Edition #130: A Year, in Retrospect

Plus, tripping with mom, tactics for happier living, and the year of the bird girl

Dec 29, 2022

Suspend Painting by Amanda Cameron | Saatchi Art

A Note From the Editor

January was messy. The first grey morning of the new year brought a broken cell phone and a dreadful hangover. There was a boy in my bed who read my astrology chart—March would be tough, he said, but things would turn around in May—and talked passionately about the carnivore diet. My first-month freelancing, running miles thorugh the frigid New York winter in attempts to dispel my anxieties about the months to come. Doubt was served for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. A series of underwhelming dates and boredom, then a bright spot; a song on Discover Weekly turned into a few pages of scribbled notes turned into a script, then five scripts; all not-so-romantic love stories. I decided to make the thing a real thing, I needed a project. A distraction. It worked, I was the most fulfilled I’d been, creatively, in months. Foreshadowing; the start of something. A vital clue.

February was nerve-wracking. My project was finished and ready to be shared right in time for Valentine’s Day, as planned. I posted the preview on my Instagram story and deleted it a few minutes later; realized how much space my ego demanded. The man I began to take seriously was a mirror of said ego—beautiful, impressive, artistic, but also, unstable, frenetic, a walking warning sign. At our annual Galentine’s party, I told my girlfriends how he made me feel like I was wilting. I should end things, I would. On Valentine’s Day, he showed up with a massive bouquet at a fancy omakase; wrote me a poem delivered at the end of the meal by a smiling waiter. I felt the eyeballs of the woman next to me saying, Appreciate this, you lucky girl. My resolve weakened. On a trip home to Florida, I had a near-perfect day. A secret beach, a gentle trip away, dancing into the sunset with two women I adore. A peacock scurried by. The wet sand felt like the surface of another planet. Things didn’t seem so bad.

March was a turning point. I played resident pet sitter, first to a friend’s precious dog, then to a strange, furry cat. There were hours spent curled around these animals, trying to inhale their simplicity. I wished I were more simple, my mind not such a firestorm. Nights on the couch—ice cream, popcorn, cheesy movies to numb the emptiness. Endings, inevitable but dragged out for far too long. Boredom with my life and alone with my pain, never wanting to lay the burden of it on another. I celebrated five years in New York with my oldest and dearest friend and we wondered, over plates of noodles and dumplings, when we’d stopped having fun. I was swinging low and decided I needed to leave, to find fresh eyes. I considered Brazil but decided on Costa Rica. Chose a little town I’d never heard of a few months out. Now I had a bright spot to look forward to; a temporary salve on the wound.

April was a blur. I welcomed the chaos of too many plans after a winter of relative solitude. My family came to visit; four of us crammed into my tiny Greenwich Village apartment. I showed my niece New York City for the first time and saw it from her eyes; the enormousness of it. The wonder. We ate cronuts and tromped through Central Park. I took my mother on a date to a comedy show and got drunk on Bees Knees. I visited Austin, ate tacos and drank natural wine on a patio warmed by the sun and found myself not saying “but New York is better." My skin glowed. I began teaching creative writing to kids a few days a week, got pleasantly lost in the zaniness of their vivid imaginations. Made a new friend; accessible and attentive. We spent hours together talking on my fire escape, at our local bar, at my favorite bookstore. Things could be new, it seemed. I went to a themed birthday party and almost let a boy take me home. I didn’t date much but I flirted relentlessly; I wasn’t thinking about love. Only about myself.

May was a rupture. A surprise that shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Roe vs. Wade overturned, the promise of autonomy traveling further into the distance. We marched in Foley Square. Later that evening, I went on a first date with a man I didn't know was a big wig writer and director. A moody French restaurant, a discussion about billionaires and ex-pats and the state of America. I avoided answering questions about my work, learned I was not yet proud of it. Learned I was not yet ready for the intimidatingly competent, creative partners I’d dreamt of. I began writing for myself again, not just for my livelihood—two short film scripts, neither very good, but I was writing. Time slipped by; I got to visit the hometown of two of my best friends. We picked crabs and read old love letters aloud in a jacuzzi. I bought a yellow bucket hat because soon, I realized, I would be leaving. It would be sunnier, there.

June was slipping into another dimension. I arrived in a town where I knew no one and, upon first impression, thought it quite ugly. I made friends with the first person I met at my first dinner on my first evening in town. Later, I would suspect our meeting was fate. I learned to breathe above water and to hold my breath while being dragged violently beneath it; learned to surrender control without descending into panic. When I looked in the mirror I saw someone new—bright eyes, brighter freckles, something like a lucid expression. My old life in New York felt like fiction, a novel I once loved but now found baffling. Reflection led to revelation; I had been depressed and unable to voice it, before. Yellow butterflies crossed my path so often I looked up what they might mean: Yellow butterflies are symbolic of spiritual renewal, transformation.

July was blissful ignorance; sensory overload. Everything vivid. I slipped into the comfort of a life in which I was the supporting character, seamlessly and without much thought. I was driven around and taken care of, wasn’t required to make many decisions. I didn’t overthink or journal or spend much time reflecting. Sobriety was far less frequent. One evening I stayed out until the sun rose, watched it break through the dawn from an elevated cow pasture. Felt, momentarily, like I was in high school again. Guilt was suspiciously absent during this period. The lifestyle was so unlike me that I knew it to be temporary; I relaxed into it. Spent too much money on food too many hours cuddled on the couch, watching movies, watching music videos, being helpful. So helpful. The supporting character. Laughing at the audacity of it, at how inseparable I'd let myself become in the most improbable of situations. The bottom would never hold.

August was an ache. A fraught goodbye to one temporary life, a shattering of the illusion I’d built with the help of another. Six flights in two weeks—Costa Rica to New York to Florida to New York to Lisbon to Rome. My thoughts were occupied by all the processing I’d refused to do. I cut ties for the sake of self-preservation and felt like my tooth was being pulled. I cried so often—at the jewel tone tiles in Lisbon, at a sweet song sent to my phone, then played a few days later on the streets of Rome just outside the ruins. At least I’m sad in a beautiful place, I thought. Two weeks laying around an old monastery in Italy, drinking endless bottles of wine, reading book after book, picking fat figs. Being held up by friends new and old. I made a promise to myself—when I return to New York, my heart will be healed. It had to be. Still, I thought I might be able to control my head and my heart like a master puppeteer. Some lessons are long learned.

September was a whirlwind. Returning to New York, turning 30. The best birthday I’ve ever had—so loved, so prepared. I wore a ridiculous bejeweled top at the same place Beyonce once held her birthday party and I felt I had arrived. I couldn’t pause because if I did I would have to start thinking again so I just went—to Florida again, to every dinner I was invited to, into the arms of a man who gave me the attention and physicality I didn’t know I’d been missing for all these months. I felt wanted, beautiful. I never stopped saying yes until I got myself sick from all the running. I worked a lot and wrote nothing creative; I doubted my plans for the remainder of the year, decided I no longer cared about being nice or well-liked.

October was melancholy. Fall in New York, the greatest time of the year. Soon, me leaving once more. Long strolls around my neighborhood, remembering what I love so much about my city. My home. Spending hours with friends over tea, wine, pasta, and still, not feeling like there was enough time. Romantic dates and long runs, sleepovers, playing pretend. Celebrating a love I got to witness the start of firsthand. Then bidding New York a blue farewell, for now, and venturing onward.

November was everything all at once. Sobriety, resistance, regret—why did I come back?—that gave way to surrender—what will happen will happen. Morning and evenings alone, truly alone, with no substance or fake love or best friends to distract me. I met myself once more, felt unsure about the face that met my gaze in the mirror. Wondered if I was a masochist for walking back into the fire until finally, I felt warmed by it. Returned home once more, cuddled baby goats and relished precious time with my foundation; the people who know me best. Exchanged gifts with my sisters, was awestruck by our shared tenderness, the way we know each other. Played house in a big, beautiful brownstone; cooked breakfast together, started watching a new series. Did laundry. Sat in the cold, quiet house like a restless bird, antsy. Sipped the intimacy slow from a straw, then guzzled it by the mouthful because I knew after this, there would be no more pretending.

December is here and now, I suppose. I returned once again to Costa Rica, this time for a long stretch. It felt like returning to my real life, a peculiar thing. After two weeks of illness and rest, I entered the hall of my future, began to do all the things I intended to do. Bought a surfboard and began Spanish lessons. Mustered the courage to have difficult conversations in an attempt to forge truer bonds in this temporary home. I let my walls down a bit too far until I realized it was time to walk away from the clapboard shack I’d built altogether, for it was burning slowly with me trapped inside. Some lessons are long learned. I noticed, for the first time, all of the beautiful people around me. There were always options but I had been blind to them. Watching the sunset with new friends, no longer needing what I thought I couldn’t live without, I begin to see myself more clearly. The future no longer scares me; the uncertainty an elixir I will gladly drop onto my outstretched tongue. I take my own hand as the truest companion and together we walk onward. Into the light.

__________

Cheers, my dears, and as always, thanks for reading along today and this year. I leave you with one of my favorite end-of-the-year quotes to ponder, by Zora Neale Hurston:

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”

This one brought me many answers. I hope it did for you, too.

Perhaps You Should… Discover Tactics For Happier Living.

I took this 10 minute test from Clearer Thinking, one of my favorite online tools for self-knowledge, and found it incredibly helpful. I like this one because it gives you insight paired with individualized action on how to cultivate a deeper sense of happiness. Another interesting point here: the test says research shows happiness is 50% hereditary, 10% circumstantial, and 40% in our control. As someone who struggles with depression and has a family history ripe with mental health issues, it’s good to hear that those deeper, darker feelings are simply part of the fabric of my mind and not a defective personality trait that I can simply “fix”.

Bonus Content (The Year of the Bird)

I don’t care who knows it; 2022 was a full descent into the bird girl life for me. And now I’ve got binoculars, so it’s about to go off in 2023.

Also, this is both badass and terrifying, will never not be moved by this, love these little freaks, trying to less of this in 2023 (it’s the year to speak up in real time, baby!), and making these ASAP.

A Quote From A Book You Should Read:

“If they didn’t know how it would end, with night, with more terrible noise from the top of Olympus, with bombs, with disease, with blood, with happiness, with deer or something else watching them from the darkened woods—well, wasn’t that true of every day?”

-Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam

This newsletter is best served with a side of conversation, so drop your opinions, reflections, and thoughts in the comments below and let’s get to talking.

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