Nobody's fine and everyone's beautiful
on addiction, obsession, & letting shit go
I had a different title for this post, but I didn’t write that title, I read it somewhere in someone’s something and instead of noting it on my phone, because I so rarely have my phone, I placed it atop this post, which wasn’t a post at the time. But now it is Tuesday, and Tuesday is when I write for you, usually. It’s a mostly usual week.
A cherry red apple cinnamon candle (cherries have nothing to do with it) is aglow on my dark barn wood table, keeping quiet watch as I accomplish what appears to be very little. Out the back window, leaves are falling like gigantic auburn chunks of rain, which is probably because there hasn’t been much of it lately. We aren’t allowed to light bonfires, too dry and too much wind. My husband chops wood for our indoor fireplace. It’s the best time of year, hands down.
They ask me how my recovery is going. Jk! There is no ‘they’ and no one ever asks me that, which is fine because what the hell would I even say? It’s much easier now. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I’m not done.
Today is not a good day to write. I’ve nothing to say which is what every writer says all the time, which makes us so insufferable even to ourselves. But alas, today, for me, it is as true as anything else.
Here’s what you absolutely must know and it doesn’t matter in the least: I’m not going to tell you if I wear makeup or don’t. I’m not going to idolize Pam Anderson or anyone else for going makeup-free and I’m not going to pretend that when I heard Drew Barrymore say that Pam “owns the makeup free space” I didn’t nearly spit out my coffee as I laughed aloud. What a joke. When I was in high school I plucked out all my eyebrows because, my undeveloped adolescent brain thought, Yes, these too-bushy eyebrows are all that stand between you and looking just like Pam Anderson. And getting what she has.
What did I imagine she had?
The coffee has gone cold. Not the same coffee I almost spat out, that was a week ago. The coffee in question I brewed at 8:30 this morning and now it’s tipping into late afternoon. You may think I’ve been writing for you all this time but I’ve not been. I’ve been fucking around for hours reading bits of this and that hoping to get inspired. We are way too obsessed with getting inspired.
The leaves continue to pour down like clumps of crunchy brown rain and everything I wanted so badly to tell you has fallen out the other side of my head. This is what happens.
She asks me about serving wine with dinner and I say I am bothered by wine in intimate settings. Since the dinner will be served in my home, we agree to nix the wine for everyone. This feels good and difficult to me. Good and difficult are not mutually exclusive. I want people to feel happy in my home but also I have to feel safe in it. No—not ‘safe.’ Wine on the table isn’t going to cause me to kill myself. I have to feel loved in my home, otherwise we’d have to call it something else.
When a writer sits down to write, all her thoughts rush forward at once. Jk I have no idea what it’s like to be a writer, I only know what it’s like to be me, but I’ve told you that already. See? I’m more than a bit scattered today. The leaves are falling in clusters and the squirrels are terribly busy. Darting across the piles of curled-up lawn leaves, stopping suddenly to side-eye the noise they just heard, which frightens them and which is themselves.
If they are selling you on makeup-free skin, you best believe they are selling you on expensive skin care to go with it because fuck knows you can’t have one without the other and somebody needs to get rich off insecurity regardless of which one it is. You can’t go bare and look like shit, or isn’t looking like shit the point? Or are we trying to label ugly and pretty both as beautiful? Or was it ‘natural’? Or was it ‘authentic’? Or aren’t we supposed to all be beautiful now?
The jittery squirrels flicker in and out of the rounded sunlight. I like hearing the sounds they make as they rustle through the leaves and scare themselves half to death.
Please know that if you are in recovery from anything you are in recovery from everything. My first few weeks? Everything felt like razors. Whatever you did or used to drown out the pain was part of a collection of things that linked themselves together and formed an ecosystem which surrounded you and sucked you in. Early recovery is the first five years.
Has anyone told you that lately?
Because I bet not.
Because I bet there’s a voice in your mind that tells you you should be over it by now. I bet it’s echoed back to you all over the place in the open mouths of the people who will never talk to you about what you’ve really been through. Or is it that you will never tell them? Are they withdrawn or are you withholding? Does it matter? There is a light between you burning all the time. One you forget is keeping you warm because it’s never kept you warm enough.
This has gone on long enough, wouldn’t you say? Everyone talking at once—shoving their content down your throat and their hands in your wallet every five goddamn minutes. Writers. Politicians. Entertainment in all of its various forms. We can’t read everyone let alone pay them. I’m in the game, though, obviously. But sooner or later we are going to have to make some decisions on paring shit back.
Turning stuff off. Letting folks down.
I think I have the correct number of fancy china plates to pull together a dinner party as long as it’s a small one. There won’t be wine and I won’t be bothered. I can’t really speak for anyone else. But that’s how it always is, no? You set the table with what you have and hope someone comes and hope you are loved.
I'll keep reading you as long as you keep sharing your true self like this. Thank you.
Gah, this whole thing had me. Got me. I love stream of consciousness type of writing. And your words here are so captivating.
“There is a light between you burning all the time. One you forget is keeping you warm because it’s never kept you warm enough.” I’m always wondering if anyone else actually f’n gets me. And then I think, does it even matter?