my joy to-do list and making the most of the time (in which we live)

I consumed a lot of Andrew Garfield content this week.

Hello Tamia Talkers! I’ve got a short late-night dispatch for you this Sunday evening.

Luckily, this week, I am still bypassing the potential quarterly spiral that comes with every passing week of my 20-somethings with some playful distraction. I watched Andrew Garfield’s “Chicken Shop Date” episode a handful of times. I’m reading “The Defining Decade” and am soaking up some critical lessons about “why my Twenties matter and how to make the most of them.”

I went apple picking and pumpkin patch frolicking with a friend before heading to see “We Live In Time.” Though the film did not cause me to burst into tears or sob as “Modern Love” host Anna Martin had me thinking that it would, I am walking away from the weekend with a great sense of gratitude for my existence in the universe, for the friends that I can call without notice and chat with for hours on end, and for the chance interactions I’ve had with kind strangers and old acquaintances.

Life is treating me well, and I am attempting to be mindful about the energy that I emit into the world. I want it, generally, to be hopeful and good.

I have mentioned a handful of times in this newsletter that I love to make lists. Among monthly rewinds and grocery lists, my most important lists this year have been my joy to-do lists.

At the beginning of 2024, I hoped to be more intentional about how I was spending my time. I did not want to waste a moment being idle or complacent. Unrealistic, I know, but deeply rooted in a general feeling that if I didn’t write down or state what I wanted, I would not have any drive or vision to achieve it.

So, I started making a “joy to-do list” for every season. My hope was that they would move me, my body, and my mind in the direction of new opportunities, experiences, and connections.

Though I have come to realize that being entirely active and engaged at all times is a sheer impossibility, I’ve found that the lists, at the bare minimum, get me out of my comfort zone and push me to think more critically about how I spend my days.

The lists have included simple activities like rollerskating, going to a ceramics class, writing and mailing a letter to a friend, crocheting a scarf, perfecting a new yoga pose, or reading five books. They have also been comprised of goals to attend concerts that I had yet to purchase tickets to, travel to a new country, or have an unexpected encounter with a celebrity (see: me standing in front of Sigourney Weaver while purchasing a water bottle at Sunset Blvd. on Broadway).

Every time I check something off of a list, I feel a jolt of excitement for having lived a little bit more life. I find gratitude in pushing myself to aspire for more and creating a landscape for intentional spontaneity in my life.

They’ve also inspired me to dream of things that are seemingly unattainable like when I wrote that I wanted to see the Northern Lights back in January and was soft planning a trip to visit my friend in Iceland. Now, the lights have made several Midwestern appearances! I have to wonder, beyond the climate change of it all, if I manifested their arrival. I am mildly into that magical thinking, even though I’ve been asleep every time the lights dazzled their pinkish-purple hues across the Wisconsin sky.

I’ve also added getting invited to the, potentially, green carpet premiere of “Wicked” to my Fall/Winter list. That hasn’t happened yet, but it would be fabulous. It’s not too late for Universal Studios to invite me.

Anyway, I write all of this to say that the lists have been extremely helpful for me as I try to navigate the semi-new feeling of life without the routine and social environments of school and internships and responsibility-free early adulthood.

For the first time in a long time, I have abundant opportunities to choose how I would like to fill my days and to consider carefully what fuels my happiness and curiosity.

Though I know life ultimately isn’t about checking off boxes on an endlessly aspirational list, I am thoroughly enjoying having a consistent reminder of the value I can find in each day, week, and season.

I look forward to spending some time this autumn trying something new.

If you had a joy to-do list, what would be on it? Let me know in the comments, I might steal a few :)