THUNK — the hollow thudding sound of something heavy making a dull impact.
Dear readers,
Last Friday, I was supposed to start a “staycation.” I’d cleared a week away from my bread and butter work as a communications consultant, and was preparing to take a full seven days to sit down at my computer, open a vein (as Hemingway and others have said), and bleed. Also known as writing.
I had big goals and a big dream: to write the first several essays for a sister Substack series I was launching called, “Boys of Beantown.”
Only, I couldn’t.
Every time I sat down to write, I felt an oppressive weight: hollow, thudding, heavy, dull, and very, very, impactful.
I don’t get writer’s block. So it wasn’t that. And while I was nervous about my undertaking, I wasn’t paralyzed by fear.
But every time I turned around, I was haunted by these words from my man Thoreau:
“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”
Having Thoreau in my head is nothing new, but what I was feeling in my body was:
I felt dead inside and it showed on the outside — listless gait; dull eyes; a desire to crawl back into bed — highly unusual for someone you literally can’t pay to take a nap.
Something was going on and it wasn’t about writing.
As the hours of the weekend slipped by and my “week off” drained from seven days to five, by Sunday afternoon, I felt sick to my stomach and my throat felt like it was in an ever-tightening circular vise.
I won’t go into all the gory details of how, over the next couple of days, I worked through my brain and my heart to unroot the source of my malaise but unroot it I did. And what I found was a big, gnarly mess. A big-time thunk had landed on me, body and soul.
The weight of which was evidently finally allowed to fall (or surface) because for once I wasn’t all-consumed with working for someone else, all day, every day.
And what was this thunk that was making me nauseous and causing my throat to constrict so much it actually hurt?
In the sudden absence of work-work-work, I had come face to face with the impossible-to-avoid (and yet somehow, heretofore, phenomenally easy to ignore) truth of my life:
I’ve fucked up.
Big time.
Fucked up in several key ways that have impacted my professional life, my resources, my assets, my relationships, my bank account, my future, the choices and opportunities available to me, and even, evidently, my ability to take a week off from work and write in peace.
On the surface, I don’t look or sound like a fuckup. I’m bright. Articulate. Nearly always in a good mood. I take charge of situations and solve problems kind of like a badass.
I work hard. Always an excellent (if I do say so myself) employee, and when I started my own business, I quickly established a reputation for reliability and results. I’ve always paid my bills. Have no debt. I’ve donated money and volunteered many hours of my life to work with homeless, prisoners, people who couldn’t read, helping refugees settle in the U.S.
If family or friends were in need, or heck, even if they were just in “want” of something — I’ve never hesitated to help. Above all, I’ve always been a loyal bugger. Loyal to jobs. To cats. Loyal to ideals and values. To people.
And therein lies much of the rub.
Because all that do-gooding, all that loyalty, all that hard work on behalf of other people’s dreams, all that putting others first, myself second, all that came at a terribly high cost: I helped others accomplish a lot, and that’s a very good thing — but in the process, I accomplished very little of what I needed, and deeply wanted, to achieve for myself. That’s not a very good thing.
I can’t — and don’t want — to blame others. I am where I am because of my own free will (and probably thanks to a big gaping need to be loved and approved of — but that’s a story for another day).
Still. To innocently set out on what should have been a week of unbridled fun (if writing can ever really be called fun, what with all that vein-opening and such) …
… to find one’s self, instead, thumped upside the head, seeing stars and feeling disappointment seeping out of every pore …
… to wake up as if from a dream, on the other side of middle age, when life choices and circumstances can become more limited and fraught with unpleasant repercussions each passing year …
… to have the veil lifted on your own profound fuckupery ...
Well, I did what any adult would do.
I went crying to my Mommy.
Once I cornered her on the couch, I boo-hoo’d out my sob story: decades of unreciprocated loyalties, lack of focus on self-care, and an underwhelming ambition (at least for myself; for others, I always told them the sky was the limit and helped them shoot for it as well) had finally caught up with me. And, damn it all, just now when I’m finally getting some of my shit together, for the first time in my life being ready to buy a (very) modest home, I find myself quite literally, and perhaps irrevocably, priced out of paradise by the coked-up real estate market in nearly every state of this un-unified union of ours.
So, I’m going off to unfuck my life.
(Is it even possible now that I’ve put it off for so long? I sure hope so.)
It will take time. Effort. Sacrifice.
Mostly it will require me to stop doing the two things that I seem to do best: a) spending all my time and energy helping everybody around me get what they want and live how they want to live; while b) ignoring what I must do to give myself what I deserve and to be able to live how I want to live.
It will also require me to give up THINK. For how long, I don’t know. But for now, I can’t afford to spend 10-20 hours a week in vain.
You know, when I first read Thoreau’s “how vain” quote, I remember thinking he was using “vain” in its first definition — as in ego-ish. I realized, of course, he was using the second definition of “vain’ — as in, “useless, unproductive.” But who knows — maybe it was his sly nod to both.
Either way, I’ve got it covered on both counts, it seems.
I’ve got to set aside my vanity that hates, hates, hates to call it quits on anything or anyone but especially on THINK — particularly after all my recently proclaimed audacious goals for my writing, and because, well, it’s been a helluva lot of fun over the past year — in that vein-opening, bleeding thoughts and words through a sieve kind of way.
But more importantly, I’ve got to focus my energies on the things that I should have focused on a long time ago. Like owning a home of my own. Stashing some cash. Making professional and lifestyle choices that allow weekends off entirely and maybe a real vacation every once in a while. Not to work. Not to even write. Just to relax and enjoy being alive while I’m still living.
I’m going off to fix some things in my life so that when — if — I’m ever able to return to writing, Thoreau won’t be running around like a madman inside my brain, demanding one simple thing of me as a writer, as a woman:
Don’t sit down to write for others until you’ve stood up to live for yourself.
Note:
If you’re a paying subscriber to THINK, you’ll be receiving a refund of any remaining amount on your paid subscription — sometime within the next 10 days I’d imagine.
To all subscribers, paid and free, I can’t thank you enough for your support of me as a writer and your interest in my writing.
With all thanks to my man Thoreau, for haunting my heart and thumping me upside the head.
See you all (hopefully) … on the other side of fubar.
MC, I support your next venture, whatever it may be. Wishing you peace, my friend.
XOXO
MC -
Thanks for having the courage to share your epiphany. Better to realize it now versus 10 years, 15 years...or perhaps at the end of your life. You are young and can pivot your life.
The GIFT you have gained by slowing down and getting off the grid last week is the realization that your life is not where you want it to be. So, nothing is "fucked up." It is not where it needs to be for this stage of your life's journey.
The CHALLENGE you now face is doing something about it. My man Einstein (I don't think he knew Thoreau) said the "definition of madness is to continue to do the same things over and over again and expect a different outcome." Ergo - you will need to do some things differently to gain a different, more desirable outcome. How exciting?
The good news? You can do something about it.
By the way and along the way - be kind to yourself. You are not the only one who has experienced this type of epiphany. Don't hesitate to be selfish.
Positive Selfishness does not always mean “doing something.” Positive Selfishness is a mindset. It means setting limits and boundaries when needed. It also means saying “NO!” at times, in order to preserve much-needed energy and take care of oneself as an also urgent necessity.
MC - you are at an exciting juncture in your life. As Yogi Berra said, "when you come to a fork in the road, take it!" So, just do it!
I will be rooting for you. Here to help in any way you need.
Finally - I don't want a refund - so, take me off the list and invest it and any other $$ leftover on a good massage!
Onward and Upward!