A case of the fuck-its

A year ago, I got a really bad case of the fuck-its. 

In case you don’t know what the fuck-its are, here’s the definition from Merriam-Webster. 

Fuck-its (noun): overwhelming feelings of indifference toward something that once seemed important.

Okay, Merriam-Webster doesn’t have that in their dictionary, yet. That’s my definition. 

The irony of getting the fuck-its is that you actually still care a lot about whatever you’re saying “fuck it” to. The act of saying “fuck it” to something is really just an attempt to diminish the value of whatever “it” is. It’s a coping mechanism for knowingly making a suboptimal—or maybe even harmful—decision. 

After all, does anyone say “fuck it” when they know they’re making a good decision? Generally, no, they don’t.

(Have I said fuck enough times in this post yet? I don’t think so.)

For me, my fuck-its came along in April 2021. In all fairness, I think society as a whole was saying “fuck it” to everything at that point, but that’s not the moral of this story. 

So what was my fuck-it moment? well, I went to a bar for the first time in more than a year, I had two beers, and I went home.

Now, before anyone jumps down my throat, I get how that sounds. Jesus, Vanessa, have a life! That’s nothing! 

And in my defense, it was actually a good moment. 

One of my best friends and I had both secured jobs in New York City. I had gotten my bootleg Johnson & Johnson vaccine weeks earlier. After many months of lockdown, I was learning how to conversate with someone who wasn’t my cat or an inanimate object. Things were looking up. 

But the problem with my fuck-it moment was that I hadn’t drank alcohol since April 2020.

After just a few weeks of lockdown in April 2020, I could see that the isolation from living alone was starting to get to me. And I also knew that the newfound social acceptance around drinking alone in your apartment, coupled with Zoom happy hours, quaran-tinis and to-go cocktails, was going to be a recipe for disaster for me. This recent article from the New York Times tells me I wouldn’t have been alone in my struggle. 

So, I white knuckled through staying dry for months. And by April 2021, I was days away from hitting an entire year alcohol free. 

And then, on a random Friday, at a random bar, I decided, “you know what? fuck it. I’m having a beer.” Fuck sobriety, fuck 340-something days, fuck habits, fuck everything. Fuck. It.

And that small fuck-it moment led me back to drinking while I navigated a cross-country move, a new job, and a new city. 

And it left me wondering, “did any of those days really mean anything if it took just one fuck-it moment to unwind them all?” Maybe “it” (not drinking) didn’t actually mean that much to me.

It took months to figure out why it did. Old habits reemerged with a vengeance. My pandemic workout routine disappeared. My sleep was terrible. I was miserable. 

I wondered why I even left my safe little apartment in Sacramento at all.

All I wanted to do was go back into lockdown because I proved to myself that I was safe there. I’m weak! I have no discipline!

It felt like the only way that I could protect myself from the power of the fuck-its was to take all temptation out of my life. To stay inside forever. 

But that wasn’t really an option. I had to settle. Settle into this new city, settle into my new life, settle into my discomfort. 

So i started over. My last drink was on august 7, 2021.

Fast forward to April 2022, nearly eight months later. 

Spring has sprung in New York. I’ve been amazed by how all the trees went from bare to in bloom over just a couple of days. It feels like magic.

And as a lifelong Californian, I feel a sense of pride in getting through my first East Coast winter. Fuck you, seasonal depression! 

The gal who moved from San Diego to northern California having never owned an umbrella or a pair of closed-toe shoes made it through a couple of snow days, y’all. Growth!

But with warm weather on its way, I can’t help but also feel a sense of dread. I’m afraid of getting another case of the fuck-its. 

Fuck-its are like cicadas, they thrive in warm weather.

And ask any non-drinker in your life, warm weather is triggering as fuck for us. It doesn’t matter how deeply I know that drinking makes me a worse human being, a cold beer on a warm summer day will always sound like a good time. 

But in writing this, maybe I’m taking a little power back from the fuck-its. Maybe in acknowledging their power, acknowledging their seductiveness and their simplicity, I can let them pass when they inevitably come along.   

And instead of saying fuck it, I’ll just give a fuck instead.

(Final post fuck count: 30)