ok. my period is coming soon, and historically, i do behave a little chaotically before then, so forgive me. it feels like mania, but really, it’s just hormones and, honestly, once my period arrives, i feel better. i like my period. the knife in the stomach feeling compels me be more present in my life—i feel more levelheaded. i am a naturally repressed person, so maybe i do need some kind of physical pain to move me forward. i’m watching desperate housewives for the first time, and i really find myself identifying with bree van de kamp. of course, in emotion only. i don’t own pearls, my hair doesn’t look that perfect, i don’t like to cook all that much, and my nail polish is forever chipped. i’m on season 2, just after her husband dies and she cries for the first time. she is so repressed in her grief that she is accused of killing him herself. people in her life suspect she’s a killer because she doesn’t emote, but the grief is so obviously there. i really felt my heart go out to this fictional character, this archetype of my own hidden truth. a crazy and psychotic man weasels his way into her life. he is, in fact, the one who killed her husband so he could be with her. he kills her therapist, picking off people she could turn to one by one. bree is clearly uncomfortable around this man. she gets hives when they kiss. but she doesn’t stop seeing him. she feels coerced into accepting a proposal to remarry only two months after her husband passed. bobby said they made her character too dumb in this plot line, that she is too smart to end up in this trap. i saw it another way—i believe she is so emotionally repressed that the discomfort she feels around this man does not register in her body, it does not compel her to action. i can understand this feeling.
i am not making it a point of getting sober. i ordered drinks when i went out with my brother and his girlfriend in new york. i like a little drinkie here and there, but i am committing myself to tossing my relationship with marijuana in the trash. and i won’t wax poetic about substance use, it’s really none of my business and my personal feelings reflect an interior world that i have no interest in bringing to the public. use, don’t use, that’s not up to me, but in my life now, i am not getting high anymore. it kind of sucks. physically, it’s been a godsend. i haven’t shit healthily in 2 years, and it immediately changed when i stopped smoking. no dietary changes were going to fix that, trust me, i tried everything. i had to get thc out of my digestive system, or blow out my colon. sorry? am i not allowed to talk about this?
i don’t relax. i’m not a relaxed person. in my first class of poetry field school, my poem was about being stuck in traffic on 285. my teacher, the poet elaine kahn, while editing my poem said, “i understand the speaker to have a compulsion of saying the wrong thing.” i think these things go together. the inability to chill, and the compulsion to spit it out. i am envious of bodies that ejaculate. i am envious of the ability to expel. art works as a substitute, i guess. and god forfuckingbid i am quoted as having compared making art to ejaculation, but i am trying to find some comparative release. i have lived with high cortisol for long enough to know cardio is one of the worst things for me—spiking my adrenaline harder and as soon as i’m done running i am seeing red, ready to fight anyone who makes eye contact with me. it doesn’t drain my body of energy, it fuels it. so, it’s kind of hard to sit with—knowing what i really need is to be filled up, when all i feel is the need to release. the compulsion, i think, is to release. even when i have absolutely nothing. nothing, of course, but bitterness, mean thoughts, perverse feelings, a terrible numb feeling i need shocked back to life.
i need to quit my job. i know this to be true. i intellectualized ending up here because my parents are regular people and i have many many many bills to pay with no safety net or a rich husband, or friends with a bag or a successful podcast, or scholarships, or idk what other ways you get money. i had a friend who was self sufficient because her dad died when she was 13 and he had a big ol life insurance policy. she drives a beamer. i don’t have a dead dad with a life insurance policy. i intellectualized the idea that i would need a Real World facing life and then a Secret life full of art, drama, my emotions. this is both perverse—i think i get off on the secrecy—of course i do, i love high stakes—and also just a consequence of not being 23 and rich. there is my work life, which uses all of my natural gifts—ability to speak in public, self confidence, literacy skills, good at deadlines, makes eye contact, loves to volunteer for tasks. these things make me good at having a job. of course, then there’s my secret life and in my secret life i run an emotionally verbose instagram account, i make art about my body, i steal artifacts from my Real World life and squirrel them back into my Secret Life. in my mind, synthesis is possible. i am both of these people with ease. i am someone who likes to be productive and also someone who was assaulted, has problems coping with that, likes to shake her titties in a bikini, and on and on. and then there’s branding and marketing and tiktokificication and capital that needs you to be one thing and stay there. i won’t pretend like having a job and making art is even really possible. you do need to be a bit insane to pull it off, and it is tiring, and you do kind of need to be like one of those anxious little dogs that never relaxes to hold on thru it all. but, really, if money was no object, if the world wasn’t forcing us to be one thing and stay there—i would be fine with working and making art. it’s that no duality is possible in this life.
what was my point? i think i lost the thread in there somewhere. anyway. my creativity is best accessed two ways: first thing in the morning, or when i’m high. not ideal when you are out the door by 8am for work. i could wake up earlier, i know writers are always getting up at 4am. i tried getting up at 6am one time and just needed the sleep too goddamn bad. maybe that’s just a choice. maybe i’m not willing to push myself any harder. maybe this is my fate. the morning can be such a time of rich clarity. unless i'm at work—and then i'm scrolling online shopping websites, doing research for my next project, looking up books to read, writing paragraphs for substacks i'll never finish, panicking that there's too much on my mind, answering work emails, getting quotes from companies on insanely big project ideas, journaling my feelings, making tea, making to do lists for my work day, whatever, straight mania. the other option is to get high first—and that’s at the risk of fucking up my digestive system permanently.
this kind of sobriety is a challenge. it’s a real challenge. it is forcing me to deal with what is right in front of me, all of the complex contradictions, what doesn’t line up, the puzzle pieces i keep forcing together—because there is nowhere to hide. i yanked away the private interiority, the third life that belonged only to me inside of me. i am forcing myself, growing out the top of my head, bending over my own body, pushing myself in the back, to instead, be here. be all the way here. intellectualizing how you feel kills you when there is no balm. when there is no place to retreat to. i don’t know. i am taking my meditation classes really seriously. i am trying to plan less. i am trying so hard to cut my little inner monologue at the source. i am trying to shut the fuck up. it is hard and i have no answers. this is me at the beginning, being the fool. wish me luck and if you give up on me, i promise i understand.
I have never read a post from you that aligns THIS MUCH with everything i’m also going through.
Thank you so much, i genuinely love reading your posts but this is my first time on your substack, so I’m really proud of you for undergoing and understanding all the change. When I say my jaw almost dropped with how familiar this sounds to me as in sync as people are, know you can do this & as corny as this sounds, you aren’t alone. I thank you so much for making me feel less alone in this moment through your words and art. I think there’s a lot out there that is possible, that we both have yet to experience as with most people — I think you’ll find your way just fine. I just am so grateful to not feel absolutely isolated in this, not for the feeling necessarily, but that one of my favorite writers is able to go thru this at the same time as a lot of their collective. You, are, amazing. Please never forget that!! & keep pushing, your hard work will pay off & i’m sending u good vibes & more hope. I admire your transparency and articulation of how you feel so well. Really inspiring. ((: Thank you again.
best of luck, you got this!!