Please Don't Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes

by Phoebe Robinson

  But even if I hadn’t been lulled into a false sense of security by numerology, based on everything we were told leading up to 2020, I still would’ve felt it was going to be a special year in all the right ways. Like I legit thought my 2020 was going to be me standing butt-ass naked in the streets of New York à la Alanis Morissette in her “Thank U” music video and expressing gratitude for all the goodness the year had brought me: “Thank you, Brooklyn / Thank you, Peloton / Thank you, thank you, sweeeeeeetgreeeeeen.” I mean, I had the whole acceptance speech ready to deliver on December 31, 2020, to my boyfriend while our muted TV showed Ciara doing the “1, 2 Step” on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2020. Clearly, I was naïve.

  It was kind of like in 2015 when Eyebrow Zaddy aka Michael Keaton won the Golden Globe for Birdman and was the presumptive front-runner to win the Oscar for best actor. Instead, Eddie Redmayne’s name was called and the camera caught Keaton tucking his acceptance speech back inside his tuxedo jacket. The world was robbed of his words and I think about that often. Probably not more than Keaton does, but I’m sure a close second. Anyway, I know I didn’t achieve any of the things I set out to in 2020—so many of us didn’t—but I do have the whole speech written and tucked away somewhere for safekeeping, so it seems like a waste not to—oh, are you sure you don’t mind hearing it? Only if it’s not too much of an imposition. Oh, jeez, I’m so not prepared. *immediately pulls out folded-up piece of paper from slit in bra where a gel insert should be* Thank you so much, dear reader! Okay. Here goes.

  Phoebe Robinson’s “2020 Was My Year” Acceptance Speech

  Wait! Let me set the scene first: I’m stunned to hear my name. After looking around (there’s no one else in the living room except my boyfriend, British Baekoff, but damn if I’m not going to milk this moment), I mouth “Oh my God,” then kiss him. I stand up from my West Elm couch. I’m wearing an Ankara head wrap, PJs, and period-stained undies, because why stop doing the things that helped me get to this point? I make my way to the TV, air-kissing an imaginary Kerry Washington as she hands me an imaginary award. I look at it, inhaling deeply.

  I can’t believe it. Oh my gosh. This is too . . . I mean, who could’ve imagined that a little Black girl from Cleveland, Ohio, would be standing in front of you. Wow. Okay. Of course, I’d like to thank my fellow nominees: Reset Passwords Because I Forgot the Old Ones, My Determination to Eat Cheese in Public Despite Being Lactose Intolerant, My Hairstyle That I Managed Not to Sweat Out After Bone Bones with Bae,* Meryl Streep (because when is she not nominated), and Imposter Syndrome. All your performances this year were impeccable. *cut to meme of Meryl Streep from 2015 Oscars clapping and pointing at stage from her seat*

  My 2020 wouldn’t have been what it was if it weren’t for everyone who attended the final dates of my “Sorry, Harriet Tubman” stand-up tour, especially those who confused me for literally any other Black woman who works in Hollywood. Maybe Alfre Woodard does have a tight hour-long set on her boyfriend’s uncircumcised penis and living in New York City, but do you think she drank an Ensure to get out of bed and perform for one hundred and fifty people in Sacramento who are noshing on chicken wings? Still, this was my first solo tour, so despite the occasional audience confusion about who I was, I will cherish that tour forever.

  I’d also like to thank Duolingo, because without you, I wouldn’t be able to butcher Spanish when calling Oaxaca Taqueria to place a dinner order—“Meh gustaría TRES carNAY Aah Sah Dahs, por favor”—and then lie and say my name is Karen, as butchering another language is total Karen vibes.

  Mother Naych, I used to treat you like you weren’t much more than what I experience when waiting outside for the Lyft ride I definitely should have called fifteen minutes earlier, but since I didn’t, I will totes blame the driver for not Tokyo Drift’ing in a school zone so I could get to work on time. I was wrong and thank you for opening my eyes. This year, I went on five hikes aka waddled my melodramatic self over some autumnal leaves. And I did it all while wearing a fringe fanny pack, booty shorts, a Target tank top, and Sorel hiking boots aka “Silicone-Free Tomb Raider meets Shopbop Fashion Week.”

  Many thanks to Aldo Shoes’ jewelry line because I was able to fool many a heaux into thinking I was iced out in diamonds when I was room-temp in cube zircones.

  OMG! Can’t believe I forgot! I ran a 5K! I’d like to thank the training apps I used to accomplish this feat. Alright, fine. It wasn’t an official 5K that raised money or included other runners. I just ran three miles, in poor form, on a treadmill in my building’s gym one time and realized halfway through the run that I forgot to wear my Apple Watch, which meant there was no record I could show of what I did. So I just ran . . . for my health? Hard pass.

  To my parents, Phil and Octavia, you’re now both in your sixties yet look just as good as, if not better than, me. Thanks for giving me hope that I will age as well as y’all despite the fact that you’re vegan (I eat whatever), don’t drink (I love me a Moscow mule), don’t stay up late (two a.m. is a reasonable time for me to go to bed), don’t suffer from adult acne (I haven’t had clear skin since I was seven), and generally have calm demeanors (a game of Monopoly has me looking like a U.S. president leaving the White House after two terms).

  To my boyfriend, British Baekoff, you put up with a lot, namely me forcing you to watch two-hour-long U2 concerts (comprised of fan videos of wide-ranging quality) on YouTube. There’s no one else I could do this with. Thank you. I love you.

  Finally, I’d like to thank my laser hair removal specialist. It’s been a long journey, and without you, I’d still have a mustache like the one Shemar Moore rocked on CBS’s Criminal Minds.

  As I soak up the love from this nonexistent audience, my boyfriend asks, “Can you stop blocking the TV?” I make my way back to the couch and see that he ate the last of the Cheetos Puffs, which would normally be a bummer, except I have an emergency stash for these kinds of moments. “God bless Frito-Lay and 2020,” I say to myself as I pop open a fresh bag of Cheetos.

  The. End.

  Not bad, eh, dear reader? In all seriousness, while not everyone had a speech prepared, many of us did anticipate that 2020 was going to kick off the decade in spectacular or at least better fashion, which helps explain why the coronavirus felt like such a deeply personal attack. These are 100 percent valid reactions to the new world we’re navigating. We have the right to feel duped. To lose faith and question whether we should’ve had it in the first place. For many, those fun butterflies in our stomachs have been replaced by, well, sheer panic, and that overwhelming sense of losing control—be it of our jobs, our daily routines, our finances, our health, or simply how we can spend our time—was paralyzing. Not that we ever had that much control in the first place, but we told ourselves what we had to in order to function, as the alternative—nihilism—seemed too dark a path to walk. So we devised plans. Set goals. Did all the things one does when constructing a life, like loving, hoping, fighting, hustling, thinking about tomorrow, etc. We were vulnerable in the face of the unknowable, and that was hard enough in our pre-coronavirus normal.

  Starting over and being vulnerable in a world that is nothing like what you had constructed for yourself was scary, frustrating, and heartbreaking. Beginning again can feel like yet another tiny death of who you are and what you knew. And the older I get, it seems that adulthood is nothing but those tiny little deaths. Just reminders that all the things and people and even our self-identities that we hold dear are fragile. And perhaps by us spending so much time trying to forget that fragility, we are also forgetting that it’s what makes those very things, people, and ourselves special and worth living for.

  So why am I here, on the page, with you, in this book you bought? The best I can offer at this moment is that I am a funny person, and if I can make you laugh and forget your problems for a moment then I did something. Although I’m not on the front lines, I’m stil
l living in this, too, and it’s probable that my way of looking at life could be of use to someone who just needs to laugh. I crave levity because I don’t want the time inside to rewire my brain or convince me to lose all sense of optimism. Because in the face of it looking like we’re all fucked, giving up would be letting down those in my family and friends who haven’t. So I won’t give up today. And I’ll try not to tomorrow.

  Instead, due to my tendency to think (and overthink) about things—both the profound and the inane—I’ll put them down on paper as a time capsule, if you will, of who I was and maybe who some of us were at this moment in time.* That way, I can look back and remember that people put themselves on the line so I could be here. That my parents lovingly teased me over FaceTime so I’d laugh. That I played a bootleg version of “Lean on Me” for my boyfriend when he had a down day on a cheap keyboard I purchased. That despite the tiny and not-so-tiny deaths that the coronavirus brought, there were also all those little sparks of joy, those small, happy moments that helped make my life, my life. Same with those sad times.

  So, dear reader, my hope is this: that when you look back on 2020, if you need to punch, yell, kick, scream for the dreams deferred and the lives lost, do it. If, when you’re feeling low, you recall seeing yourself on the other side of this even though you had no idea how you were going to get here, live in that memory for as long as it takes for it to help propel you forward. If stripping away all the luxuries and circumstantial nonsense put you on the path to start appreciating what truly matters, stay on that path, too, because it will lead you to a more enriching and special life. Any and all of that which made this ordeal life-altering? Forget none of it. Hold on to it. Use all of it as fuel to help make this world and us better than we were before. Because given everything we’ve been through, it’s highly unlikely that we’ll ever feel that specific kind of pure joy and naiveté that comes with the “This is gonna be our year” energy that we possessed at the end of 2019. And while there’s a part of me that mourns the loss of our last bit of innocence, I’m encouraged by what I’ve witnessed in the wake of Covid’s destruction. Through all the heartbreak, setbacks, survivor’s remorse, poor leadership, unexpected and welcomed surprises, renewed appreciation for the small and sometimes intangible moments, we said, “The hell with the idea that some date on the calendar signifies when it’s gonna be our year; these are gonna be our lives and we can show up and fight for them and for the right to be happy whenever we choose.”

  Fuck the rules of waiting for the first day of the year or for the stars to align perfectly according to our horoscope or for the numbers to add up. Truthfully, there is no “right” year or moment. We know this now. Actually, we’ve been knowing this. All that we have, in many ways, is the knowledge that we don’t know how much time we have left in our lives. So let’s keep rolling up our sleeves and continue writing and revising and enacting new plans on how we can make this the best life of our lives.

  Full disclosure: I will be approximately ten minutes late to all the meetings, and I understand that I just stated how time is a precious resource, but my mantra in life is “No matter the year: same me; same trash.” Cool?

  Yes, I Have Free Time Because I Don’t Have Kids

  There are only a handful of toys I still remember from my childhood. The Skip-It, which I was convinced made me an athlete, my Pee-wee Herman pull-string talking doll, and my favorite one: a baby doll I creatively named Baby, which eventually got decapitated, but still, every night, the head and the rest of her body slept side by side with me in bed. Don’t ask. Wait, actually, you should because what I just described was a low-key serial-killer-in-training thing to do. Okay, so. Long story short, one day, my brother and I, playing with our various toys, decided to put the doll in the washing machine, and her head got chopped off. I was devastated, but because I loved Baby so much I never wanted to replace her. Instead, I would sometimes walk around the house, carrying her head in my arms, and everyone in my family just acted like this was . . . normal. What the hell, Mom and Dad?! Y’all have never met a hotel doorknob that you didn’t inspect thoroughly for several minutes and give a Silkwood shower to, yet not once were you like, “Let me investigate why our daughter is living her best low-budget Wednesday Addams life and mothering a decapitated doll head”?

  Anyway, since I was having heart-to-hearts with a doll head and feeding it imaginary Similac, it was clear that I was super into the idea of being a mom. Then I got a little older and became what some would call a “tomboy” because I played pickup basketball with my older brother and his friends, didn’t want to wear pink, and loved watching action movies. Still, you would find me baking with my dad, playing house with my dolls, and, of course, the game of MASH.

  If you’re too young to know what MASH is, don’t worry, I got you. It’s a pencil and paper game you play with friends. Lemme stop right there. Do some of you even know what that experience is? To play a game where the only components are number two pencils, lined pieces of paper, friendship, and imagination? I mean, that shit (and me) sound old as fuck! Generally speaking, I feel young until I start explaining something from my childhood such as MASH, then I second-guess and think to myself: Damn, was I a part of the original expedition across the Oregon Trail with Lewis and Clark in 1804? Was I the secretary who got carpal tunns while taking minutes during the inaugural NAACP meeting in 1909 because W.E.B. Du Bois didn’t know how to shut up? Was I the middle-aged Marriott hotel concierge service that Mathew Knowles called when LaTavia Roberson and LeToya Luckett were kicked out of Destiny’s Child in 2000? Why do my knees hurt when it rains? Moving on. MASH.

  In summary, it’s a game you play with friends that’s supposed to predict your future. Hence M = Mansion, A = Apartment, S = Shack, H = House. You can also determine what street you’re going to live on, who you’re going to marry, and how many kids you will have. And because I enjoyed having an older sibling, I always wanted to end up with two kids at the end of the game. Not because I had any deep-seated desire to be a mom. How could I? I was just a kid and simply assumed I’d emulate what my parents did: marriage, children, and owning a house. But again, I was just a kid. All those responsibilities seemed like faraway fantasies such as going to outer space, being a pop star, or cussing my parents out and living to tell the tale. I know I’m not the only one who, after getting in trouble and being sent to my room, would pace back and forth, whisper-cussing and saying things such as, “Oooh! Say something else to me! S-say something else to me! Y’all gonna push me to my damn limit and I’m going to move out. Oooh!” LOL. Move out and go where and do what? I was twelve with zero life skills, no funds to pay for the upkeep of my chemically straightened hair or rent (notice how hair came ahead of housing?), and no luggage or mover’s starter kit from U-Haul. You ever try and pack up your life inside a JanSport book bag that your parents bought you during an OfficeMax back-to-school sale? Y’all, a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, a six-pack of cherry Squeezits, some cheese cracker sandwiches, and jeans and a T-shirt from Sears legit take up about 63 percent of the book bag. Spoiler alert: You ain’t getting very far; in fact, you’ll last one afternoon, tops, before returning home with your tail between your legs.

  But I digress. The point is I went through my childhood, middle school, and high school years believing I was going to be a mother, a belief that not only stemmed from society selling the idea that motherhood is “natural” and the “final destination” for a woman, but because, for the most part, public figures and celebrities portrayed being a mom as a wholly instinctive, perfectly peaceful, and life-affirming paradise. Based off everything I’d been fed, my understanding of motherhood boiled down to the following:

  Morning sickness happens, so probably wise to have a bunch of extra trash cans around my house. (simplehuman company: “Lol, wut? But we will take your money.”)

  Once my baby bump is pronounced, I’ll schedule a nude photo shoot à la Demi Moore with famed photograph
er Annie Leibovitz. (My bank account: “Lol, wut?” Annie Leibovitz: “How did you get my number? But also, I’m going through some tax issues, so okay.”)

  I’ll obvs give birth real quick. (My vagina: “Bitch, iz you dumb?” Me: “I iz.”)

  I won’t sleep much yet my sunny disposition will remain unaffected. (Everyone who knows me: “You get a full seven hours of sleep nightly yet you’re still a literal nightmare if anyone talks to you too early in the morning, so . . .”)

  Breastfeeding will be a completely peaceful experience every single time in which I will sit on a cozy couch, surrounded by pillows, Tracy Chapman music will play in the background, and my baby will latch on to my boob without any issues. And once I’m done with breastfeeding, my boobs will magically go back to being couture titties aka high, tight, and small. (Gravity: “Da fuq?”)

  I’ll lose the baby weight easily and quickly. This notion is, of course, based on the copious amount of magazine and TV profiles on celeb new moms who said all the weight melted off them (and somehow they also have toned, athletic bodies) merely from chasing toddlers around and lifting them up while wearing ballet flats. (My body: “Um, I think you kind of just have to exercise in addition to doing this as it’s mostly, if not entirely, the working out that would create the weight loss and toned body.” Me: “Hard pass!”)

  Fast-forward past all the school stuff, especially helping my kids with their homework (not interested in relearning algebra) and PTA stuff (not interested in interacting with other parents because I’m a tad antisosh) and land squarely on prom night, where despite the fact that one of my kids is now seventeen and I didn’t start having childrens until I was in my thirties, I have somehow remained eternally thirty-five. (Time: “Bruh, did you go to school? Read a book? Understand what aging is? Looked at a clock before?”)