Dear Reader

The state of things.

“This heart within me I can feel, and I judge that it exists. This world I can touch, and I likewise judge that it exists. There ends all my knowledge, and the rest is construction. For if I try to seize this self of which I feel sure, if I try to define and to summarize it, it is nothing but water slipping through my fingers. I can sketch one by one all the aspects it is able to assume, all those likewise that have been attributed to it, this upbringing, this origin, this ardor or these silences, this nobility or this vileness. But aspects cannot be added up. This very heart which is mine will forever remain indefinable to me. Between the certainty I have of my existence and the content I try to give to that assurance, the gap will never be filled. Forever I shall be a stranger to myself. In psychology as in logic, there are truths but no truth.” - The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus

There is so much to say and so much I don’t believe should be said. So let us see where this one goes, shall we?

Older but… wiser?

I wake up at 5am six mornings a week. I’m definitely olding out. Getting out of bed that early, savoring the quiet solitude of the graying morning darkness while sipping my coffee, playing the NY Times mini crossword on my phone and referring to this time as my favorite part of the day is old people shit.

But, I guess I like old people shit now because this summer I instigated the creation of a list documenting all the birds we spotted at the bird feeders we placed outside the kitchen window.

“Ooooh, is that a rose breasted grosbeak?

“Sure the fuck is. Add it to the list!"

Recently, I started going to the YMCA down the street from my house after my coffee crossword sesh. Even more old people shit, I realize although I have yet to sign up for “gentle yoga.”

I realized I can fit in a whole “workout” and still be home in time to wake up the first round of kids, the little guys, the 4th graders we have to drive 30 minutes to their elementary school out near our old house in the country. Incidentally, I use quotes around the word workout because, despite spending much of the summer cycling, I am woefully weak and have apparently been tiredly lugging around muscles that haven’t seen action since the Obama administration.

I’ve never been a gym person. Not for lack of trying. I’ve signed up for various bullshit at least a dozen times in my life. Complicated memberships (requiring notarized paperwork, natural disasters, or death to cancel) litter my wake like dog shit on a New York City sidewalk.

I never last more than a month or two. Part of it is the going-nowhere-hamster-wheel-animal-behind-glass feeling I get any time I attempt to exercise indoors. When I lived in New York City in my twenties I often walked past fitness centers with windows overlooking the sidewalk offering peeks into gyms on ground floors during the day. At night, brightly lit second and third floor gyms showcased bright-eyed exercisers hamster-wheeling their way to better bods while the rest of us slobs curiously observed them from sidewalks like watching gorillas at the zoo.

Like, there is a whole outside just waiting for people to walk and run around in it and I’m going to pay a never small amount to get on a human hamster wheel and feel like a fucking idiot?

We should also not ignore the blatant fact that I always quit the gym (I need to cancel I’ve been in a terrible car accident/must relocate for my new job/my grandma died I need to handle her estate) before seeing any results so each new endeavor feels riddled with embarrassed hopefulness from the jump. Still. This week I signed up at the Y with the familiar shameful optimism and clocked two days in a row. Two days in a row, motherfuckers!

I am reticent to admit this time feels different because, in all likelihood, my fitness dreams will crash and burn like they have in all the years prior but it’s worth noting that at least my motivation feels different. In years past, appearance has always been the overlying motivator. This time, I really and truly just want to feel good in my body.

The older I get the less I care about looking healthy, I want to feel healthy. This caring less about looking healthy mantra is conveniently timed with tucking my titties into my yoga pants in lieu of a sports bra but hey. Whatever gets me through.

This time, I liked being at the gym. The puffy-muscled big boys grunting and hiss-breathing their way through the free weights liked a woman in labor faded to oblivion and, except for the part where I clocked someone I vaguely know and maneuvered my way around them so as to avoid the horror of mutual recognition and inevitable small talk, I slowly did my thing in blissful anonymity.

Now that I’m finally getting to know me without being a judgmental asshole to myself, I think maybe it’s not that I dislike exercising indoors so much as I just experience intense social anxiety at the gym. Good ol’ Monica. Endlessly worried about what other people think about me and what I’m doing, especially in a place where I don’t really feel like I know what I’m doing.

My days are filled with what feels like involuntary hyper-vigilance wherein I am constantly assessing the potential for discomfort and awkward interactions with humans and trying to avoid them without being clocked: those horrifying smalltalk minutes at the beginning of every work Zoom meeting before everyone has joined, talking at the same time as someone else on a Zoom, pausing and then both talking at the same time again; “You go ahead. No, you go ahead.” Cue courtesy laugh. “Har har har, no really, you go!” Walking into a public restroom at the same time as a colleague and attempting to use the bathroom while they do the same or worse, linger at the counter doing their make-up or hair. I cannot pee while you’re standing there. I also excel at dodging neighbors at the grocery store, meals with co-workers and elevators with strangers.

Similarly, I’ve been dreading writing here and I’m trying to pinpoint exactly why. Hyper vigilance and the usual concern about the perception of me, for sure. After decades of writing online about pretty much anything that came into my stupid head, I feel loathe to offer an opinion on much of anything these days and am uninterested in adding to the unrelenting internet cacophony of folks shouting into the abyss.

Should I admit that I, a journalist and lifelong news junkie, no longer read much in the way of news? I receive a daily email from 1440 and I will always read Kottke because I dig how he rolls and I scan headlines, occasionally delving into an interesting long form article that grabs my attention on The Atlantic, NY Times or BBC, but that’s really it.

Like the early-rising, birdwatching, YMCA loitering oldie that I am swiftly becoming, I don’t know the difference between Chris Evans, Chris Pine or Chris Hemsworth–or the Hemsworth brothers–for that matter. Are there two of them? Three? Is there a fourth Hemsworth brother? I prefer it remain a mystery.

Here is an exciting item! Therapist told me this week that he “took Borderline Personality Disorder out of my file.” I’m not exactly sure what this means but it seems good? Does it mean I’m “cured” or in remission? Can I relapse? Is that even a thing? A BPD relapse? I’ll have to ask next time.

He said something along the lines of taking it out because I’m aware that I struggle with an overactive amygdala and the resulting emotional regulation regarding the happenings within my life and I am developing the right tools to respond so BPD doesn’t apply or is not an issue for me right now?

I need to get this clarified next time I see him. Ironically, my need for clarification about being cured of BPD is probably some sign of my penchant for black and white thinking and a sign of continued BPD. Ha! A little therapy/BPD humor. I hope Therapist gets a kick out of that. He does, after all, subscribe to this substack although it was probably a token subscription to demonstrate his support of my mental well-being and he likely doesn’t read shit. We’ll see next time I’m there, won’t we?

Regardless, this guy is a superhero and I am lucky I landed in his office two years ago this month. I’m still surprised that I did. For various reasons, I was looking for a woman therapist and sent emails to every joint in town outlining what I hoped to gain in therapy but it was post COVID times and everybody needed therapy. There were no openings anywhere.

My therapist saw my email and offered to see me even though he knew I wasn’t looking for a man. I checked him out on his website. He is an immigrant, English is not his first language. His non-American origin was appealing to me and something about the way he described his therapy style spoke to me. His perspective not just as a therapist but as a human is invaluable. I don’t think I’ve missed a session in two years and feel like, at 46, I am only now getting to know who I am. I’m learning to fully accept myself; the good and bad. The good is much harder to accept, I am finding.

Anyway, what I would like to impart to you, dear reader, is that I feel genuine awe that you are here, right now, reading these words. I am consistently, unabashedly overwhelmed that so many of you pay money to read this substack.

I feel such a connection to everyone who reads. These missives feel like flinging a message in a bottle into the ocean. When I write, as I am now, I think of you receiving the newsletter. How is your day going? What’s happening in your life? What is challenging you? What is exciting you? Do you look forward to an email from me? Or is it a reminder that you have been meaning to unsubscribe? Will you read this immediately or put it off for a few days? Do you feel a connection with me? Many of you have read my essays for nearly twenty years, others I have known for even longer. I see you. I know you have subscribed and it fills me with happiness and gives me purpose.

I have experienced a lot of pain and anger this year related to circumstances you may or may not be aware of and I’m trying to figure out how to let it all go. The specific circumstances aren’t important because we all have situations that cause immense pain that we are, in our own ways, trying to transcend.

It is imperative for not just my well-being but the well-being of my family to let it all go. It feels like a battle for my soul. But, for as much pain as I am in, I believe the person who consistently causes my anguish is in more pain than me. And no, this is not the pain olympics but this thought helps me understand mental disorders, trauma and the awfulness it wreaks on all our lives whether we deal with it ourselves, with our loved ones, friends, colleagues etc.

Loving-kindness meditation helps but, lately, when I’m alone in my minivan or falling asleep or “working out” I find my mind devolving into arguments with the person whose actions continue to flabbergast me.

When I become aware I am doing this I shake my head from side to side as if I can physically clear the thoughts and try to remind myself that the only absolute truth in the world is that there is no absolute truth. We live in a subjective reality which means, to me, that there is never a point in arguing with anyone. If the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate reality, arguing with anyone, even if only in my head, is a futile endeavor.

In short, your truth is your truth which is based on your perception which is based on your experiences and mine is the same. Some people are more open to the existence of many truths and others are trapped in a cycle of mistaking their truth– regardless of how it mangles my truth– for ultimate reality.

This notion is also why I stopped paying attention to most news reports. There are a few respectable minds I still turn to for context but, these days, I am suspicious of even their motives, preferring to stick to facts, as I can glean them, without opinion. Securing the facts of anything is a pretty difficult endeavor anymore which is why, in the face of tragedies large and small, remembering our humanity is all that matters.

We, within our subjective realities, are all connected. We belong to each other even though, on most days, it feels like most people have forgotten this essential fact.

My hope is that I remember it every day, especially when the one-sided arguments in my head become distractingly loud. Goddamn is it ever hard sometimes. Even here, now, where many paragraphs were written and deleted. But each day, each moment, each second, is a chance to start anew.

“For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?” - Bell Hooks

As always, endless gratitude and love for subscribing and thank you for reading.

IWNDWYT - Day 74