A Short List Of Things I Want You To Know

1. Life is too short for shitty wine. You don’t have to drink it just because it’s in front of you—and that’s a metaphor for life as well. Whenever you drink wine, especially really good wine, you should gain more of an understanding of what “hygge” means. And if you’ve never heard of that before, look it up and remember that whenever you go get some wine.

2. As someone who is admittedly, The Worst at forgiving and forgetting, know that it’s actually possible. And when you figure out how to stop being mad about something or someone or whatever, even when you were 20,000% in the right, there’s a lot of peace in letting things go. In not being mad about that stuff anymore. In actually forgiving and mostly, forgetting. If I can do it, you probably can do it.

3. You should wear sunscreen every day, even on the days when you’re not planning on going outside. Seriously.

4. If you get a bee sting or bitten by a horsefly or basically any bug related injury that’s welt-like, you can cure the itching and reduce the swelling by making a paste out of baking soda and water and slathering the wound with it. That’s just one of the things he taught me that I’ll never forget. And anytime I see a bee in my apartment or around me, I think about it and it makes it less scary.

5. There’s nothing wrong with walking away from people who don’t look at you and see a multi-faceted, layered, flawed, human being who is just doing their best. If people hold you to some unobtainable or immeasurable standard or don’t think of you as a person, you don’t have to keep trying to keep up or being whatever they’ve decided you are. Walk away and don’t look back. And don’t worry about being a cliché for doing so.

6. You don’t have to subtweet people. You can do something else. But it’s okay if it feels kind of good to do it anyway.

7. If you’re nice to gate agents and flight attendants and don’t look like you’re the kind of person who’s going to try and shove a full sized suitcase into an overhead compartment before taking your shoes off on an airplane, it’s really easy to get upgrades and things like free snacks and drinks.

8. Taking prescription cough syrup with literally any other cough syrup will likely make you incredibly dizzy and light headed and you might pass out while brushing your teeth in your own bathroom. Don’t combine the two.

9. Investing in a good bed (so we’re talking mattress, sheets, pillows, comforters, frame, beside candles etc etc) is one of the best investments you can ever make in your life. Make your bed your favorite place to be. It will make your life unreasonably better.

10. If you can feel people pulling away, you should ask them about it. Don’t poke at them, don’t hound them, don’t dodge around the issue by sucking up instead. Ask them. Be an adult. Have a conversation. It’s okay to be scared of their answer, and honestly their answer might not be what you want. But you’ll actually get one instead of pushing them further away.

11. You owe it to yourself to learn how to stop making excuses when things happen and instead to face them head on and fix the problem. Excuses don’t fix anything, but action does.

12. There are only three plants still alive in my apartment. And one of them is a spider plant that he hung outside of my door in 2012. The other are two cacti that are supposed to look neon. Nothing else lasts, nothing else survives. But those three are hanging on strong. And something about these plants that have something as unnatural as “neon” in their name and a plant I never wanted in the first place surviving makes me smile and remember that I can’t ruin everything. And if I can’t ruin everything, I don’t think anyone can.

13. Sometimes all you can be is there. And sometimes that’s okay and enough.