Three Good Things
Just because world is going fucking nuts doesn't mean I have to.
A friend told me recently that if someone was objectively looking at my life and saw that I was transforming my house, my career, and my relationship to my own mental health - all at the same time - that they’d worry about me. I guess it’s very big Scorpio-rising energy to be doing this at full-tilt, all at the same time, at this stage of my life, while the world is absolutely ridiculous. For the past decade, I felt like the future was very much the fig-tree analogy from The Bell Jar, which is both embarrassing to admit at 45 and also - fuck you very much because it’s true. Now that I can see so clearly past that last branch and, even more so, myself in that messy and wonderful future, all of my coping mechanisms are breaking down.
Old me could plot and scheme and take sideways steps to the goal with grace and measure, but I find myself so ridiculously impatient and raw for what is developing. I’m harder to live with in this stage of life and I find both Jake and the kid such a blessing as they hold my kite strings as I bash myself into the wind. It can be hard to keep moving, paralyzed by being in transit between an old life and a new life amidst a world in a similar transitory phase. It reminds me so much of what childbirth felt like - I have to go through this temporary discomfort to get to a new life, but time dilates in an uncomfortable way when nothing feels certain. I ride the waves of panic and identity loss, try to meditate pain away, and keep attention on my breathing when rumination is kicking my ass. Still, the transition makes me feel weak and useless and like giving up is the only option.
Here’s what I do instead.
One.
I write. I produce my short film (pw is “followme“ if you want to read it). I set up shots and figure out the casting call and releases in Swedish. I talk to people in my filmmaker chats about LUTs and how to edit audio. I talk to strangers - so many new people! - about their feedback on my scripts. I ask even more strangers to give me a chance and let me inflict my pitch decks on them. I rewrite, rewrite, rewrite.
Two.
I watch Skåne wake up. The hedgehog walking across my yard, heavily pregnant, disturbs the squirrels and crows. Though leaving this house is the right decision, I mourn my last spring garden in this place. I sit with the cats in the greenhouse and watch the talgeoxe battle in the budding tree leaves as the sun rises and sets. There is no place I want to be more than southern Sweden, all green and gold on the land and blue from the sea to the firmament.
Three.
I watch the Artemis II crew comfort one another on the dark side of the moon, so very far from home. I am in awe of the playful generosity of the 11-year-olds in my orbit, their tiny tokens and professions of love to one another a reminder of something gnawing and holy from the past. I spend a couple hours a week helping tag and clean data for a friend from a threatened place in the U.S. and listen to their stories of mutual aid and support. I am grateful when the very old lady with breathing issues at the place where I take my daily swim lets me help her into and out of the sauna, finally, after months of her protestations that she’s “helt okej.” We hold hands the whole way and I refuse to accept her apology. Jesus christ, we can be so tender if we can get over ourselves, can’t we?
