Haley!!!! YES I love this. This reminds me of when I found myself in a social pickle that has a similar undertone, and I needed some creative problem solving to get myself out of it! Funnily enough it did involve a little planning, but more so to make space. I was a few years into living in NYC and needed to find some balance in my weekday habits. Like many eager 20 somethings, my first two years I spent weekdays saying yes to everything. By year three I focused on instilling more ~adult~ habits like laundry, 8 hours of sleep, eating healthy, exercise, not showing up to work randomly hungover, ect. After swinging the pendulum to more rigid responsibility, I found myself frustrated that my airtight life didn’t make a comfortable space for weekday spontaney and a little recklessness. Hallow beige influencer vibes started to creep in and I was SPOOKED.
To bring back some balance my best friend and I created “Debautchery Tuesdays”. We designated every Tuesday night to do whatever the hell we wanted, saying yes to drinks and wherever the night took us. It was a totally guilt free way to interact with a little chaos knowing that it was just one weekday. I remeber feeling like I had attained ~ New York nirvana ~ . I even moved any important meetings from my Wednesday calendar to suit the lifestyle. Although my life hack didn’t last forever it did teach me two important things:
1. Attend to the spontaneous parts of your life and label it as a priory - even you as you stretch into adulthood.
2. Make up your own rules! Life templates kinda suck, so have fun experimenting with new rhythms and ways of living. You don’t have to accept that you are now in “this certain part of your life”. Mix it all together!
Love it, and love the way you’ve been threading personal antidotes to your essays. It’s really doing something great!!!
I have fully embraced the spontaneous plans mentality as an adult. It’s too difficult most of the time to plan ahead for various reasons and schedules. The joy of last-minute organizing a dinner or a meet up or walk or quick coffee is awesome. As a busy person with a fairly unpredictable non-work schedule, making same-day plans has become my favorite activity!
You didn't really mention this at all, but this essay reminds me of another problem I have: having high expectations for an event and being disappointed; I think I put too much pressure on individual events to be spectacular, incredible, unforgettable, life-changing, etc. When plans are last minute, you barely have any time to come up with expectations and it's harder to be disappointed! (Coming from someone who has literally googled "how to not have high expectations for vacation")
So much of what you're describing is very much a survival strategy for the disability community; we are very much at the whims of what we have to work with moment-by-moment, which makes any sort of concrete plan difficult.
Just yesterday, I had to cancel plans to see a ballet with a friend that I was very much looking forward to. I felt excited and very available in the morning, but a few hours before our plans were set to start, my body shut down. There was/is a lot of grief in that sort of process, but there's also very much a *this is what we're working with, and that's all there is* mentality.
When I do make plans of any sort, I often say gentle pencil to remind me and my community that we just don't know if/how they will come together and to trust the process at large.
I love this! My New Year’s resolution at the beginning of 2024 was to not make any social plans more than 2 weeks in advance (with the exception of eg concert / theatre tickets) because I was exhausted with calendar tyranny lol. It was hard to enforce at first because everyone I know in this city (I’m in London which I think has a similar pace to NYC) is constantly booked up - but I felt I had to make a change for myself even if it meant I never saw people. My life had felt somehow weirdly out of my control before, even though it was just a former me who had made the plans. I can honestly say making this decision changed my life for the better! I feel more energised, my weeks feel longer and looser, and I still see all my friends very regularly and actually what we do is more varied (sometimes it’s literally just running errands together and it’s actually very nice). All this to say I relate to this newsletter a LOT and felt very seen by it!
i crave this and also find it depends on if your friends have this mentality as well. sometimes if i wait too long to make friend appointments, everyone is busy. or if someone asks me to do something spontaneous that sounds more fun than my friend appt that i made 3 weeks ago, i'm missing out on the surprise last minute hang. i find myself being out of sync w/ friends in this way and thus stick to the google cal method lately, in fear of sitting alone all weekend and feeling loneliness and dread. but crave something different!!!
Agree. Friends’ mentalities and locations. I have a feeling this wouldn’t really fly so well if you didn’t live near a lot of your friends /not in a city.
Very grateful for this piece & all its nuance … such an expanded way of thinking! Getting flaked on can feel terrible and happens in NYC far more than anywhere else in my experience … but how you feel about it is also so contextual. ie. Are you in a place of “power” in your social life? Did you just move to the city or have you spent years here? How many different communities and group chats are you part of where spontaneous plans can spring up from?
I think all these contextual social factors, in addition to having a family, getting older, etc. determine your level of comfort with the idea expressed in this piece.
Okay but explain what was going on with Sunny on your spontaneous evening lol. Asking as a mom. Did you work out with Avi ahead of time that he'd be in charge of her that evening? Or is he cool with solo parenting with little warning? Many times I'd love to join spontaneous plans my coworkers are making, but feel a bit shitty leaving my husband in charge of our two kids' bedtime alone because I decided I wanted drinks, not to mention not seeing my five year old who expected to see me again that day, in essence flaking on the default plan I have with him.
Obvs you can't sort out my life for me and this is kind of a dead end comment but maybe I'm just looking for affirmation that it's okay if spontaneity feels out of reach for me in this season and I'm still planning friend dates in advance 😅
I have also been thinking about this from a “mom logistics” mindset! lol One thing our family is considering is setting one day a week where my husband is default for bedtime duties regardless of my plans (and vice versa another day for him). That way some weeks we might make plans or not or we know we can say yes to anything spontaneous that comes up!
Totally understand this!! Honestly most of my spontaneous plans *include* Sunny and they're what make my days with her a lot more manageable! As for the day I mentioned in the intro of this, it was Avi's day off and I told him a couple days ahead of time that I had plans in the evening (they just continued to change and morph), so he already agreed to do solo bedtime, and then the three of us went to the film shoot together so it was kind of a family outing. I agree it would be hard to do spontaneous evening plans if it always puts your partner out!! Avi and I have a weird schedule where he's only available to do bedtime twice a week, so there's already a gentle understanding that he'll be around on those nights should something come up for me.
makes sense!! i do like this mindset on a higher group/family level. honestly my husband would probably love it if i (or we) made spontaneous plans with the kids so maybe i should try that more.
I also wonder if you could pick a day of the week where by default your partner is on bedtime duty, and you can do whatever you want that evening, whether it’s have a coffee by yourself out or make last minute plans or whatever. But your fam knows you’re out and about, so no disappointment when you don’t walk in the door; instead it’s a happy surprise if you decide you just want to be in with them by chance that day. And obvs your partner would get to have the same kinda deal another day of the week.
Planned spontaneity, or something. A guaranteed window for you to work with.
I was recently inspired by the 'last-minute plans' advice in your advice column.
I had plans with a friend and I envisioned a cozy hangout, sitting on the floor of my sunroom, drinking wine and eating food on boards..I was missing a long-lost group of friends who used to gather like this regularly at my home.
My friend complained that she was struggling to form deeper friendships with people in our program. She had suggested a few of us go to an overrated restaurant. I pointed out to her that maybe the reason her connections with these other women felt surface-level and inauthentic was because they were always meeting up in more formal, public settings. You can't always go deep in a restaurant...and if nobody's crying, are we even hanging out?
So we tossed out LAST MINUTE texts to 4 other women that we had wanted to get to know better. All four of them showed up, even the one with two kids, and we sat on the floor in my sunroom and ate borek and drank really sweet Moscato rose someone brought and gossiped until late into the night. It felt nourishing to deepen these bonds. With everyone so busy, I know it wouldn't have happened with advance notice.
💯 i have really grown tired of lets all meet up once every 6 months and go to some nondescript fancy restaurant that’s the newest hot spot and we can’t hear anyone speak. Your evening sounds so much nicer.
In contrast one area I realised I needed to be more conscious of making plans is getting out of town and taking a break, especially with a young kid in a city. I went a year and a half without taking more than 4 days off and it really burnt me out.
I hadn’t seen “everyone wants a village, no one wants to be a villager” before, but could not agree more. I feel like it’s turning friendships intro transactions where people are afraid of mild inconveniences and overly boundaried. Everyone wants the feeling of community but in an era of “self-care” and “protecting my peace” people are unwilling to put in the effort or endure the occasional discomfort that comes from reciprocity, conflict, or being needed. The resulting atomization is the opposite of life-affirming, and such an unfulfilling and disconnected way of being in the world.
Same transformation as a parent and I love it.
Haley!!!! YES I love this. This reminds me of when I found myself in a social pickle that has a similar undertone, and I needed some creative problem solving to get myself out of it! Funnily enough it did involve a little planning, but more so to make space. I was a few years into living in NYC and needed to find some balance in my weekday habits. Like many eager 20 somethings, my first two years I spent weekdays saying yes to everything. By year three I focused on instilling more ~adult~ habits like laundry, 8 hours of sleep, eating healthy, exercise, not showing up to work randomly hungover, ect. After swinging the pendulum to more rigid responsibility, I found myself frustrated that my airtight life didn’t make a comfortable space for weekday spontaney and a little recklessness. Hallow beige influencer vibes started to creep in and I was SPOOKED.
To bring back some balance my best friend and I created “Debautchery Tuesdays”. We designated every Tuesday night to do whatever the hell we wanted, saying yes to drinks and wherever the night took us. It was a totally guilt free way to interact with a little chaos knowing that it was just one weekday. I remeber feeling like I had attained ~ New York nirvana ~ . I even moved any important meetings from my Wednesday calendar to suit the lifestyle. Although my life hack didn’t last forever it did teach me two important things:
1. Attend to the spontaneous parts of your life and label it as a priory - even you as you stretch into adulthood.
2. Make up your own rules! Life templates kinda suck, so have fun experimenting with new rhythms and ways of living. You don’t have to accept that you are now in “this certain part of your life”. Mix it all together!
Love it, and love the way you’ve been threading personal antidotes to your essays. It’s really doing something great!!!
Great lessons!!
I have fully embraced the spontaneous plans mentality as an adult. It’s too difficult most of the time to plan ahead for various reasons and schedules. The joy of last-minute organizing a dinner or a meet up or walk or quick coffee is awesome. As a busy person with a fairly unpredictable non-work schedule, making same-day plans has become my favorite activity!
You didn't really mention this at all, but this essay reminds me of another problem I have: having high expectations for an event and being disappointed; I think I put too much pressure on individual events to be spectacular, incredible, unforgettable, life-changing, etc. When plans are last minute, you barely have any time to come up with expectations and it's harder to be disappointed! (Coming from someone who has literally googled "how to not have high expectations for vacation")
soooo real. vacations are particularly susceptible to this
can't make plans as a mom! But love the spontaneity it affords us :)
So much of what you're describing is very much a survival strategy for the disability community; we are very much at the whims of what we have to work with moment-by-moment, which makes any sort of concrete plan difficult.
Just yesterday, I had to cancel plans to see a ballet with a friend that I was very much looking forward to. I felt excited and very available in the morning, but a few hours before our plans were set to start, my body shut down. There was/is a lot of grief in that sort of process, but there's also very much a *this is what we're working with, and that's all there is* mentality.
When I do make plans of any sort, I often say gentle pencil to remind me and my community that we just don't know if/how they will come together and to trust the process at large.
I’ve found this short article about “crip time” to be helpful in explaining this concept: https://dsq-sds.org/index.php/dsq/article/view/5824/4684
Absolutely. This piece was huge for helping me name how time functions differently in disability.
I love this! My New Year’s resolution at the beginning of 2024 was to not make any social plans more than 2 weeks in advance (with the exception of eg concert / theatre tickets) because I was exhausted with calendar tyranny lol. It was hard to enforce at first because everyone I know in this city (I’m in London which I think has a similar pace to NYC) is constantly booked up - but I felt I had to make a change for myself even if it meant I never saw people. My life had felt somehow weirdly out of my control before, even though it was just a former me who had made the plans. I can honestly say making this decision changed my life for the better! I feel more energised, my weeks feel longer and looser, and I still see all my friends very regularly and actually what we do is more varied (sometimes it’s literally just running errands together and it’s actually very nice). All this to say I relate to this newsletter a LOT and felt very seen by it!
i crave this and also find it depends on if your friends have this mentality as well. sometimes if i wait too long to make friend appointments, everyone is busy. or if someone asks me to do something spontaneous that sounds more fun than my friend appt that i made 3 weeks ago, i'm missing out on the surprise last minute hang. i find myself being out of sync w/ friends in this way and thus stick to the google cal method lately, in fear of sitting alone all weekend and feeling loneliness and dread. but crave something different!!!
Agree. Friends’ mentalities and locations. I have a feeling this wouldn’t really fly so well if you didn’t live near a lot of your friends /not in a city.
Very grateful for this piece & all its nuance … such an expanded way of thinking! Getting flaked on can feel terrible and happens in NYC far more than anywhere else in my experience … but how you feel about it is also so contextual. ie. Are you in a place of “power” in your social life? Did you just move to the city or have you spent years here? How many different communities and group chats are you part of where spontaneous plans can spring up from?
I think all these contextual social factors, in addition to having a family, getting older, etc. determine your level of comfort with the idea expressed in this piece.
Very true!
Okay but explain what was going on with Sunny on your spontaneous evening lol. Asking as a mom. Did you work out with Avi ahead of time that he'd be in charge of her that evening? Or is he cool with solo parenting with little warning? Many times I'd love to join spontaneous plans my coworkers are making, but feel a bit shitty leaving my husband in charge of our two kids' bedtime alone because I decided I wanted drinks, not to mention not seeing my five year old who expected to see me again that day, in essence flaking on the default plan I have with him.
Obvs you can't sort out my life for me and this is kind of a dead end comment but maybe I'm just looking for affirmation that it's okay if spontaneity feels out of reach for me in this season and I'm still planning friend dates in advance 😅
I have also been thinking about this from a “mom logistics” mindset! lol One thing our family is considering is setting one day a week where my husband is default for bedtime duties regardless of my plans (and vice versa another day for him). That way some weeks we might make plans or not or we know we can say yes to anything spontaneous that comes up!
Totally understand this!! Honestly most of my spontaneous plans *include* Sunny and they're what make my days with her a lot more manageable! As for the day I mentioned in the intro of this, it was Avi's day off and I told him a couple days ahead of time that I had plans in the evening (they just continued to change and morph), so he already agreed to do solo bedtime, and then the three of us went to the film shoot together so it was kind of a family outing. I agree it would be hard to do spontaneous evening plans if it always puts your partner out!! Avi and I have a weird schedule where he's only available to do bedtime twice a week, so there's already a gentle understanding that he'll be around on those nights should something come up for me.
makes sense!! i do like this mindset on a higher group/family level. honestly my husband would probably love it if i (or we) made spontaneous plans with the kids so maybe i should try that more.
I also wonder if you could pick a day of the week where by default your partner is on bedtime duty, and you can do whatever you want that evening, whether it’s have a coffee by yourself out or make last minute plans or whatever. But your fam knows you’re out and about, so no disappointment when you don’t walk in the door; instead it’s a happy surprise if you decide you just want to be in with them by chance that day. And obvs your partner would get to have the same kinda deal another day of the week.
Planned spontaneity, or something. A guaranteed window for you to work with.
I was recently inspired by the 'last-minute plans' advice in your advice column.
I had plans with a friend and I envisioned a cozy hangout, sitting on the floor of my sunroom, drinking wine and eating food on boards..I was missing a long-lost group of friends who used to gather like this regularly at my home.
My friend complained that she was struggling to form deeper friendships with people in our program. She had suggested a few of us go to an overrated restaurant. I pointed out to her that maybe the reason her connections with these other women felt surface-level and inauthentic was because they were always meeting up in more formal, public settings. You can't always go deep in a restaurant...and if nobody's crying, are we even hanging out?
So we tossed out LAST MINUTE texts to 4 other women that we had wanted to get to know better. All four of them showed up, even the one with two kids, and we sat on the floor in my sunroom and ate borek and drank really sweet Moscato rose someone brought and gossiped until late into the night. It felt nourishing to deepen these bonds. With everyone so busy, I know it wouldn't have happened with advance notice.
💯 i have really grown tired of lets all meet up once every 6 months and go to some nondescript fancy restaurant that’s the newest hot spot and we can’t hear anyone speak. Your evening sounds so much nicer.
In contrast one area I realised I needed to be more conscious of making plans is getting out of town and taking a break, especially with a young kid in a city. I went a year and a half without taking more than 4 days off and it really burnt me out.
I want to cry in your sunroom! I feel like sitting on the floor is key here somehow
“If nobody’s crying, are you really hanging out” my mantra
This makes me so happy!!!
“friend appointments” 👆
I hadn’t seen “everyone wants a village, no one wants to be a villager” before, but could not agree more. I feel like it’s turning friendships intro transactions where people are afraid of mild inconveniences and overly boundaried. Everyone wants the feeling of community but in an era of “self-care” and “protecting my peace” people are unwilling to put in the effort or endure the occasional discomfort that comes from reciprocity, conflict, or being needed. The resulting atomization is the opposite of life-affirming, and such an unfulfilling and disconnected way of being in the world.
YES Sophie!!!