Simple Pleasure Smackdown
On grandma-core and wrestling
Welcome!
It’s the first snowy Sunday of the year, and this blog is the only thing keeping me from staring wistfully out the window with a bowl of soup.
I hope you like it.
I’ve deemed 2024 the year of simple pleasures. This is the year I finally learn how to relax. For real.
While everyone has been posting their lists of ins and outs, I’ve been scrolling Pinterest for inspiration. Because it’s not enough to just relax. It has to be aesthetic. Or else what’s the point? Right?
A week into the year, my vision board is locked. It’s filled with books, crafts, baths, and quiet time. The largest frame reads “Creative people need time to sit around and do nothing.”
That is my new mantra. That is my 2024 personality.
If you’ve ever read this blog, met me in person, or just caught a vibe from my Instagram, you’ve probably gleaned that “doing nothing” isn’t something I excel at.
I am constantly and fervently doing the most. A keener to the core.
To do nothing - as in no things - is scary and unnatural. Without things, what can I attach my value to? How will I be measured? How will everyone know how much to love me? Am I just going to get the standard amount of love? No room for extra credit??? That’s madness!
Thus, making relaxation my resolution creates a hellish paradox: I must hit my goals, but I can’t relax.
When I force myself to do nothing, I immediately feel guilty. Quiet time devolves into mental lists of the next task, next project, next goal, next everything I have to accomplish before I die. Mid-spiral, I remember that I’m supposed to be relaxing. My stress turns into anger for being so bad at something so simple. I tell myself that quiet time is part of the creative process. I feel like a terrible artist. I get up and do something productive just to stop the noise in my head, chastising myself the whole time.
Just the normal, super chill, #coolgirl reaction everyone has to downtime…
For 2024, I’m prepared.
I spent the holidays tricking myself into relaxing with meaningless tasks — also known as puzzles.
It turns out that, like a crow, I can be easily entertained by sorting tiny objects. It consumes me. Over the last four days, I’ve accidentally spent hours trying to make sense of bits of sky and trees.
Even more exciting, are crosswords. Nothing makes me stamp my little feet or chirp my little beak more than a full page of letters in boxes.
The sensation must be Nirvana because I simply cannot fathom anything better.
Similarly, there is nothing as slow-paced and simple as learning a new hobby.
To spend time away from screens, Mark and I have started Make It Monday, a weekly time block where we must individually create something and bring it back for show and tell. Last week Mark learned piano chords, and I started to sew.
While not technically “nothing,” spending two hours learning how to set up and use my new sewing machine also didn’t feel like “something.” There was no time to spiral about what I wasn’t accomplishing because I was so focused on why the heck my tension was off and where to put my bobbin and oh my god is this thing going to take off my finger jesus christ it goes so fast.
And look! I made my first little seam:
Bit by bit, I’ve been manipulating myself into a state of rest. All the while, I’ve been unintentionally creating a wholesome, grandmother aesthetic. I presently have a cup of Earl Grey in my hand, glasses down my nose, rollers in my hair, Celebration cookies in the cupboard, and a crossword on deck.
It feels great.
For the first time since…possibly ever…I’ve found ways to quiet my mind without much resistance or internal battles. I haven’t felt the pull to do more, post more, or create more in a full week, which for me, is life-changing.
I’ve also learned that most people in my life are hiding similarly old-fashioned hobbies. My coworker told me she does four crosswords a day. My boss is ordering a paint by numbers. My friend bakes for her neighbours. Another one quilts. A blogger I love recently wrote about gardening. Multiple recent social gatherings have ended with me promising to start a book club.
So I’m left wondering: Are these really grandmotherly activities, or am I late to the party? When did everyone start indulging in these simple pleasures, and why the hell didn’t I get the memo?
When I pressed my coworker on her crossword habit, she commented: “I think in a job like ours where we can literally control nothing... it's nice to accomplish something from start to finish.”
Amen to that.
With my crosswords and puzzles and sewing, I’m microdosing the productivity I’ve been conditioned to crave since elementary school. It’s just the right amount of effort to keep my mind quiet and my hands busy.
These low-stakes hobbies have made this the most relaxing start to a year ever.
Well, these hobbies and wrestling.
I said simple pleasures, not quiet ones.
On December 29th I went to a WWE show (match? game? tournament?) with a group of pals. We had bought tickets as a joke in the summer, but, somehow, this became one of my favourite nights of the year. We learned chants, ate popcorn, and watched latex-covered men slam each other into folding tables.
It was, in a word, awesome.
Next to puzzles, professional wrestling might be the simplest activity to understand. Sure, there are storylines and history, but, at its core, wrestling is about one thing and one thing only: pretending to beat the shit out of someone else.
Nice.
Regrettably, I anticipated the stadium would be filled with incels and bigots. Like I assumed only grandmothers (and crows) love puzzles, don’t only Trump supporters love WWE?
On the way to the event, I joked with Mark about how we wouldn’t fit in.
“Prepare for a culture shock,” I said, putting my book into my purse.
“I wonder if you’re the only person bringing your Kobo to wrestling,” he laughed.
Even though the crowd was overwhelmingly male, it was also one of the kindest and most earnestly excitable audiences I’ve been a part of. People caught us up on the lore and shared their opinions on how the storylines will continue. They joked with us in the stands and gave us insider tips. They screamed along with chants that kids came up with. Notably, we didn’t hear a single person swear.
During one tense match, an older man told us not to worry. “The villain won’t win,” he said. “They wouldn’t do that over the holidays.”
It was technically a spoiler, but the assurance was touching. We’re all here to feel good. Why would they let a villain win?
It turns out that the line between grandma-core and wrestling is shorter than I had imagined. Is it not the most grandmotherly thing of all to keep everyone from worrying? When everything feels out of control, isn’t it nice to know that someone has predetermined how the match will go? How wonderful to play make-believe with thousands of people knowing that the results don’t really matter.
For a “sport” that frequently has adults hitting each other with chairs, I found it shockingly wholesome.
A week into the New Year, I’ve found a way to recharge somewhere between sewing patterns and body-slamming. After 29 years of constant overthinking, I’m not going to fight it.
“Creative people need time to sit around and do nothing,” remember?
Instead, I’m embracing the very specific, very strange, Venn diagram I’ve found myself in.
WWE’s Royal Rumble happens at the end of January. We won’t be attending, but I will be baking a Royal Rumble Apple Crumble for my friends, and I won’t feel guilty about ignoring my to-do list that afternoon.
In summation:
Hanging Thoughts
What’s your wrestling name?
What are your 2024 Ins and Outs?
Some of mine:
Ins:
Baths
Candles
Morning stretches
Crafting
Afternoon hangouts
Saying no
Outs:
Late nights
Dieting
Stressing over deadlines that I made up in the first place
Checking my reflection in every possible surface
Needing validation to prove my worth
Ballet flats (did you not read my last post?!?)
Do you have a grandmotherly hobby?