The guilt of the good
A resolution of gratitude.
I have a habit, honed perhaps by a lifetime living in the Upper Midwest and/or watching the Minnesota Vikings play football, of expecting the worst to happen just as things are starting to get really good.
The sort of paradoxical thinking, if not caught in time, can rob a person (such as myself) of the full experience from the best life has to offer.
Instead of basking in those moments of life that bring pure joy, the sentiment is replaced by a strange desire to speed things up to make sure things do, in fact, stay good. When they do, it’s more a relief than anything.
And then it’s on to the next thing.
I’ve become considerably better in recent years at not living in this space, but two factors can still drag me back in:
First, the generally heaviness of the world and deluge of bad news sometimes conspires to make me wonder if any of us (not just me) deserve to have nice things — irrational, sure, but true.
Second, it is easier to be in a better and more present headspace when there are minimal or at least baseline stressors in your life. For me, significant disruptions to that peace — or even an accumulation of small ones — can put me in a mode of existence prone to seeking relief instead of joy.
Lately, as I think on it, it’s been an accumulation of seemingly manageable individual things — sick kids, compressed schedules, a household repair, getting ready for the holidays and thinking about a busy January, all in the midst of cold and dark days — that have nudged me in that direction.
I was grateful, then, to also experience a simple but significant nudge back toward the joy of the present.
A lot of what I write tends to start from a thread of what someone else has written. On Saturday, as I read The New York Times “The Morning” newsletter authored by Melissa Kirsch, two things happened.
First, the entire end-of-year piece was dedicated to “your favorite things” — small moments from the lives of readers in 2024 that gave them joy. It might have been a movie or a meal or something new they started doing. But it was a small reminder, permission of sorts, that we all need and are worthy of these moments.
More specifically, one reader wrote in with this change in her routine: recording at least one “positive thing each day” on a “Tell Me Something Good List.” The result: “Over time, it became easier to find the positives,” she wrote, “and now I’ve got a record of so many small memories that would’ve otherwise been forgotten.”
She did it as a way to manage depression. Maybe some of you already do this, or have done it in the past, or have said that you should do it.
I know I’ve been through the cycles a few times before — not so much because I struggle to find the good things in life but because I have found myself in need of a reframing of how I interact with those moments.
As I wrote things down in this case, I had that experience: transforming guilt into gratitude for what had already happened and seeking joy over relief in what is yet to come. Here are some of the things that brought me to that place:
I took our kids recently to watch some high school sports at Eagan High School. We started out at a gymnastics meet because our 10-year-old is very much into gymnastics, and I wanted her to see a higher level of competition. Our two younger kids complained, but the oldest was into it and so we stayed as long as we could. On the way out, we stopped to watch part of the boys’ basketball game in the larger gym. They all got snacks at the concession stand and again the oldest — who will be in middle school next year — got seriously into the game. I could see the wheels turning and the doors opening in her mind as she imagined what was yet to come for her.
Our 8-year-old has been a massive fan of the Sonic the Hedgehog movies for the past few years and has been counting down for many months until the third installment was released. We bought tickets, of course, for opening night Friday which coincided with the start of winter break. She wore Sonic gear from head to toe and brought two of her stuffed animals. At the end of the movie, she clapped loudly — then gasped and squealed when the post-script indicated that one of her favorite characters would be in the fourth movie. Now the countdown to 2027 has begun.
We were in the car recently at sunset, an amazing display of vivid colors that almost looked like a rainbow comprised of horizontal lines. A shaky picture through the windshield didn’t come anywhere near doing it justice, but our 8-year-old said, “That’s OK. We’ll still have the real picture in our heads.”
My wife and I had dinner last weekend, just the two of us, at a local spot. It was nothing fancy, just a bar and grill, but the food was good and the vibe was simultaneously lively and cozy. We weren’t under any pressure to eat fast. There were no other looming deadlines (at least not immediate ones). It reminded me of a time and place in the past, and it was a nice place to live for a little while in the present.
In between all the other hustle and sickness in the house recently, we found time to do some baseline Christmas decorating. We hardly went all out, but we certainly did more than we typically had done in past years at our old house in Minneapolis. As we hung lights outside and prepped our tree next to the electric fireplace, our 10-year-old declared that she loved Christmas at our new house. Later, we all played the board game Sorry. Our 4-year-old, who had never played before, emerged as the winner.
And finally, it gave me unexpected joy to dive into a project for this site. I undertook the process of re-reading some of the 60-plus essays I wrote throughout the year as I narrowed them down to the 20 that I thought best encapsulated the spirit of the site. A lot of times I really struggle to read things I have written in the past, but I genuinely am proud of the work here and had a chance to remember some of the great interactions I had with you, dear readers, over specific pieces. My plan before the new year is to finish recording all 20 as an audio book of sorts that I will publish here on Jan. 1, the one-year anniversary of The Friscalating Dusklight.
I have some more ideas for new features and subscriber benefits, but I’ll leave those for next time. For now: May your holiday season be filled with joy and gratitude.
Happy holidays to you as well, Michael! Reading your Substack on Sunday is something I’ve looked forward to this year. It never disappoints.