Earnestness is a lost art

and here's how I'm bringing it back

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Recent birthday celebrations in Estes Park, CO

Today’s my birthday! It’s my 35th solar return. To celebrate myself, I thought of all the joyous hobbies, activities, self-care practices, and moseying opportunities I wanted to fill my day with.

To start, I took the day off from work. (As a rule, I do not work on my birthday. Ever. And by work, I mean for someone else at a j-o-b.)

Then, I settled myself in with the Twilight soundtrack (the weather turned into a whipping, autumnal, rainy day giving me all the best Forks, WA vibes here in Kansas). It felt like a perfect birthday gift from nature to write in such weather. This poem came from it:

Earnestness is a lost art. 

Why is it weird to be obsessed 

and give in to the aching nature 

of what feels most like joy? 

Give me the fan girls 

and stake the freak flags. 

Smile with all of your teeth 

while going down the rabbit hole 

of the niche-est of pleasures. Go

live in that warm place.

The aesthetic is the meal

Lately, earnestness has been the vibe. The aesthetic, if you will. I feel it fully in my body when a new passion/obsession/swallow-me-whole interest takes over my life. Sometimes, it’s simple things, like enjoying a Trader Joe’s pumpkin spice tea or wearing chonky (purposeful misspelling) Halloween socks that claim to be the “world’s softest socks.”

Other times, it’s discovering a new-to-you poet or a gripping series of fiction, and all you want is to tell every single person you come into contact with about that new pleasure. A couple of months ago, I started gravel riding, and being a cyclist became my entire personality.

But isn’t it cringe?

You might have noticed I mentioned the Twilight movies above. And pumpkin spice. And I haven’t mentioned it yet, but I absolutely admire fallen leaves while I listen to the crunch of them, imagining myself in an autumnal Nora Ephron film. (I also just love to use the word “autumnal.”)

There’s this embarrassing feeling that rises in me when I imagine telling others how much I truly care about these little notices. I’m not half-heartedly admiring. I’m full-on charmed.

In

Joy Sullivan

’s “Horse girl,” she writes:

“Growing up, I worried I’d be labeled a horse girl. More than just being kind of weird, I knew that horse girl meant something worse. It meant that you loved too much. That you loved wrong.”

That feeling of loving wrong, I believe, is earnestness. It’s letting the world know that you are not chill. You love so much and give so much of yourself to this little thing of joy. It’s your anime or your mushroom foraging; it’s your pumpkin spice lattes and your colossal stack of books next to your bed. It’s the way you arrange your decor just so because it looks beautiful, that way.

Permission granted

I’ve been permitting myself to give fully into the earnestness whenever it arises. Today, for my birthday, I allowed earnestness to take me out to the bookstore for a witchy romance, and to the coffee shop for a PSL. Earnestness held my hand while I moseyed through my neighborhood, gasping audibly at the wild and lovely Halloween decorations.

Earnestness sits beside me and stares into my dog’s beautiful, dark eyes, with no other schedule in mind.

Love of my life

Here’s to 35 years around the sun, and to all of the earnestness this life allows me.

Comment and tell us, where is earnestness leading you today?