Celebration as an act of forgiveness

What your 2020 planner says about you.

Last year, I spent too much money on a fancy planner. It was cloth-covered, mint green with a gold-embossed flower on the cover. The pages were themed around floral delights. It was a beautiful objet.

The diary was from an Australian brand, Frankie. That’s an indie women’s magazine that costs the price of a good salad with added protein in Dublin. Think thick matte paper, interesting content about niche businesses and hobbies, a bit worthy. It doesn’t suggest any sex gymnastics you must try before dying or anything gas like that. If I was to say anything mean about it I would say it’s a magazine that provokes a woman who owns a linen dress to take a photo of the magazine's illustrated cover face up on a table in a café like Love Supreme in Stoneybatter. You know what I’m getting at. Frankie suggests that you know someone who owns an allotment and that you have had success with apple cider vinegar. I like Frankie.

I ordered the planner from a shop in Sweden because ordering anything direct from the very antipodes means you probably shouldn’t have a line of credit. It came wrapped in bubble wrap and then one of those quilted envelopes. No harm was coming to this planner. And then nothing really happened to it.

Quantifying the year is a popular pursuit on social media this time of year. There is humblebragging, there is kindness to the self, there is unintentional causing of anxiety to others, there is some forgiveness.

My planner languished. Because, well, I had a year of deadlines and end dates, and the looming numbers, the neglected word count goals, the direct debits, they all glared too brightly at me. They gave me mental hives. Also, the book was too big to just throw in a bag. It needed room. It became a physical weight.

A few days ago I asked people their proudest moment of the year so that they would ask me in turn. Of course. I said that my thesis result was mine. I hadn’t expected the grade I got, a very high first. I read the news in a kind email I was sent on a Monday morning a few weeks ago, after waking far too early. As dawn bled into the sky and crept towards and through my venetian blinds, I ripped the plaster off and contacted my course head to ask when to expect the result. He replied within two hours. I cried in the kitchen where I was preparing porridge, so happy I couldn’t stand. I had poured weeks of work into the pages but I had also internalised a message that what I was doing was not good enough. My planner held the paper trail of failed goals and fuck ups, meetings that went nowhere, cinema trips I cancelled out of guilt. It was a productivity drought. But then, after all that, I had done some good.

I was told that I was obnoxious for cross-posting about my result on social media, but I say now what I said then: I’m really proud of myself. Begrudgery, tall poppy syndrome, arrogance – we have all these words and paradigms ready to tame people who annoy us. But the prologue to my explosion of joy was loud abandoned months in my organiser. I’m going beyond asking ‘let me have this’ anymore. These unabashed moments should be seized by every single one of us. It is stunning to capture and bathe in a slice of time where a human being feels nothing but happiness and pride. I deserve this. And so do you.

My 2020 planner is hot pink, hardback and a slim rectangle. I’ve populated some of January already. It contains cheesy quotes. But this coming year, give me the cosy basic platitudes.