Unpopular Opinion: Everything Is Okay!

Plus: Jane's off-label Latisse Experiment and personal invite to you

Hello Readerettes,

Related to nothing, here is my latest intriguing find: I regularly actively put Latisse on my lower lashes even though the directions say you're not supposed to do that and they have gotten so long in the last couple of weeks that they look like spider legs and hit against my glasses. The lower lashes! I didn't know they were capable of growing that long. I sent a close-up picture to my friend this weekend and it gave her a nightmare. (Please note that the look it produces is not necessarily flattering, so this is less a beauty recommendation and more a point of interest. But go for it if you want and let me know!)

In other news, I'm thrilled beyond life about how many Sassy readers are finding me and each other here and I can't wait for the upcoming reunion party. I'm wondering how to reach everyone from Jane magazine and XOJane as well – I've certainly heard from a number of you, just not the incredible Sassy barrage, which is probably as it should be, since Sassy was child Number One and all.

I’m also thrilled to be able to tell you that part two of Sarah Swinwood’s riveting Valentine's Day story is on its way to you! I know you can't wait, because you keep telling me that, which I appreciate. I did get an early look at it, and without giving anything away, I will say that I think you were very right to ask for it, so stay tuned for that coming up soon.

I’m bringing you today another installment in our ongoing series of "Unpopular Opinions”. (Some of you may remember this series from XOJane, but I hope you don't remember the ones that were my biggest publishing regrets to date. Yow.) These entries are all submitted by you and it's really fun to see your huge range of styles and arguments. Keep sending them to eager me at jane@anotherjaneprattthing.com. I am overjoyed to pay the princely sum of $50 to run each one (as we get more subscribers, I'll be able to get all these rates up and I cannot wait for that).

Enjoy this piece or not and tell me how you feel either way. Tell me also about any of your little sillinesses, if you would, so I feel better about telling you mine. I am interested in everything about you. I love you so much today and always. You're amazing.

Jane

Trying to take my own self-help advice.

By Jessie Kanzer

“It’s all perspective,” Husband says to me. “You know that right?”

I should know that. I think? I’m a lifelong spiritual searcher, familiar with all the sayings. “Empty your mind of thoughts, let your heart be at peace,” as the dog-eared Tao Te Ching on my bedside instructs.

“But my heart hurts,” I tell him. And it won’t stop hurting lately. And whether life is hard or not for me at the moment isn’t relevant, because it seems hard for so many of us. Like for my brother who I had to force into rehab. And my young daughter, whose mind generates negativity faster than I can slay it. Oh, and for my parents who believed they were leaving the Soviet Union for the land of opportunity and instead spawned some cynical American children with intergenerational trauma and broken hearts. And everyone else on the verge of losing it.

But, so? It’s not like it’s year 536, as Husband tells me. A year that historian Michael McCormick called, “The beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year.” There was a spontaneous winter caused by volcanic eruptions. There was no sunshine (at all!) for several years. Crops failed and millions of people starved.

I try to put all this in perspective, as instructed.

Historians say the Volcanic Winter of A.D. 536 kicked off a decade of famine. Thanks to Thomas Cole from the New York Historical Society for this image.