January 1st, 2023 and where am I? I am sitting criss-cross-applesauce, smack-dab in the middle of the self-help section in Barnes & Nobles. Are You Fucking Kidding Me?!? I guess it is not just the curly, gray-hairs erupting out from my part like Cindy-Lou Who, or my breakdown at a recent November tennis match when I insisted that I get to keep MY balls where I want MY balls on MY side of the net (which, yes, I later found out is MY right so ha bitch, you were wrong and I can put MY own damn balls where I want them!), or the most obvious: I am fully sprawled out and cozied- up on the floor of the mother-fucking, self-help section of a bookstore on New Year's Day after a 2+ year global pandemic shit-show of MOAB proportions. Talk about a mid-life crisis, a nervous breakdown, and a damn cliche!
I am a cliche!
For a hot sec, I thought about hoody-ing up, head down and getting the f-out of dodge before anyone I did or did not know saw me. Instead, I laughed at myself out loud, like actually out loud for reals (because that is what 40-somethings having meltdowns do) and thought "Fuck it!" (or maybe I said that out loud too?) So Fuck it! You are here. You neeeeeed to be here. You deseeeeerve to be here. YOU HAVE TO HANDLE THE TRUTH! Hence, the lotus position and unabashed stacking of "You are a hot-fucking-mess" books encircling me.
I am so intrigued by the covers of the books. One by one by five, I pick those that will obviously cure all my miseries because - well, I mean it has gold metallic foil in the design. Wait! I begin to completely second guess everything I am doing, a cliche on top of a cliche within a cliche. Don't judge a book by its cover. I phone a friend. Actually, I text my "P/P supermoms light skinned -toned hands pressed together emoji" group of moms. (We will be talking a lot more about what P/P means and this group of warrior moms later.) I ask what books I should be reading to help my life. My phone lights up like a (hmmmm, what cliche to enter) . . .my friend J's vibrator collection finishing charging after the end of a long, rolling, blackout and supply-chain-issue, battery-shortage. Bing! Bing! Bing! bing bing bing bing - bing - bing! I look at my phone, now full of written lists, snapped photographs, shares of podcasts and audibles. Multiple times the book "UnFu*k Yourself" by Gary John Bishop shows itself like a long-lost friend (damn- another one! Ha). This IS my kind of self-help book. H to the yes. Fo to the shizzle. Then another "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck" by Mark Manson (*wait am I not supposed to be full on spelling out fuck?). I scroll and see more and more titles with * and % and ^ and # in their titles. Hook, Line and Sinker - of course I am in! In like Flynn! Eager as a beaver with a beaver that is eager!
IT HAS BEEN DECIDED!!!! Zeus, Poseidon, Perseus Jones, Wonder Woman, Shiva, Crazy-Ass Kali and all the gods and goddesses including God-God and even Yoda agree. Found the right path you have, my friend.
I whole-heartedly declare that from now on and henceforth, I am committing myself solely and definitely suggestively so, to self-help books with swear words. Amen. Namaste. Tiramisu. Bless you! Bless me!
I have found the bright-white-blissful-light pathway to my new life of zen and happiness. I've always loved the word "fuck" and now I get to have my swear words and read them too. I get to have "fuck" without getting fucked. Win-win. Self-help books with swear words. You ... get ... me. You accept my hot-tempered Irish-ness and call me out on my bullshit and make me laugh without the "gratitude is the best attitude" or "you are amazing just as you are" dumbfuckery. This is going to be a good year. Dear 2023: I, Jim-Carey-"Liike you A-laughhht" already. 2023, you're a Ryan Reynolds kind of year - I can tell.
2020 can wear my dirty, crusty, stinky, thong underwear on its big, fat Fauci head. 2021- Meh! I mean thanks for continuing to supply the alcohol and all but talk about a brown-out. And 2022, you c*&% (a love-hate word that I couldn't possible spell for real), you psyche us up for change and let us down - a year of (echoing from the heavens sound) The ... Perpetual .... Blue .... Ball (Zeus is now pissed!). Thanks for fucking nothing 2022.
But, oh! Dear Ryan 2023 Reynolds, I know you can save us just like Wrexham. 2023, I can tell you give an actual fuck and won't let those fucks just fly away. I am wrapping myself fully around 2023 with both arms and both legs; I am taking on and taking in every swear-word-forward, self-help book I can; I am no longer shying away from my favorite 4-letter word for I am embracing "Fuck!" (without the *). I am mounting Ryan Reynolds and riding him into the sunset.