MEGAN NICOL REED
On facing up to missing out
Afriend sent me a text on Christmas night. I wasn’t sure how to take it at first. It was this kind of faux dictionary entry. ”JOMO (noun) Joy Of Missing Out. Feeling content with staying in and disconnecting as a form of self-care. Antonym: FOMO.” Was it a dig? A tip? Recommendation? Reminder? I chewed it over. Well, that suggests I did so casually. More like I masticated it. Was she trying, in a roundabout way, to tell me I had been excluded from something? My mind churned. Eventually I rang her. Put me out of my misery, I said. What did you mean by that text? Um, she said, I thought it was funny. That it was pertinent because you and I are always laughing about what home bodies we’ve become.
It’s true. I have. I recognise it’s where I’m happiest. Pottering, left to my own devices. I am a reformed-extrovert. But the part of me that used to be more outgoing, wilder, still pines, just a little. Recently my daughter noticed I was out of sorts and asked what was wrong. Oh, I said, I guess I’m feeling a bit left out. Left out, she exclaimed. I thought only kids felt left out. Certainly it’s a sign of maturity to accept you will not be invited to everything, that if your friends throw a dinner party and you’re not invited, it isn’t necessarily an indictment on you (although it might be because at their last dinner party you thought it would be funny to relieve yourself in their kids’ Wendy house). But to actually find the joy in missing out, the silver lining in not being part of the good times, that’s next level Zen.
Perhaps it has to be a choice you’ve made. If you’ve been passed over, overlooked, rejected, then you can package it up any old way you want, you can #gratitude #countingmyblessings #somuchtobethankfulfor the hell out of it, but at the end of the day it will still suck. I reckon a degree of self-awareness probably helps, too. If you can admit you’re no Sporty Sam, then you’re more likely to be at peace with the fact no one ever asks you to sign up for the office touch team. You need to know what floats your boat. Own what leaves you cold. It always cuts me up to miss out on cake, weddings, wakes. Theme parties, rugby matches, karaoke nights: not so much.
If winter is an introvert, the season to work your way through that box set of Sons of Anarchy, then summer is an extrovert. The season to catch a Twenty20 Cricket match. Check out the Lantern Festival. Find your groove at Splore. So much fun to
It’s a sign of maturity to accept you will not be invited to everything, that if your friends throw a dinner party and you’re not invited, it isn’t necessarily an indictment on you.
be had! Come the end of January, though, after Christmas and New Year’s, after the holidays, my house is usually a tip, and I feel positively anti-social. All I really want to do is tidy and clean and sort and when I am done sit on the couch, with the last of the Christmas cake and watch telly. And so I do, however my pleasure is always marred by a sense of guilt. I should be getting amongst it. Making hay while the sun shines. Larging it up. But these past few weeks, when I’ve seen people heading to the beach, cars laden with boogie boards and umbrellas, when I’ve smelt a barbecue, heard people laughing over the back fence, I’ve been practicing thinking: I’m okay with this. I’m staying in and I’m disconnected and right now that’s just how I like it.
FOLLOWING ON
Miranda shared her thoughts on parenting around alcohol. She allows her 9-year-old to have a taste when she is having a drink. “He is instructed on the varietal/how the drink is made, asked for his opinion and generally expected to appreciate the drink … He has also been part of conversations when I plan to go out to an event, with discussions on how I will get to the event and get home safely. And been in the car the next day when we have returned to pick up my car. He has seen us drink one drink and be satisfied … So I hope that by the time he’s seriously interested in drinking that he knows what alcohol is and skips over the ‘binge drink to see what it’s all about’ stage. And he knows how to appreciate alcohol and keep himself safe when he does decide to have more than one drink. And that one drink is a perfectly respectable number to consume. And non-alcoholic drinks are also a perfectly acceptable alternative.