2013: the year of “nope”;

i am a yes girl through and through. i say yes to new friends because, hey, new friends! i say yes to babysitting new kids for new families because, hey, money for me to blow on overpriced decaf americanos and concert tickets and ingredients to bake speculoos cookies! i say yes to including not-the-nicest people in my little world that might not be paying the adequate amount of rent money to inhabit that space, because yes is always best, right?! especially in this twenty-something female blog world, i can’t tell you how many times i’ve seen a twee little “say yes to life” message riddled among blog posts. and you know what?

nope. just….nope.

don’t get me wrong, i love that i am agreeable. i love that i can easily get myself excited about doing things that the people in my life love to do, because if they love it, what’s not to love? i love that excitement is something i can easily tap into, like a little maple tree that’s overflowing with sap a bit too much.

but then i get tired. and i keep saying yes. because that’s who i am. and who would i be if i said no every once in a while? ergo, my inability to say no. my inability to say “ya know, i kind of wanna go by myself to this concert, if that’s okay” to the cross-armed wet-blankets of my world. my struggle to stay in, stay put, and stay still, wondering what might be going on in the city of beans. “what’s so wrong with having internship, class and babysitting from 10am-10pm on tuesdays?” i’d say to myself, stress-eating bowls of microwaved pan-asian noodle bowls and 50% of my daily sodium intake. and then i saw this cute little drawing and it all made sense. 

such things only get harder when you spent an semester interning and making event calendars, where your only goal was to glean the internet for the funnest of events going on outside (murder mystery scavenger hunts inside museums! ladysmith black mambazo concerts! oktoberfests out the wazoo!), bombarding you with things you “must” say yes to.

this is to say i will say yes to only the things that add, not subtract. saying yes to baking speculoos cookies to the tune of the ronettes than overworking myself to hyper-rory-gilmore-ic tendencies (and we all know i tend to do that). yes to the worthwhile things (new issues of ploughshares read on the t, tacqueria dates, and my favorite two year olds). no to the  things that wear me down until i am cowering under my electric blanket with a bag of sweet potato chips and twilight zone episodes acquired from sketchy dutch tv websites. i’ll still be a yes lady, but with a couple dashes of “nope”.

appreciators to the right. haters to the left. its the year of nope, ya’ll, and you’re welcome to join along.