Monthly-ish. That’s what I wrote in the description of this newsletter after I posted successfully for two months in a row and thought to myself, Self! You can write interesting essays once a month, c’mon.
And then November rolled around, and I had nothing to share. I worked on several drafts—about seven of them in my drafts folder; most even have a beginning, middle, and end, but they feel undercooked, too raw, and not quite ready to be consumed. Much like the book I’m working on—this beast of a memoir that has taken a different shape than I thought it would or even wanted—I am not rushing to push it out into the world because I believe my memoir has the potential to be very powerful if I spend real time crafting, rewriting, and revising.
I have been rising at 5 am to write for several weeks now. My alarm goes off, and I reach for my laptop as I sit up. At first, my eyes are bleary, and I cannot focus on the text in my Scrivener doc. I slump down against my pillows as I read the previous day’s work, allowing myself to transition from the world into my book’s world, which was once my real world and life that now lives inside a narrative. In the book world, I cannot think about everything happening in the current world, or I will never write it. I try not to think about how my book, one which has a feminist, pro-LGBTQ+ lens, may one day be banned or how they may round us all up and kill us first. While I write, I try not to think about how I am afraid every day my daughter goes to school in America; I try not to think about the headlines of climate change, the headlines everywhere.
For three hours a day, I slip into the book world before seeing another headline because I might never write again. I fall into the book world before my day begins in earnest, before I rush to pack a lunch and stuff papers in my bag and drive to the office, before I spend my day working for someone else, before I spend hours in the car commuting and doing school pickup and coming home where there is dinner to prep and freelance clients who’ve sent four emails in a row to me all saying the same thing. Three hours a day are mine to write, to tell the story I must tell, which gets me up hours before the rest of my family. My wife snores softly beside me as my fingers clatter across the keys.
Everyone seems to be asking the same question. How do we carry on? As I sit in an office, children are being bombed and buried under rubble. Mothers are holding their lifeless, breathless babies against their chests, wailing as only mothers do.
How do we carry on? We must, we have to, in some regard. My daughter has to be dropped off at seven-thirty; she will walk into the building wearing a pair of my jeans and carrying her Trapper Keeper, lunchbox, and water bottle. I suggest she use her nice backpack, which we bought a few years ago, instead of juggling everything. She doesn’t want to. My paycheck will only arrive every two weeks if I arrive at work, so I go because I must. The money comes in and goes back out. Mortgage, gas bill, groceries, and it’s not enough. So I retreat to my laptop after dinner, write the articles, and pick out tile for someone’s kitchen. I do this until my eyes can’t stay open until my wife gently says it’s time and gets me upstairs before I fall asleep on the sofa. I am doing the things I have to do, and before I do any of it, I spend time writing the story that I never wanted to have to tell, but the one I must tell, the one I need to get out of my body and into the world so I may heal that part of me.
I haven’t had an appetite in weeks and I forget to drink water. I have not been walking, running, or stretching my body. I could find the time, there’s always time, but I am too tired to move. I am tired because I must carry on; I am tired of being vigilant; I am tired of the ways our wounded selves commit atrocities against one another. I am tired of abuses of power and sickening wealth and the human lives stolen in the never-ending pursuit of patriarchal domination.
How do we carry on? We ask each other, and I do not have a sweet enough answer to leave a comment on Instagram. My tarot cards are lovely, the meditation cushion is soft, and the woods are quiet and bare, but this all seems frivolous now. I notice things, I do — the way the sun cut through my bedroom a few days ago, piercing the glass on the bedside lamp, creating bright arcs of white light on the wall. I listen as my daughter tells me how she and her friends expressed their gratitude and love for one another before the holiday break, and my heart warms as I slog through afternoon traffic, mentally cataloging the work I will do when I get home. Twenty feet from me, a beautiful human being sits on the steps of the substance abuse recovery house, their sequined-heeled boots glittering in the low, long November sun.
How do we carry on? To be or not to be. The ultimate questions. For me, I get up and do the best that I can that day. I lost my youngest daughter to suicide in 2007 and ever since, I do what I can to carry on, for the rest of my family. There are many days when all I can think about is giving up, but I haven’t yet. Cling to the light and the loves in your life. They will carry you through.