I spent so much of 2019 trying to come up with reasons to stay alive. Some days I didn’t have any. So I white knuckled it. I had spent 40 of my 47 years pretending I wasn’t hungry, but spending ten months trying to hang on to this world proved to be much, much harder.
I didn’t Eat, Pray, Love. Or even Marry, Fuck, Kill. It was more Cry, Lift, Panic.
I spent my formative years being a smart kid, being the one no one had to worry about and now I was a grown-ass woman who couldn’t figure out why my eyes were leaking twelve times a day.
I’m good, just joking.
I’ve got it, it’s just a day.
Don’t worry, I’ll figure it out.
In my writing life, I’m known for being a fixer. I’m fast. I can crank out scripts, break seasons of TV, write outlines with minimal guidance. All this requires is a short period of cocooning and then my brain hits warp speed. I don’t know how I do it, but I don’t know if I’d tell you if I did. (I gotta stay employed somehow.)
But what works for my characters doesn’t work for me, because it turns out that I’m an actual human being. And while I had a preconceived notion of what I and my life should be isn’t necessarily what I wanted. I had just become so good at the lie that I couldn’t tell the difference. The panic at the back of my throat, the anxiety that rose every time I went against my nature, the confusion when everything was going great so why didn’t I feel great? told a different story.
For my 47th birthday, I wanted a mulligan.
This year has slipped by, in the way the years do: lurching forward and then suddenly all at once. For the first half of the pandemic, I slept in the guest room. We waited. The world waited. It didn’t go full Rorschach, but it was close. He left. I stayed. I wandered out of my 12x12 cave into the light and thought what now?
I cleaned cobwebs out of a garage that hadn’t been looked at in 50 years. I bought a drill, hung a TV, and put together a home gym. I bought a desk for the first time in 15 years, hung wallpaper, sanded my old beat-up filing cabinet, spray painting it gold. I hung wallpaper. I fixed a whistling toilet, I scrubbed dishwasher assemblies. I took apart the glass shelves in my refrigerator, wiping them clean and replaced the water filer. The decaying fence finally fell and so I hired someone to put up a new one. Which gave me an excuse to rip out the strangled hedges which littered the pool with debris. I cleaned out my closets.
I fell in love.
I started feeding the feral cat who lives under my house. She was joined by another cat. So now I feed two. Olive isn’t too happy about it, but I explain that in this house, everyone gets foodbowls.
Yes, the world is still a white-hot garbage fire hurtling straight toward the sun.
I’ve stopped doomscrolling (for the most part). Being most clever on Twitter is a great release (sometimes), but it doesn’t change anyone’s mind. I started identifying opportunities where I can be of direct help: donating a sofa for a newly-housed woman, dropping off water to unhoused folx during the heat wave, giving money to organizations on the ground helping people. (And people with pets.)
And suddenly here it is, another year. A fucked-up year for certain. But I’m no longer having to come up with reasons to stick around.
Happy Birthday to me.
Happy birthday, friend.
I’m grateful you found it within yourself to make it. The world is a better, stronger, more worthy place because of your presence. You bring my life light, even in your darkest times. Power to you, peace going forward 💜