We’re happy, free, confused and lonely in the best way / It’s miserable and magical, oh yeah.

Taylor Swift, “22”

Hello, Upper East Siders. I’m back, and I’m better than ever.

Okay, sorry. I just bought an HBOMax subscription and I’ve been watching the new Gossip Girl, so it’s a force of habit. Let me start again.

Hello, all. I know it’s been a while. But with the calendars turning to 2022 (I actually haven’t changed my own calendar since October, so that was an embarrassing realization in my kitchen the other night), I figured now is as good a time as ever to attempt to be a little more regular here on the blog.

Again. 

Look, life’s hard and I’m rolling with it. Can’t be beating myself up for irregular posting out here in Contentcreatorville. 

Anyway, let me get right into it: happy new year.

I love the concept of a clean slate and a bright, shiny, entire year of possibilities open to us. What I don’t love about this time of year, however, is all of the aggressive diet propaganda that’s pushed at us, left, right, and center. 

In fact, I hate it. 

Let me tell you a story. 

I was scrolling on Facebook the other day (because apparently I had nothing of actual substance to do with my time – must work on that) and came across what I guess was supposed to be a funny meme. It said, “I’ve gone from eating pigs in blankets to being the pig in a blanket.”

Yikes. I get that this is supposed to be funny, and I was supposed to laugh, and I’m not supposed to take these things seriously, blah blah blah. 

But here’s my thing: if you’ve ever met me, you’d agree that there aren’t many things that I DO take seriously, but when it comes to diet talk, fatphobic jokes and general negative self talk that is presented as humor, I do get a little bit of a bee in my bonnet. 

I rolled my eyes and continued scrolling, until I came across ANOTHER post: 

“I don’t know what’s scarier at this point, taking a Covid test or weighing yourself.” 

…Okay. There are so many things wrong here that I decided I was done on Facebook for the night. I can’t even begin to unpack the horror of THAT post. 

(See? See what I mean? The memes are OUT OF CONTROL!)

The beginning of a new year is always a marathon of dodging horrible diet talk, jokes about weight gain and general self-hate and food morality conversations. It sucks, to put it quite plainly, and one of the toughest things to deal with is how NORMAL it seems to say negative things about ourselves or our bodies. We’re living in a society where it’s almost expected at this point.

And on top of that, the concept of “resolutions” can make us feel like we’ve fallen woefully short of something and need to “step it up” or “do better” in the upcoming year, and that doesn’t even have to be in the realm of food or exercise. It can just be in the realm of, well, existing. 

Well, it’s a new year and  I do want to pose some ideas for us all to chew on in the upcoming year. Ideas that might help us break out of a rut when it comes to our bodies and how we’re treating them and how we let others treat us, and that can generally make us stronger and more confident as we step into 2022. 

Do a little spring cleaning. 

I know it’s a far cry from spring, but the new year is the perfect opportunity to cleanse your social media accounts of pages or creators that aren’t feeding you. 

What I mean is, if you’re following celebrities or influencers that make you feel bad about yourself, unfollow them. If you’re following girls from your school years that seem to always be getting promotions or traveling to the Bahamas and it’s making you feel inferior, unfollow them. 

There are SO MANY social media pages out there that are encouraging and uplifting, whether you’re looking for diversity in your feed, inclusivity, body representation, whatever the case may be. Going through your following list and doing a mass unfollow is SO CATHARTIC. Seriously, there’s no reason why you should be coming across memes that say, “I’ve gone from eating pigs in blankets to being the pig in a blanket.” 

Do yourself a favor and unfollow them. 

“Talk nice to yourself before you talk nice to anyone else.”

One of my best friends, Shamira James, has a YouTube channel (and it’s excellent, by the way), and she always uses this phrase in her videos: “Talk nice to yourself before you talk nice to anyone else.”

And this is something that I am going to work on for the upcoming year.

Look, self-deprecation can be funny. It generally works on getting a laugh or two, as I have seen in both this blog and with my professional writing. But here’s the thing: we have to be careful with that. There’s a fine line between making a joke about yourself and then actually believing the snarky little voice in your head. 

So, yes. Talk nice to yourself. Treat yourself nicely. Stop punishing yourself for living your life, and just be gentle with your body. I mean, goodness. It’s 2022, you’d have thought we’d be knowing how to do this by now, but it’s tough to root for yourself in a society that does seem to glorify people talking down to themselves. Not this year, baby. 

Mean it.

Adele once said, “Just ‘cause I said it don’t mean that I meant it.” 

Well, I love Adele, but I’m not internalizing that for 2022. Instead, I have a different goal: if I don’t mean it, I’m not going to say it. 

Don’t mind me, but I’m about to get up on my feminist high horse for a minute. Hold on tight.

Women in society today, especially young women, are always apologizing for something. I do this all the time. The other day, I was in the grocery store, with my cart pulled over to the side like a good, upstanding citizen doing her grocery shopping, and this guy wasn’t paying any attention as he pushed HIS cart up the middle of the aisle, and it hit mine. I sort of jumped in surprise, yelping out a “sorry!” 

…Sorry? Really, Emma? You’re sorry? For what? 

This is the problem. In 2022, I’m not apologizing unless I did something wrong AND am sorry about it.

If I didn’t do anything wrong, I’m not saying that I’m sorry.

Which kind of goes along with my next point…

…Say it out.

This year is going to be the year of the boundaries. It’s going to be the year of communication. The year of if-you-have-a-pertinent-thought-either-in-a-personal-or-professional-setting-please-just-say-it. We are sticking it RIGHT out there this year. If you’re having a conversation with someone and they make a sexist, racist, homophobic or fatphobic comment, ask them what they mean by that comment. You might be able to open up a dialogue that the other person might not have ever had before, and they might learn something. 

You don’t actually need to entertain conversations that actively make you uncomfortable. So opt out. 

I vote that in 2022, we don’t avoid rocking the boat. Boats rock. It’s what they do. If the boat’s not rocking, it’s probably not moving at all, and what real good is it then? 

Give yourself a break. 

I feel like this is especially true with young adults, but I just feel like we are all SO HARD ON OURSELVES all the time.

Like, we beat ourselves up for what we’ve already done, lamenting that it isn’t enough, and we beat ourselves up for what we haven’t done yet, moaning that we should have accomplished more for where we’re at in our lives.

It’s exhausting. 

I think that this year we should all take a deep breath and do some deep introspection to figure out what it is that we REALLY want. I’ve seen enough Disney Channel original movies to know that sometimes we get bogged down doing what we think we SHOULD be doing, or what others expect us to do, or what our families want us to do. 

It’s no longer the time for that. We need to put aside our whiny Troy Bolton and become the Sharpay Evans we were born to be. It seems to me that 2022 is the perfect year to do that. 

And in that same strain…

Mind your own business.

We spend so much time comparing what we’re doing to what other people are doing. I’m guilty of this. I feel like I’m hiding in the bushes with binoculars on social media, watching as my friends get engaged, get promotions, move to big, exciting places, have babies, buy new cars, or publish books.

And to each their own. 

But that isn’t YOUR path.

You can’t compare what you’re doing to what your friends are doing. Okay, well, you CAN, but it won’t accomplish anything. They have their own direction that their life is moving, and you have yours. And both are valid, both are worthy and both are amazing. They don’t have to look the same to both be perfectly acceptable paths. 

I think that the social media age has made all of us so competitive in so many ways, but we don’t have to be. Congratulating your friends and rooting for them on their paths doesn’t mean you also have to question your own. 

So, there you have it. A little bit of body acceptance, a little bit of introspection, a little bit of preachiness. Isn’t that why people READ this blog? 

Like I said, I am hoping to have a more regular posting schedule in this delightful new year we’ve entered into, but as you all know, I’m a busy girl with lots of writing projects, so all I can promise you is my best. 

Happy new year, and remember that you have SO MANY opportunities in front of you. We’re all heading into 2022 just trying to figure it out, and that’s what makes it so beautiful.