I’m laughing because I’m reminded of one of the all-time Pooh quotes and my personal manifesto –

People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.

Winnie the Pooh

I didn’t actually start to write this just to be depressing. I wanted to talk to you about all of this end of decade stuff and how I wish you were here to feel it with me. As always, I have no big plan for NYE. I’m going to stay home to watch Andy & Anderson and drink a bottle of champagne. There’s nothing I’d rather do, really.

They say that however you spend NYE is how you’ll spend the coming year. You know I don’t really think this is the start of the new decade (a totally different discussion) but if how I spend NYE this year is how I will spend the next 10 years then I think I’ve set it all up perfectly. 10 years of champagne and TV and going to bed early sounds amazing. It might be just what I need to recover from these last 10, to be honest. At least partially.

One last thing – if you and everyone with you could find a way to make the world a little better in 2020, there are a lot of us here who would really appreciate it. We need a win.

Also, feel free to join me for NYE champagne and nothing, if you can. But be sure to bring your own bottle. I may be old and withered now but I still won’t want to share mine.

Love,

Doodles