Summer 2021🖕🏻
Farewell... whatever the hell that was.
“I may not have been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn’t.” — Albert Camus, The Stranger
Hello Pumpkin,
Happy fall. Missed you. It was a rough summer. I can’t tell whether my distaste for it comes more from the terrible weather we had in New York, or from setting too high expectations for thrills that are still tightly leashed, but either way I’m so glad it’s over.
It was like the entire theme of this summer was frustration. I’m usually a very optimistic person, almost to a fault. I can make the most of an unideal situation and quickly extract a lesson from it that makes me feel #grateful for having endured it. But this summer torched all that and I embraced the value of negativity on the path to joy. Before, I didn’t see what could be relieving about leaving things at “THAT SUUUUUCKED” and walking away. It felt so defeating, but boy was I wrong and totally missing out. There really is a time and place for everything and sometimes, giving a situation, a time period, or a person the middle finger and walking away is downright magnificent and I absolutely recommend it.
I realize that I’m very late to the party with this revelation. I’m sure MANY people already know and I hope they don’t have as difficult a time with it as I do. While I’m still by no means well-versed in flipping everything off yet, this summer was a much-needed crash course in how to do exactly that and helped me declutter my headspace of the things I gave too much credit. I’m getting better about only keeping space for what interests me the most, especially the interests I’m not aware of yet. It’s nice feeling like they’ve got room when they show up.
Now that I’m on the “screw it” train, one strong middle finger goes to “PrOdUcTiViTyYyYy” (really lean into that one with a stupid, mocking voice, k? Because that’s how I’m saying it.) I could not be over the implications of “productivity” MORE!!! Truly, I’m done. I could write a manifesto (which I almost did) about how much I hate the American-specific connotation of “productivity” because I think it sits too closely to that of “happiness” and “success”. It’s like a little psychological drug-pusher. “Don’t you want to feel good?… Don’t you want to know everything is ok and that you’re doing great?… Come on, just one more hit. One more errand… one tiny, little meal prep… . No? You just want to be lazy? Ok, that’s fine, be disgusting. See you tomorrow, loser.”
For a few months before summer started, I noticed that I was taking the extra hit of productivity a little too much. I’d get productive-high so often that I started to only do things in order to feel productive, leaving no space for any other feeling. Whether I actually liked doing it was irrelevant, I just needed my little productive fix, then I could go out and live my life without feeling guilty. I could stop anytime I wanted… but why would I want to? Being on top of everything is a good thing, right? RIGHT?? Wrong. Because productivity is not synonymous with happiness. I’d rather be happy, and maybe sometimes that will include a little productivity. Now, being “on top of it” is one of those things I’m very ok with just scraping by on. I’m cool with leaving it in the “ugh I really need to be better about that” column with minimal plans to actually be better about it because I’m too busy enjoying myself.
Just as I never thought it’d be as fun to throw out middle fingers as it is, I also never thought it could be fun or relieving to get flipped off. But when I’m acting like a brat and being ultra whiney and demanding, it’s nice to get called out on it. It reminds me that no one’s suffering from my bitchiness more than I am, and if I can find a way to just loosen my grip and accept the mess for a second, then all my pent up tension slips away too. It’s a little difficult to describe the thing that’s been flipping me the bird lately and telling me to go sit in the corner. I suppose we could call it my timeline, or perhaps my “preferred rate of growth”. I’ve been quite comfortable with my current lifestyle for the last two years, but about a month ago, I woke up and my entire being demanded novelty. I knew it was time to get up, get moving, and try something new.
I didn’t know what I wanted next, but I certainly knew what I didn’t want. I did not want the continuation of this lifestyle that I was certain was taking me nowhere except to much more of the same. I recognize that to wonder, “Is this just the rest of my life now? Is this it? Am I trapped forever?” is absolutely ludicrous because it’s so much harder to keep things the same than allow them to change, but that’s completely how it felt— like I woke up in a cage with no key in sight. Of course I proceeded to freak out and demanded that my life show me my next move RIGHT NOW. My fit was met with a solid few weeks of “No. Sit in this, and keep sitting in it, because you will never know where you’re going or how anything is going to turn out even when you think you do. So stop.”
I did. I stopped. It was a nice, long time-out. After a solid few weeks of chillin’ in what I thought was such a terror, it wasn’t as scary as I thought. And it wasn’t a cage at all. It was more like a particularly dense area of a forest that stays dark most of the day. During those weeks, I trudged along, kicked around some rocks, built a fire, made some s’mores, and tried to enjoy the sun when I saw it. Then one day, a clearing appeared. As it always does.
I’m wandering somewhere new now, and just as the terror of sameness wasn’t as scary as I thought, the newness I originally demanded doesn’t feel quite as safe as I thought it’d would either. I guess fear is one of those poisons you get to pick.
Along with bird-flipping and walking, I encountered another especially interesting state of mind this summer by way of getting pissed off. That is, to simply turn and walk away without an accompanying gesture. No middle finger, no smile, no blown kiss, no explanation. This is more specific to instances with people. I had a few relationships disintegrate this summer, and I am certainly not giving them the finger while I walk away, or even talking trash because I think they’re wonderful people. I also think that my emotions, kindhearted or not, have little to no impact on them. Therein lies the crux of this other kind of walking away, when there simply isn’t enough there to warrant an accompanying gesture, the whole thing turns into a kind of “I’ll keep my emotions, and you keep yours.” Not severing ties, just gently untying them.
I used to sever with gravitas, cutting away clean and proper. There were no questions or exceptions, a true death. No regrets either because all my relationships with such a fate were so bad that I can’t remember any good parts about them. All of the love died long before the relationship itself did, painted over so opaquely with trauma that I will never again be able to see a single good thing about it without first encountering a terrible thing.
I don’t think that relationships need to get that bad before walking away from them. Even if there is still plenty of good there, if it’s not bringing joy then it’s clutter, and that’s more than enough reason to wish a person well and phase them out quietly. Thanks Marie Kondo.
While I think most people are good and most people are trustworthy, there’s a huge difference between someone who is trustworthy and someone who is worthy of my trust. Most people aren’t and I don’t see that as being cynical or jaded anymore. I think it only makes sense that most of the people we encounter in our lifetime should not be considered worthy of our trust in particular. It’s not necessary, they’re just fine without it.
Even after experiencing how fun it can be to walk away, in whichever way feels best, I still don’t think it will ever be easy for me. Leaving always comes with some pain, not to mention the looming potential for regret. But it’s a release nonetheless, part of a cycle that gives way to gain. I think that growth and movement speak in cycles, and cycles depend on contradictions. There cannot be gain without release. There cannot be joy without pain. There cannot be connectedness without loneliness. There cannot be healing without trauma. The further the fall, the higher the rise. I’m ready to rise this fall.
Here are a few things that came to me while in the throes of rises and falls this summer. Hope something sits with you too.
Love always,
iz
Flash Fiction Submission: The Writing on the Wall
270Stories:
“It’s Her.” He thought, aching for the woman across the room. She glowed with salvation, an angel too pure to have demons of her own. If only he’d known then that her Perrier bottle was filled to the brim with Tito’s, maybe he wouldn’t have bothered worshipping a myth. 270Stories
Despite having been set ablaze before, she still loved fire and the variations of it that burned differently in everyone. She needed to feel them all, more than she needed to protect herself. She’d risen from the ashes so many times, at this point it was a party trick. 270Stories
“D’you think you’ll ever forget about it?” “Prob’ly not.” She wondered, under what conditions could that “prob’ly not.” dissolve? She knew that true forgiveness depended on them, but also that whatever they were wasn’t worth sticking around for long enough to find out. 270Stories
He sat on the exam table, uneasy and skeptical of her credibility. “Can you describe the pain?” “It just feels… kinda funny.” “Funny. Like ‘ha-ha’ funny?” “Yes, my knee is making me laugh. That’s the problem.” “Well I don’t know… some people do think pain is funny.” 270Stories
He assumed that everything would be the same, just as he’d left it. No one had been there for eight months. He walked through the door and nothing was familiar. It was a scene from another life, one he didn’t have or want anymore. Almost as if it were never his at all. 270Stories
She stood before him, frayed and raw. Unsure of what the next words out of her mouth would be, she closed her eyes and jumped- “I didn’t think it would end this way.” They both stood in silent understanding that, while not “this way”, she always knew that it would end. 270Stories