This was going to be the last ten things of interest for 2024, but considering I’ve not been online the last three weeks, I felt I’d be doing you an injustice listing pieces I’ve not properly curated.
It’s a busy time of year for everyone, and I’ve been prioritising rest over everything else. When I say rest, I mean eating a box of chocolates, reading, and drinking my body weight in mulled wine. Writing has taken a backseat. I was going to take the month off to tackle some progress on my novel, but alas, things haven’t gone to plan. I try not to be too harsh on myself. It is the holidays, after all.
This isn’t an essay to sink your teeth into, just a nice round-up for the last Sunday of the year. I would be remiss if I didn’t say thank you first. There are nearly five hundred more of you than there were nearly a year ago to this day, which seems quite baffling to think about. So, while I didn’t complete the first draft of my novel, I did build a readership on this platform bigger than I thought possible. I’ve connected with more writers and more readers who’ve related and devoured more pieces of writing than ever before. It’s been a rather fulfilling year, I think.
On the Verge is a refuge for me in many respects, as is Substack. It’s been a place of solace for me when I felt I needed to get words out and the responses I’ve received have both soothed me and made me feel seen. So thank you for being there as a reader, it means the world to me to have you here with me as I write these pieces from my kitchen table.
Before we close out, I’ll leave you with a few things:
“When you start to feel like things should have been better this year, remember the mountains and valleys that got you here, they are not accidents and those moments weren’t in vain, you are not the same, you have grown and you are growing, you are breathing, you are living, you are wrapped in, endless, boundless grace and things will get better, there is more to you than yesterday.”
— Morgan Harper Nichols
Most read columns this year
on becoming
If there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that when I say I’ll do the thing, I do the thing. The thing could be anything: cook dinner, fold socks, run seventy errands in one day. I’m a to-do lister. If you give me a task, I return with a handful of small, actionable steps to get us there.
orange peel
There’s an idea that floated around on social media for a while, the #orangepeeltheory. It’s the new test of true love. The deeply unscientific experiment is this, if your partner strips the rind off the citrus and serves it to you with kindness, then their love is for real.
clear out
“When we are no longer so tightly identified with who we used to be and how we think things should continue to be—based on the past—every moment of wakefulness is an opportunity to actualize and enjoy our inherent freedom, wholeness, and perfection.”
on friendship
Earlier this week, I attended a good friend’s birthday dinner in Notting Hill. It was a group of mid-twenty girls diving into Detroit-style pizza with bottles of Riesling passed around the table. A delicious evening.
fingerprints
I heard through the grapevine that there’s a College Alumni weekend in Boston this September. Our College chat lit up like the Fourth of July. Are you going? I’ll go if you go. We should all get drunk at the tavern. Group reunion!! I looked at my schedule, I can’t go. But all I’ve been thinking about since is that it’s been five years since I was in Col…
Three Cocktail Recipes
And one last thing, Barefoot kindly reached out to me about sharing cocktail recipes and if there’s one thing you should know about me, I’ll never say no to a cocktail.
