It’s supposed to hurt. It’s a broken heart, but the moving on is the hardest part.
The intro to Lady A’s “What If I Never Get Over You” blares in the car as Lucy and I fly through eastern Iowa to visit her granny. The woman whom she’s named after, the woman whom Lucy has called EVERY day since 2020, the woman whose Chevy I’m currently driving.
“You know I played this song in May 2022,” my girlfriend informs me from the passenger seat.
With my tail between my legs, I keep my gaze fixed on the empty road ahead. Ah, May 2022. The month I managed to break Lucy’s heart…before even sharing our first kiss! Out of the corner of my eye, I spot her “it’s okay it all worked out eventually” smirk. Ah, a smile.
It’s Thursday in eastern Iowa. A sobby, murky Thursday. Mother Nature keeps messing with her shower pressure—drizzle, downpour, drizzle, downpour—and I’m doing everything I can to avoid the dreadful squeak of a windshield wiper. Lucy’s sad, and the last thing she needs is the sharp, high-pitched cry of her granny’s Chevy Equinox.
Granny is 91 years and 324 days old. Which, in theory, should make the whole “dying” concept less of a surprise. I mean unless you are a vampire or an immortal jellyfish, we all die eventually. But this is where our humanness defies rational theory, because no matter where, when, or how—to watch a loved one depart us is never, ever easy nor expected.
Lucy’s been in a state of oscillating sadness the past few weeks—drizzle, downpour, drizzle, downpour—as her mind grapples with Granny’s mortality. How much longer does she have to live? Will she make it to her 92nd birthday? How do you live your life when the person you talk to every day is dying? As we near Granny’s new assisted living facility, Lady A’s lyrics spur an epiphany inside me. This song doesn’t just speak to the heartache from a robbed romance, rather these words resonate with broken hearts of all shapes, sizes, and circumstances. As Lady A and Ryan Hurd plead through the car speakers: What if time doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do?
Today I know a lot of people asking this question to their respective pains. Divorce, cancer, friendship dr@m@, soul-wrenching rejection, a bad hangover, finding a two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn (which is apparently worse than soul-wrenching rejection and a bad hangover combined). And if we turn to the news, the list of present-day pains will unravel into an encyclopedia—Ukraine, Israel-Gaza, college campuses, the lack of reproductive rights in half of our country. Each pain prompts Lady A’s terror-stricken question: What if I never get over you? What if things never get better.
Now I’m not “pain proficient”—I’m intermediate at best. Beyond Advil/Tylenol, I have little in my arsenal to to combat pain. And, though tempting, I won’t serenade you with overtly optimistic words that jingle something like pain, pain go away, come back another day. Instead, I will leave you with a brief history of what HAS NOT helped me through my personal pain chronicles, and that is: running.
Both literally and figuratively. If pain has an accomplice, mine is running—the act of moving at a speed faster than walking, or (as Google also defines), “never having both or all the feet on the ground at the same time.” Hours before my stepdad passed away, I had this unsettling urge to get on a treadmill and run. I’ll never forget it. I remember a guilt came over me: You’re at the hospital for your stepdad’s final goodbye, and all you can think about is getting on a LA Fitness treadmill. Running meant control. It also meant a temporary distraction from the pain, or numbing it altogether. In retrospect, I think I ran as a way to fast forward through life when it got too hard to enjoy the present, too hard to have both feet on the ground at the same time. I couldn’t accept Lady A’s plea: What if time doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do? So instead, I took matters into my own two feet and ran like my life depended on it.
Remember the formula: Speed = Distance ÷ Time. I treated pain like some predetermined Distance, which meant if I could increase my Speed, then Time (i.e., the duration of my pain) would decrease, and the sooner I’d be free from my misery and well on my way to a happily ever after. The End. Yippee!
Unfortunately, our humanness also defies the rules of algebra. Running does not shorten pain (surprise, surprise). In fact, it has the unintended consequence of prolonging pain via a byproduct called suffering. Now before I go all Buddha on you, I’ll leave you with the Western wisdom of my writer-in-shining-armor, Glennon Doyle: I know that when the pain and the waiting are here, the rising is on its way. I hope the pain will pass soon, but I’ll wait it out because I’ve tested pain enough to trust it. And because who I will become tomorrow is so unforeseeable and specific that I’ll need every bit of today’s lessons to become her.
Lucy and I arrive at Granny’s new home—a cream-colored residential building with a gazebo overlooking acres of uninterrupted land. I don’t have the answers to Lucy’s troubling questions. How many days does Granny have left? What if something happens when we’re out of town? What if time doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do? I have no remedy for her pain. But I will sit next to it for six hours on a rainy Thursday, I will listen to it like delicate drops against the windshield glass, and even if time doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do, I will be here waiting for you, with two feet on the ground.
Whoever you are, whatever your present-day pain (because there’s always something!): may you let your pain move you closer to your becoming. 🙏
I promise the story is better than the rhyme, so please bear with me…
It all started on March 23, 2024.
Scratch that. It started on May 28, 2022: the day my big brother got down on one knee and proposed to a Taylor Swift savant who’d agree to become my future sister-in-law.
Between May 28, 2022 and March 23, 2024, lots of life stuff happened. Here are the Sidebraid Notes (think—like SparkNotes for SparkNotes):
June 2022 – My heart rate was recorded at 35 bpm, which incited a wave of panic that landed me in the ER (spoiler alert: I’m fine—I just have “bradycardia” aka the pulse of an Olympian…slight flex!)
July 4, 2022 AM – Mass shooting in my hometown, Highland Park
July 4, 2022 PM – Lucy and I are finally dating
September 2022 – I left my consulting job of five years to write the memoir that had plopped into my mind a few months prior
October 26, 2022 – My stepdad Stu passed away from cancer. My stepmom Patricia turned seventy (thankfully, I had put out all the stops the previous year, for her 69th birthday).
~November 2022 – February 2024: more life~
March 23, 2024: Lucy and I co-host our first housewarming party. Scene:
At approximately 7 PM, the most random collection of women joined me and Lucy in a semi-circle around our sole TV, while March Madness games flashed sporadically on the screen like TikToks. There were about ten of us. Most were complete strangers to each other. The epitome of our unintentional social experiment was a young woman dressed in a cow onesie who neither Lucy nor I knew. Eventually, someone thought it would be helpful to go around and “say your name and how you know Lucy/Lena and…”—the room waited in suspense until Lucy (an icebreaker savant) chimed in: “and say the last time you cried.”
What ensued was magic. We had ALL cried fairly recently (some even earlier that day). Just like that, a crying revolution was taking shape, and thankfully my entrepreneurial friend Martha was taking mental notes as we brushed shoulders on the living room couch.
The following Friday evening, I received a stampede of texts from Martha, soliciting my membership to her new social group: Cry Crew Chicago.
The Sidebraid Notes for what followed that evening:
One hour later, the New York Times bestselling author Christie Tate follows the group, warranting a second stampede of texts, this time from me to Martha.
Four minutes later, I followed suit and added Christie on Instagram.
Ninety minutes later, Christie reciprocated my friendship request, which led to complete iMessage mayhem between me and Martha, filled with voice memos and ALL CAP TEXTS.
Fast-forward two weeks to April 11, 2024. That Thursday morning, my half-asleep mind awakened to the operatic shrieks of “Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah” as Instagram informed me that Christie would be teaching a memoir workshop at a library that Saturday from 10-11 AM. Said library is thirty miles away from me. But said library is also in the same Chicago suburb as my Taylor Swift savant sister-in-law’s bridal shower, which was scheduled for that sameSaturday, at noon. YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP FOLKS.
Within twenty-four hours, I made it off of the waitlist for the workshop. A few hours later, my angelic girlfriend agreed to pick up my aunt and the gluten-free vegan cake for the shower that morning, while I attended the workshop—but on one condition: “You have to talk to Christie at the end of the workshop.” Signed, sealed, delivered.
So here I am. Saturday morning. Sprinting out of my Uber to make the Metra train. I catch my breath at the top of the station’s steps just as the choo-choo chants begin. But wait. People are running to the other side of the tracks—platform change. I race to the other side in my coral red jumpsuit and flats and make it at the nick of time. The forty-five-minute ride gets me within a couple blocks of the library, with twenty minutes to spare. I pace near the library’s front lawn until it’s close enough to 10 AM for me to avoid any and all awkward small talk. At 9:52 AM I enter the sanctuary of free books and follow the librarian’s directions: Go through the kids section until I spot the doorway under the portrait of Clifford the Big Red Dog. I step inside Clifford’s classroom, and there she is: Christie Tate. Under the same roof as me. Divine intervention at its best. If only she knew all the Sidebraid Notes that led to this singular moment.
I find a seat near the back, next to a middle-aged man named Eric. There’s about fifteen of us total, and we are a DEI Dream—spanning across all generations, races, and ethnicities. A tall black woman towers over the desk in front of mine, an older Indian woman sits on the far left side of the room , a wife and husband on the far right, and a pony-tailed old lady has claimed the courtside desk that’s approximately three feet in front of Christie’s lectern. Fifteen drastically different memoirs inhabit the classroom today, but for the next sixty minutes, we are all the same: writers, truth tellers, Christie disciples.
“How many of you haven’t written your memoir because you’re afraid it might hurt someone?” Christie asks. As hands jiggle below shoulder-level, I teleport back in time two years ago. April 8, 2022. I sat at a café table alone in Dharamshala, India. Surrounded by red-robed monks and the milky Febreze of Chai teas. On this particular afternoon, my hand was FLYING as I jotted down (what felt like) a lifetime of holding back words because I didn’t want to hurt someone. I ended my writing that day with this proclamation: If sharing my story with the world is hurting someone, then bring on the pain. It was like a lock had been broken in that moment, as stories came darting out of some dusty volt I didn’t even know I had. Two weeks later, I discovered my memoir.
“For the next hour, give yourself permission to write,” Christie continues, her inviting voice equally calm and enthusiastic, like a kindergarten teacher on the first day of school. From there, she takes us through various writing “workouts.” First, we have three minutes to list the nouns that come to mind when we think of our life story. The goal is to keep your pen moving on the page as much as possible. Any stoppage in pen movement, and I imagine Christie’s brown eyes beaming at me from across the room like laser pointers. Next, we have three minutes to list verbs, then another three minutes to list specific scenes. And, for the grand finale, we have a whopping six minutes to write about one of the scenes. For 360 seconds, I described my participation in Yale’s naked run, which is exactly as it sounds: I ran naked through Yale’s library (not like spandex and sports bra naked—clothless head-to-toe, with nothing but a sidebraid dangling over my skin). Before the workshop ends, Christie raffles away two copies of her second memoir B.F.F. As fate would have it, she picks my paper slip out of the bag—which is awesome on so many levels, but mainly because now Christie Tate knows my name!
Attendees begin to pack up and leave, and now the voice of my girlfriend echoes inside me: You have to talk to Christie at the end of the workshop. Just go, introduce yourself—tell her about your memoir.
“Hi Christie! I was wondering if you could autograph these?” I am at the front of the room; my mouth is moving, but my mind is frozen. On the inside, I am shaking. But on the outside, it just looks like I’ve consumed one too many servings of the complimentary Dunkin Donuts coffee. Christie is as bubbly as I had envisioned her to be. Smiling with dimples, conversing without a rush. I tell her about our divine intervention with my friend Martha’s Cry Crew Chicago. Per request, she personalizes my winning copy of B.F.F. for my friend: Martha—one day, let’s cry together!
Next, I tell her I’m writing a memoir. When she asks what the book is about, my brain freezes for three M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I, as if having some sort of That’s So Raven moment. Once I regain my senses, I spit out words like a ninety miles-per-hour batting cage. As I’d tell my mom when she picked me up afterward: “I have no idea what the heck I said to this woman.”
Before we part ways, I gift Christie one of my Let Go bracelets. Across the white silicone, the yellow font reads: Let Go. This moment needs you. I started making them in 2021. Three years later, I’ve invested in over a thousand LiveStrong doppelgangers. They’ve landed in the hands of Uber drivers, Betty Who, Sean Kingston, and now, Christie Tate.
“Keep going!” she says, as she graciously accepts the bracelet. Keep going.
***
For the past two months, I’ve been preoccupied with this daunting question: How the heck am I going to share my book with the world? I’ve spent nearly two years transcribing my soul onto paper—now what? Where am I going? How will I get my words before the eyes of the world? For weeks now, I’ve strayed from my unbeaten path and have returned to the capitalism of questioning that boomerangs: what’s next, what’s next, what’s next. I have been so concerned with where I’m going, that I’ve forgotten how I’ve gotten this far in the first place—Let go. This moment needs you.
This past Saturday was a frying-pan-to-the-face reminder to “keep going.” To keep my pen moving on the page. To keep letting go to the harmonization of moments that make real life stranger than fiction. To accept life’s dance without anticipating the next song. And to give myself permission to live the stories I wish to share one day. Thank you Christie, for being the messenger of a magic I had somehow misplaced, and for helping the most random group of humans come together on a Saturday morning and inch closer to the words that we fear most, the words that make us naked down to our souls.
One year ago today, my girlfriend Lucy and I lost our couples therapy virginity. Need I say more? I will.
I was reluctant at first. Couples therapy sounds like something for old, married people, and/or folks who are trying to experiment with polyamory. Lucy and I had neither of these credentials on our resume. We’d been dating for eight months, since July 4, 2022—the day we had our first kiss, first “I love you,” first everything. But our honeymoon period was cut short. Lucy met my entire extended family (some of whom didn’t even know I was, uhm, GAY) within our first three months of dating at my stepdad’s funeral and shiva. By November, I was emotionally unavailable for anything that didn’t involve writing my book, and Lucy was more emotionally available than a John Mayer song.
At the start of 2023, our attachment styles had crystallized into the dangerous duo that relationship experts deem a lost cause—Anxious+Avoidant. Lucy craved more connection than a golden retriever soliciting tummy rubs. A relentless question-asker and masseuse, the girl never turned down an opportunity to connect. I, on the other hand, was the cliché writer, locking myself in a room for hours, taking solo walks, and even going on solo dates to help nourish what creative connoisseur Julia Cameron calls your creative child.
As our anxious-avoidant concoction brewed, we began to argue over all sorts of stupid stuff—COVID quarantine protocols, whose hometown was better, Lucy thought I was writing too much, I thought Lucy was expecting too much, I’d get mad that Lucy got mad in the first place, then Lucy would get mad that I got mad that she was mad. We’d cry, raise our voices, and stop using 😘 in our texts. After enough disputes, we did agree on one thing: We needed a referee.
So on March 31, 2023, on the brink of breaking up, we sat together in front of Lucy’s laptop, with enough room for both Jesus and Moses to slip between us. A young, chic Latina woman appeared on the screen, who I shall call “Grace” (seeing that she’s our saving grace). That first session felt like a court proceeding as Lucy and I each pleaded our case, describing what was happening, and how the other person was definitely in the wrong. I used some weird analogy that I probably stole from Jay Shetty’s podcast, and compared our relationship issues to a flat tire. “We can have three great wheels,” I plagiarized, “but if we don’t fix our flat tire then we can’t move forward.” Lucy countered with how she has needs too, how she’s the one who’s always giving, how I know nothing about her Iowa homeland, yadda yadda yadda.
What followed was Fridays with Grace (like Tuesdays with Morrie, but more crying). By the end of our sessions, Lucy and I would steam in an angry silent contest as a blank-faced Grace stared into the telehealth cam. “I hope you guys have a good weekend,” she’d say, which my meanest mind translated to: “Your allotted fifty-three minutes is up, sayonara betches!” Once our referee signed off, Lucy and I would wait for the other to extend an olive branch—a holding of the hand, a Hershey chocolate offering, the ever-so-slightest smile—anything except “sorry” because sorry implies you are right and I am wrong, and that’s just never the case, for me.
The first few weeks with Grace were a countdown, with each session bringing us one week closer to the two-month mark—at which time, it’s acceptable to wave your couples therapy white flag and call it quits. But by summer, things began to subtly change. My passive aggressive therapy notes (that I secretly hoped Lucy would read over my shoulder) turned into geometrical doodles. Instead of fighting, we had positive conflicts—because language is important folks! And instead of trying to change each other, we began to accept our differences. Lucy accepted she’s dating a part-time monk. I accepted I’m dating someone who fits thirty-six hours into one day. We started asking questions like “What are your needs?” and “What are your expectations?” and saying things like “I see you” and “We are safe.” And, of course, we discovered clinical psychology’s favorite B-word: Boundaries (though betches is a close second).
On February 23, 2024, our saving Grace noted, “You’ve come a long way.” And that we had. Our flat tire was no more. It didn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t happen in a pretty straight line. Rather, it was a lengthy, curvy, queer trajectory that led us to where we are now. A place where we still fight, because we are neither robots nor a Hallmark movie. But a place where our fights with each other never outweigh our fight for each other.
As a closeted teenager, I was a hopeless romantic. I fed myself the “love will solve all of my problems” fantasy. Never in my wildest nightmares would love cause problems. I was convinced that the first person I’d kiss would be my last, and our love would be permanently perfect, untouchable, and everlasting.
My views on romantic love have changed a lot since then. Now, what I value more than perfection and permanence is the daily decision to defend love. Today there’s nothing more romantic than couples therapy on a Friday afternoon, and there’s nothing more sexy than “sorry.” How many of us have ever wanted a Cinderella story? Someone who will chase us with our glass slipper and save us from all of our blisters and problems. F*** the slipper. If you’re co-authoring a love story today or someday in the future, I hope you find someone who will hobble with you on one shoe and a flat tire, down a rocky road suffocated by Midwest cornfields, with no cars or end in sight. I hope you find a person who will stay with you on that road for as long as you need—weeks, months, years, a lifetime—however long it takes to get home.
Relationships of all kinds are an everyday battle between love and time. Two partners, family members, best friends—each renders a constant war to return to our happily ever beginning. To go back in time to the first kiss, or teleport back to family dinners during the pandemic, or rewind to all the weird shit we did in high school. But the brave ones—aka YOU—will let go of what was and make room for what’s to come. For those special people in your life who drive you crazier than any other breed, yet you cannot imagine life without: Weather the difficult seasons and trust that love will prevail over time on the battlefield.
Thank you Lucy: (1) for letting me share our not-so-Cinderella story to the World Wide Web and (2) for walking us home. Happy Couples Therapyversary—here’s to all of the relationships in our lives that are worth the fight, and copays.
One of my first tangos with Anxiety was in the third grade. My parents had just gotten divorced, so naturally I loitered around them like a smelly fart, terrified that any detachment from them would set-off some imaginary grenade (which, in my family, is just as lethal as ripping one). The boiling point of my separation anxiety happened after school one day when my televised programming was suddenly interrupted by abdominal thrusts and a purple face gasping for air. The informative TV commercial on the Heimlich maneuver sent Anxiety into overdrive. For weeks after, I didn’t eat lunch at school because I feared I would choke on my food without my parents there to rescue me. I’d suck the juice out of a few orange slices to get me through the day, my heavy head spotting eye floaters under the hallway lights. I lost so much weight the doctor thought I might have anorexia. I took enough sick days to convince my friend I was on a leave of absence to play for the Duke women’s basketball team (making me slightly more concerned about my friend’s well-being than my own…imagine a nine-year-old throwing alley-oops to 6’7 center Alison Bales). Though my third-grade anxiety episode wasn’t exactly sunshine and rainbows (I’d have to wait until high school for those!), I do recall one bright spot: a standing appointment with Gilmore Girls at 4 PM, Monday-Friday.
According to Google, the intended viewership of the show is women among 13-34. But by age nine, I was already a seasoned Sex and the City spectator, making anything on TV fair game (*except Girls Gone Wild, which was not the wild playdate adventure I had envisioned it to be). Running on TV from 2000 to 2007, Gilmore Girls follows a thirty-something-year-old single mom (Lorelai) and her teenage daughter (Rory) in Stars Hollow, the kind of small town Connecticut that has a diner, a gazebo, and weekly town hall meetings. The show’s dialogue babbles at a zillion miles per hour, yet the development of anything dramatic (ex. romance, heartbreak, death) requires at least an investment of fifteen hours. You don’t even realize the painfully paint-drying pace because you’re too infatuated with the sharp, yet idiotic, discourse between characters. Here are two favorites:
Rory: Okay, our house is burning down, and you can save the cake or me. What do you choose?
Lorelai: Well that’s not fair. The cake doesn’t have legs.
Sookie (Lorelai’s bestie): Okay, new plan for the invites. We’re getting married May 15th. 4 O’Clock. Front Lawn. Pass it on.
Lorelai: Sookie…
Sookie: That’s it. Word of mouth. They used it for the Revolutionary War. Who the hell am I to poo-poo history huh?!
Life is so simple in Stars Hollow. Everyday inconveniences are dissolved by a cup of coffee at Luke’s Diner, while life’s greatest griefs alchemize into a sarcastic stardust. At the very least, this dramedy encapsulates the quote, “Don’t take life too seriously,” and at its best, Gilmore Girls is a magic show on the mundane—reminding us that each moment, no matter how big or small or caffeinated, can be transformed into meaningless, leg-less joy.
Twenty years after the Heimlich commercial scared the bejesus out of me, I returned to my Stars Hollow solace to combat another unannounced visit by Anxiety. This time the theme was straight to the point: fear of dying. During the week, I began this ritual where I watch ten minutes of Gilmore Girls while scarfing down lunch. A midday meditation to soothe all the big question bubbles hovering over my head: What will happen with my book? Where will I be working later this year? What health insurance will I have next month? What if I get anxious? What if I’m dying? Before the question bubbles can burst, I hit pause on my life and press play on the Gilmores. If just for ten minutes, topics like purpose and mortality are replaced by brilliant banter, Connecticut charm and, dare I call them, enlightenments.
Last week, Lorelai and Sookie transformed into spiritual teachers as they spoke to my greatest fear:
TLDW: Lorelai and Sookie attempt to buy real-estate from an old lady named Fran, who’s insistent on owning her property “forever.” Before they throw in the towel, the two besties have friendship telepathy—they can play the long game and pursue the property once old-lady-Fran’s “forever” is no longer forever. Of course, they can’t just say: “Hey Fran, can we have your place once you’re dead?” Rather, Lorelai and Sookie must be savvy with their word choice, which leads to a bunch of confusion but also this impeccable euphemism: Death is just one long vacation.
KABOOM. My cerebral lightbulb exploded like that imaginary grenade; its shards of glass spattered across my mind’s floor. For months, I’ve been studying myselfas I try to understand why Anxiety refuses to break up with me. Every time I think I’ve gotten rid of them, Anxiety shows up at my doorstep in a new outfit—separation anxiety, sleep anxiety, anxiety anxiety. And now thanatophobia (a much cooler way to say: death anxiety). I’ve meditated, medicated, journaled, therapy’d, read, prayed, psychoanalyzed my life past the point of conception. Yet, the source of relief I needed would be messengered by my emotional support show. “Eventually, we’re all gonna take the same longgg vacation,” Sookie explains to a perplexed Fran. YES—that’s it! Death doesn’t have to look like the Grim Reaper. Maybe the remedy for thanatophobia, and all of its anxious accomplices, is to play along with its game of dress-up and counter each devilish disguise with a more comfortable costume. Instead of an imaginary grenade, what if nine-year-old me could’ve seen separation from my parents as part of an epic game of tag? So epic, in fact, that eventually two more adults would join in on the fun—stepparents! What if high school me could’ve seen the silver lining of my sleep deprivation: learning how to journal my truest, loopiest thoughts (a persona my friends would later name Prophet Lena)? And now, what if I can replace the haunting images of death that reel inside my head—cancer, mass shooting, war, cancer, mass shooting, war—with something less hellacious? Something so outrageously silly that it might just fool Anxiety: sunbathing in Maui, slurping spaghetti carbonara in Florence, or toasting champagne at a perfume museum in Paris. Next time your mind tries to convince you that you’re dying from a numb pinky toe (me last week) or a sore jaw (my friend a few days ago), I challenge you to replace the Grim Reaper with your dream vacay. Show Anxiety that it takes two to tango, and use your imagination for good.
A few days after my Gilmore Gurus moment, I met another spiritual teacher at a bachelorette party. I briefed Ben (a soon-to-be psychiatrist) on my anxiety saga as we sat around the biggest residential hot tub in Scottsdale. After unraveling my mind to the near-stranger, Ben responded with a monologue in a language I’d once known, not too long ago. In fact, his response teleported me back to a conversation I had on April 9, 2022 in India with a young Australian man (Daniel if you’re reading this: THANK YOU). Apparently, this is a language that can be fluent and forgotten in a matter of months. Not English, or Hindi, or anything detectable on Google Translate. This language is an alarm clock to my deepest self. It’s the meditative “Ommm” dressed in a gazillion different words and emotions. A communication that encapsulates my stepdad’s famous mantra: There are no coincidences. As my hot tub psychiatry session concluded, Ben reminded me to not get caught up in the movie of life, to step back and walk into my heart. “The opposite of love is not hate—it’s fear,” my new friend preached to me under the zealous Scottsdale sun.
There’s an ancient quote by Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu that goes: “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” As I fly home from Arizona, I hear echoes of Lorelai Gilmore and Buddha Ben, and I wonder: Can this be the part in my movie where I chase Anxiety through airport terminals and drop my baggage to embrace them with both arms? Is this the part where I stop wasting precious time trying to look for Death on the departure board and accept that it will come eventually—and when it does, it will look like Maui and Florence and Pariz all in one? Is this the part in life’s movie where the credits roll and real life resumes? Am I turning the corner I’ve rounded over and over again for the past two decades? Am I almost back home?
After I wrote that last question, my eyes wandered around the airplane before landing on a magazine in the hands of the middle-aged woman sitting next to me. In big italicized letters, her open page reads: Om Sweet Om.
P.S.
The duo that never was…6’7 Alison Bales, 5’7 Me (in the closet 🌈)
***This post is one of a whopping two-part series that addresses the ever-trending topic: Anxiety. Enjoy beautiful people!***
Eleven days after my stepdad had passed, there was a mouse in the house. As I recall it, I locked eyes with the four-legged fur ball in my bedroom. They paused. I paused. Then the rodent ran rampant, screaming bloody murder, as their salmon-pink feet tickled the hardwood floor.
In search of an explanation for the mouse mayhem, I deviated from my Jewish private school education (which took a more skeptical stance on afterlife “rebirths”) and convinced myself that the puny fellow was some cosmic reincarnation of my stepdad. After all, my stepdad’s name was Stuart—haven’t y’all seen the movie Stuart Little? A more plausible, but far more boring, explanation for the mouse in the house was the fact that we had just sat seven days of “Shiva” (translating to “seven” in Hebrew). In Jewish tradition, when a loved one dies, the mourners are supposed to stay home for a week as family and friends come over with condolences and kosher food. Also per tradition, no items (including leftover brisket) can leave the mourners’ house until the conclusion of Shiva. After our seven days of mourning, my childhood home had accumulated more kosher food than I had at my Bat Mitzvah–making it prime real-estate for Stuart Little.
You would think a retired hamster mom (of nine) would not be fazed by three inches of mouse. Think again. That night I had just slipped into the pink comforters of my childhood bed, preparing for my nighttime meditation. Then, in a moment’s stillness, Stuart Little scurried from under my bed and across the floor. I jumped to my feet, standing atop my mattress to surveil the premises as I cried for Mom, who hustled to my rescue.
“Don’t come in!” I warned her. “There’s a mouse.”
“A mouse?!” Mom replied from the hallway.
“A MOUSE.” I wailed from my pink cotton Island. “I’m running to you on the count of three.”
“ONE…” I collected all the essentials off of my nightstand: my prescribed sleeping meds, Zoloft, earplugs, sleep mask, my book. I had the bedtime routine of an eighty-year-old woman with a ninety-year-old husband who snores.
“TWO…” I hugged my In Case of Mouse materials and calculated the seven-foot path out the door. The coast was clear.
“THREE!” I boogied out of there, skipping on my tippy toes just in case Stuart Little tried to nibble at my feet. I directed Mom into her bedroom across the way, then slammed her door shut. Being the modern day Einstein I am, I fetched some towels from Mom’s bathroom and stuffed them into the gap at the bottom of her bedroom door. While I barricaded the entryway, Mom called pest control and spoke with an urgency that suggested there was a grizzly bear waltzing around our kitchen. Despite Mom’s insistence that this was, indeed, an emergency, the pest control’s earliest appointment was not until the next day. We had no choice but to have a slumber party with Stuart Little.
I joined Mom in her king-size bed. The place I had called my bed in third grade when I had separation anxiety, then at age eighteen, when I had sleep anxiety. And now again, at age twenty-eight, with mouse anxiety. Every decade, I find an excuse to return to Mom’s nest. Maybe by age thirty-eight it will be grizzly bear anxiety.
Mom slept on the right side of the bed, closest to the door. I slept on the left side, Stu’s side. And everything was fine, until the middle of the night. Mom whispered the last thing a half-asleep person (heavily sedated on sleeping drugs) wants to hear: “The mouse got in.” Dun dun dun. Stuart Little had somehow willed himself through the towel wall and was on the loose in the master bedroom. Thankfully, Mom’s bed is one of those high-risers that even the most athletic dogs would have trouble jumping onto–so unless our new roommate grew wings overnight, we were safe. I went back to sleep.
In recent days, I’ve been thinking about Stuart Little. His lil gray fur coat. His smooth tail lagging behind as if he were a tow truck. And those bulging, bright eyes and flappy ears too big for his face. “He’s kinda cute,” I’d admit to Mom after the fact. In our brief stare down, the mouse appeared even more frightened than me. I could almost hear his heart rate bumping through his bony body. Buh-bump, buh-bump, buh-bump.
In eight months’ time, I’d become that scaredy mouse. Frantically running inside my own mind and body. Buh-bump, buh-bump, buh-bump. A year before, I had discovered a sense of home deeper than anything I’d ever encountered to this day. It was a home within myself, my breath, that made me believe I had everything I needed to be okay, no matter the place or the circumstance. I wouldn’t call this feeling “fearless”—I’m not sure if I believe in such a sensation, at least not for me in this lifetime. It was more of a “fear-flying” feeling, rising above my anxious thoughts instead of running away from them. This manifested in the following ways: I flung myself to India to lose my solo trip virginity. Upon landing in Delhi, a well-intentioned woman in the window seat next to me advised me to get a pocket knife for self-defense. Hours later, I strutted across a tarmac and boarded my first propeller plane. Under normal sober circumstances, each of these scenarios would’ve caused the kind of panic I experienced the night I spotted my furry friend. But for some reason, at least for a month or two, I had convinced myself that I’d be okay, no matter what life threw at me.
Six months after my Eat Pray Love trip, my stepdad passed away. Shortly after, Stuart Little came on set. Then eight months after that, Eminem’s song “Without Me” played inside my head–guess who’s back, back again–as Anxiety greeted my thoughts with a giant, suffocating hug. Reunited and it feels so ugh.
In hindsight, Anxiety’s arrival made sense. I’m a slow processor of all things—literature, what I want for dinner, romantic love. “Death” was no exception. My stepdad Stu provided me with a courtside seat of Death. The first few months filled me with shock and sadness—sadness for what had happened, sadness for what would no longer be, sadness for Mom. By summer, Sadness began to bring around its favorite plus-one, Anxiety. My mind raced with intrusive thoughts of dying—“what if something is wrong with me,” “what if I collapse,” “what if the plane doesn’t land.” Then my mind would trick my body—a tickle to my throat that I couldn’t cough out of me, a gust of dizziness more startling than the wind off of Lake Michigan, a tightness to my chest as Anxiety hugged me tighter and tighter and tighter. Ugh.
These anxious episodes reminded me of Stuart Little. His teeny feet tip-tapping around the house, until SNAP. A mousetrap disguised as cheese. Are our anxious thoughts not mental mousetraps? Feeding us with fears that appear to be real-life threats. We bite at the “what-ifs” and then SNAP—our throat tickles, we feel off-balance, our heart races, breath shortens. We fall under Anxiety’s trap to become a prisoner in our own body.
That’s what happened to me the last six months of 2023. Trap after trap after trap. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on my therapist. Fool me thrice, maybe it’s time to look myself in the mirror again.
Seven years ago, my college coach shared these fighting words: “You see a mousetrap. I see cheese and a fucking challenge.” Her pregame speech has inspired me to create a new mantra, that I invite you all to chant, get tattooed, write on your vision board, etc.: You see Anxiety. I see me and a fucking challenge.
I’m far from the fear-flying person I was on Air India in April 2022. But after months of Anxiety’s mousetraps, I’m learning that the best way to quiet the mouse going haywire inside my mind is to pull the towel out from under the door and invite the lil guy inside my home. Because Stuart Little, reincarnated or not, is a part of me. That single acceptance alone is a lifetime’s work that I will continue to nurture. As I write in my future memoir: If Anxiety kills me, then it will die with me, not against me.
@Anxiety I gotta McDonald’s grilled cheese with your name on it whenever you’re ready to come home.
These were the words my WordPress pen pal, Hawaiian Princess Pieces, shared in regards to what she’d like for her 31st birthday. These are the words that have been haunting me for weeks…”write me a love letter”… “That’s all I want, my friends” swimming inside my cerebrum like great white sharks as the Jaws theme song picks up steam.
Everyone knows the act of writing is analogous to taking a dump. You can’t force it out of you, and if you do then it probably won’t be as satisfying as you’d hoped and dreamt it to be. But we are now mere hours away from February 3, 2024, the day for which my friend has requested my love and undivided attention. The good news: I was two-weeks-proactive on the “tissue box” request. Not only that, I BALLED OUT.
Given my greatest source of income this past year was my $50 lottery winnings, I’ve tried to be more economically-savvy (rationing a Trenta Starbucks over three days; gifting socks for the holidays; condoning my girlfriend’s illegal parking practices). But this purchase was an indisputable exception. For just forty dollars, I secured a molded resin cat-butt tissue holder…abracadabra ala-CAT-zam:
Leaving me $10 to splurge on tissue boxes, for those keeping track.
Such an exceptional, not to mention practical, gift should exempt me from this “love letter” right? Write?!
Just in case, I will squeeze my mental gluteus maximus and express the love language that puts gift-giving to shame…without further ado, BLOG OF AFFIRMATION:
Two years and a lot of BALS later (that is, Big A$$ Life Sh*t, for those of you who might’ve forgotten), the sentiment still holds true. Stronger than ever. You are a different breed of soul–one who embraces snail mail in 2024, calls just to say hi, texts my dad on his birthday, kidnaps my girlfriend for ransom, and will never say no to karaoke (even on those fateful Tuesdays when Trader Todd’s karaoke is all but open). Your light-hearted, loving soul is something I didn’t know I needed in this lifetime. But kinda like the discovery of Verb bars: once you have it, you can’t live without it.
I am neither a psychic nor a fortune cookie, so I will not attempt to predict what the mysterious Year 31 has in store for you. But, for what it’s worth, my 29.3-year-old advice (for the 69th time): you are bigger than any job, career, blog post, memoir. You are the shoulder I cried on to begin 2022 (and many times thereafter…i.e., you have a superbly inviting shoulder!). You are the human who Pops and Patricia always ask about at family dinner. You are the name that makes people smile when brought up in conversation. You are the joy-jelly inside of a donut-world that can seem dark and daunting at times. You are the reason I’m smiling in front of my laptop as I type right now, about to miss my train to the suburbs. You are the friend who makes me want to go the extra mile (literally–I will be galloping for 1.8 miles to make this train).
For your 31st trip around the sun, I hope you gift yourself patience and the freedom to explore. Don’t fret the U-turns and O-turns; the long way home is usually better anyways. I love you, Friend. Thank you for your joy, right shoulder, and the superpower you possess that makes every person/feline/stranger in a room feel less alone in our donut-world. I am so, soo, SOOO proud of you.
And like a tissue out of a cat’s butt, I hope these words are as satisfying as you had hoped and dreamt.
My brother David and I are currently practicing the Silent Treatment. Why? Because that is our duty as siblings: to fight like the two kids who went to war over Legos, Game Cube, Pokémon and whatever else interested my brother in our youth. David’s two years older than me, which made him the coolest thing since Fudgsicles. During our first decade together, I followed him like a shadow. Wore his baggy clothes, studied his new vocabulary (ex. The F bomb and shiitake mushrooms), and even sacrificed my Hanukkah gift to help fund the giant alien Lego set that caught his eye on the shelf at Target. In other words: I was the Mother Teresa of little sisters. But that’s just my opinion.
David and I came out of our childhood with very different ghosts. His was Anger, mine was Anxiety. Now when you put Anger and Anxiety into a room, it becomes one of those Coke & Mentos experiments we used to do in our early teens. Complete pandemonium erupting from dinner tables, car rides, phone calls.
That’s essentially what happened the Saturday after Thanksgiving this year. But this time our argument wasn’t over who got which Cubs teddy bear or whether Metallica or Jay Sean played on the car speaker. This eruption was a jack-in-the-box of childhood ghosts, each coming to life in our words and raised voices. David’s anger from our past sword fighting my anxiety for the future. His refusal to accept what is versus my fear of losing what is to what was. Life is too short, I worried, to go back twenty years and fix the events that bred our respective ghosts. “Why let Anger be the protagonist of our present?” Anxiety asks. We went back and forth with our jibber-jabber, unable to listen to the other as we talked over each other. Empathy left out the door faster than a rotten old trash bag. It became one of those sibling scuffles where no one prevailed as the winner. We left pissed off as ever and haven’t talked to each other since.
Now I’m not here to roast my big brother. He’s much bigger than me, and wittier than me, and the only roasting I know how to do is from the MTV show Yo Momma I watched as a young, curious girl. And such roasting seems counterproductive here (but if you are in need of an innovative insult, might I suggest: yo momma’s so fat she takes up two zip codes). What’s left of this post will be no roast, rather I shall make it a brotherly boast–the things I want the world-wide-web to know about the kid I’ll never get sick of fighting.
Years ago, my stepdad had given me a hard drive that stored a selection of files from my late 2013 MacBook. When I plug this rectangular, techy-device into my current laptop, I have access to files dating back to high school. One of the long-lost treasures I’ve stumbled upon in the hard drive is a document titled “Big Bro” dated January 18, 2016. I was a junior in college at this point. I have no idea what compelled me to write this title-less blurb, but it contains the following 73 words:
From now on when people ask me who my role model is I’m going to say my big bro. By no means is he perfect. He has a temper. He is unemployed. And he will never let me play my music in the car. But through all of these imperfections, he holds onto something far more important than a good job and a justice system for our car tunes – he holds onto himself.
Yes, that’s David. He’s not just “comfortable” in his own skin—my brother wears his skin like a badge of honor. No one has taught me how to be myself, unapologetically and with a middle-finger (when warranted), more than David.
What does my ballsy big brother look like? Though he did not attend many of my basketball games over the years, when he did make an appearance, it was undeniable. Out of the corner of my eye, I’d catch a glimmer of green (not a color of any team I played for). I’d hear that low, raspy voice shrieking through his spandex skin. And I’d turn my head, praying that he at least had a poster to cover up his junk down below, which stuck out of that thing like a speedo. He wore this green morph suit to my basketball game in high school, and he wore it seven years later to my senior night game in college against Dartmouth. Thankfully, he was equipped with a poster for the latter event, in typical David-fashion:
My brother had already mastered the game Truth or Dare by his toddler years. He went to the ER because he got a mini M&M stuck in his ear (the result of a double-dog dare). And when he learned the secret about death (i.e., that we all die eventually), he started going up to adults at family functions and proclaiming: “you’re gonna die one day!” If a toddler did that to me right now, it would elicit a five-hour panic attack.
Daring and truth-seeking were genes David wore better than a pair of Levi’s. Unfortunately, these genes didn’t suit me quite as well (think: like flabby, gaucho pants), so I had no choice but to turn to Nurture, jotting down mental notes as I studied my badass brother. Then one fateful day, David decided to put my vulnerability to the test.
If not too traumatic, I invite you, Fellow Reader, to teleport with me back to freshman year of high school. Now add being in the closet, bangs across your forehead, and a childhood plagued by selective mutism (look it up). Don’t let my karaoke career fool you—I was a shy, terrified fifteen-year-old. I woke up thirty minutes early to straighten my hair before school so I could try to blend in and look like all the other girls. In fact, it would be another four years before I discovered the sidebraid we’ve all come to know and love. Can you believe that Fellow Reader! Needless to say, freshman year was a dark, hopeless, and braidless epoch.
As the fateful day goes, David thought it would be a good idea to sign up his little sister to participate in an arm wrestling competition in front of the entire school at the winter assembly. My opponent was a girl who competed on both the wrestling and football teams—imagine a prettier version of Missi from the movie Dodgeball. That’s who I was up against.
I sat at a table in the center of the gymnasium, shaking like a poodle at the groomers as I captivated the attention of two-thousand teens. I was so mad at my brother. How could he do such a thing? What if my arm breaks? What if I sweat through my bangs? There was no where to hide, no where to blend in; I had committed the sinful act of standing out. I wasn’t ready to be different. Nope, not me! A memoir before age thirty? Yeah right. I wanted to be the best kept secret this world had never seen. But my brother had other plans for me, so I got up in 2009 and flexed my puny bicep as boldly as I could—with the pit stains to prove it—and somehow, by the grace of G-d, I won.
I will always remember that day. I went from being a fearful freshman with bangs to the girl everyone wanted to pat on the back in the stairwell between classes. I was bold and different and Me, and it felt so *F-bomb* good. All of a sudden I craved more doses of Me; I wanted more of Me than I knew Me existed. Dare I say, I even began toL-O-V-E Me…
Today, it’s hard to imagine that I’d be writing a book about that scared girl if it weren’t for my big, brave brother. David, you helped guide me to my voice, the commentator of my soul, and that is why—eight years of fighting later—you’re still my role model. Love you, Big Bro.
Happy holidays to all! Go text the special people in your life who (triple-dog) dare you to dare, because those are the people worth fighting for (and with) 💚
Yesterday my dad (“Pops”) biked the five-mile trek from his place to my apartment. His midday ride has become a ritual, making the trip every couple of weeks if the weather is not too hot and not too cold–a rarity in Chicago, when the sun conspires with the wind to create an environment that welcomes both sunglasses and sweatshirts. Pops and I call this “Munzer Weather” because we are certain that Mother Nature customizes her sixty-degree-and-sunny forecasts just for us.
Per ritual, Pops gave my phone a ring when he arrived outside my apartment building.
“Do you need me to bring you any water Pops?” I asked.
“I’m all set,” he responded. I waited an extra half-second in anticipation of his next line, “But a Verb bar would be nice!”
I bring Pops a Verb bar every time he rides to me. It’s Pavlov conditioning at this point (just replace the sound of bells with biking). Pops rides to me, and his reward is a chocolate sea salt treat from my kitchen cupboard. But no matter how many times we have performed this ritual, I will still ask Pops if he needs water–to which he will say no, then pause, and add: “But a Verb bar would be nice!” And for this routined exchange, I love you Pops.
With Verb bar in pocket, I went down the elevator and skedaddled outside the entrance of my building. Pops sat on the far left metallic black bench, which we had marked our territory like a Rottreiler pissing on a fire hydrant. As I approached him, he appeared to be in some kind of meditation, staring out into space. Was he gazing at the rando sculpture planted ten feet ahead, or the oncoming traffic further out, or the crunchy leaves waltzing around the ground?
“Hi Pops!” I snapped him out of his meditation. Typically, Pops would return my hello by revealing the apparel he decided to rep that day, which was almost always one of these three options: his dri-fit Yale shirt, the “Lena, Illinois” shirt, or that bears shirt I got him in Maine (a shirt that he’s always a bit bashful to wear since it was a souvenir from a trip I had gone on with my ex. It’s okay Pops–that’s a good quality cotton T-shirt, and it was a purpose-serving relationship).
But yesterday, it was cold (this is December in Chicago after all) so his giant, black marshmallow coat kept his choice of navy shirt a black box mystery as I joined him on the bench. We alternated between conversing and sitting in silence as life continued to unravel its chaos around us like a roll of toilet paper that got loose on the bathroom floor. For the most part, I am present with Pops during our bench meditations, unless it’s the Saturday before St. Patrick’s Day. In which case, years ago, a very drunk girl dressed in neon green interrupted this zen moment with my father. Screaming, yelling at her friends, and being the moody drunk we all pray we will never become. G-d bless you St. Patrick’s patron, who consumed too much Patrón on March 13, 2021.
“Do you think you’re getting better?” Pops asked yesterday, in regards to my writing. I had just given him an update on my book, which for those of you wiggling to the edge of your seats: I wrapped up a fourth draft and will do one last review with my editor before I start pitching this baby in 2024! Yipee!!
Do you think you’re getting better? Gosh, I love you Pops, for all the obvious reasons (genetics, childhood allowances, all the times you rebounded for me, your farts of affirmation), but also for your Verb bar inquiries and this beautiful question. Any practical parent would ask: “Are you almost done writing this book?” and “So when are you getting a job?” But you are a Superior Parent, defying parental line of reasoning to ask the question that matters most in our life pursuits. I pictured you back in your gloomy lawyer litigation years, cross-examining some corporate punk in the courtroom with this thought-provoker. Do you think you’re getting better?
I responded yes. Which thankfully was the correct answer.
“I agree,” Pops responded. “I read your post about Lucy.”
Oh dear. My father just read about me cleaning my business in a handheld shower before I caused a multi-building power outage that left me “butt ass naked.” And even more cringe-worthy, Pops just read me talking about the lovebug. I am a hopeless romantic. My father is a remarried, eloped romantic who will wait until the day after Valentine’s Day for the sales at Dollar Tree.
I expected Pops to give me his two-cents on my optimistic romanticism in that post, where I wrote: “Love will stay seated next to us longer than any fasten seatbelt sign I’ve ever met.” I expected him to (nicely) suggest that my perspective is naive, and that by the time I’m his age I will see why love cannot be so immortal and everlasting, that even love must end one day.
But nothing. Just a smooth breeze swirling through his gray hairs.
“Well,” I broke the silence, “I wrote that four months ago.” After 120 days of refining my craft, today I am modern-day Jane Austen with a hint of Hemingway, part-Plato, and some sprinkles of Shakespeare (who Pops and my stepmom Patricia relentlessly quote to each other in their under-the-breath accents–dare I call them romantic!)
“I can see your ‘Lenaisms’ in it,” Pops said with a smile. His way of telling me that he could hear my voice.
PAUSE AND TAKE NOTES FOLKS. This is the nicest compliment one can bestow upon me (even nicer than complimenting my freshly waxed eyebrows). When someone tells me they can hear me speaking my written words as they read them, a mental Nobel Prize ships to my ego, and I can go to bed easy knowing my art has served its purpose–to share my voice and, in doing so, to help make the eyes on the other side of these words feel less alone…because HEY, LISTEN CAREFULLY–I’M HERE WITH YOU, SOMEWHERE IN THIS CHAOTIC UNRAVELING TOILET PAPER MESS! We may be on different time portals and thousands of miles apart, but I am speaking these words into your cerebral and even into your soul, if you shall grant me access to such sacred territory.
Pops and I talked a bit more about everything and nothing–my upcoming trip to New York, how Pops would’ve been a computer programmer if he was a better typist fifty years ago, the M&M that got stuck in my brother’s ear twenty years ago, and the Chicago Bulls.
Pops and I had watched the Bulls in the early 2000s (the peak of my NBA knowledge). Unfortunately, it was a disappointing time to be a Bulls fan, given Mr. Jordan had set the bar pretty high the decade prior. The 2000s was like a head-throbbing hangover, but there was one bright moment I remember from our Bulls-viewing, and that moment was a commercial break: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PVWIrtRP90
The ad flashed highlights from the Jordan era mixed in with the (then-current) 2003 Bulls, as a hip-hoppy voice repeated, “Anything can change in the blink of an eye.”
To this day, Pops and I share the nine-word mantra whenever there’s a lopsided sports event that is all but decided. It’s our way of believing in the magic of the universe, a magic that begs us to never count anyone out, to imagine the timeless impossibilities of our existence. Unless it’s the 2003 Chicago Bulls (to which, the owner of the YouTube video above wrote in the description: “Well I just blinked and you still suck!”).
The day prior to our bench meditation, we were watching a college basketball game. Caitlin Clark’s #4 Iowa vs. Lucy’s unranked Iowa State. ISU was down by six with about forty seconds left. I sat in the corner of the L-shaped couch and worked on the power of manifestation; my girlfriend Lucy sat in the middle–glued, focused, unable to hear the outside world; Pops reclined in the opposite corner of the couch, ready to throw in the towel but then–
“Anything can change in the blink of an eye,” Pops whispered in his most lighthearted, childlike tone, grinning cheek-to-cheek as he carried a million memories in his smile–so many memories in fact, that I must’ve blacked out the outcome of the ISU game…
The next day Pops rode his red mountain bike to our bench and told me he thought I was becoming a better writer. And we rambled and reminisced and sat in silence and petted a dog named Oscar and then hugged goodbye. I turned back and watched Pops walk away with his bike, the same way he used to watch me and my brother get on the bus for day camp. A bit of me cried inside and wanted to chase him and paint one of those melodramatic airport scenes. “Don’t leave Pops!” I would say. “Don’t ever leave me.” But instead I, too, stared out into space, into time, watching forever go by in the blink of an eye as Pops continued his ride and I returned to my studio to write, searching for words that will make our simplest moments immortal. That’s why I want to get better at this whole writing thing, because I never want the people and passions I love to ever have to end.
Love you Pops–thank you for all the ways you say I love you.
Today we celebrate the birth of a very special, magical character in my future memoir…lookin’ at you Luc! I wrote this short story four months ago, and on this sacred day, 11/30, I shall bring it out of my literary closet as I boast about the greatness of my birthday girl. Opa!
___
Dear Lucy,
Once upon a rental car, we took off a hundred miles down a computer desktop background. We figured out the bluetooth feature in record time, which meant Luke Comb’s cover of “Fast Car” would be playing, until further notice. Our Nissan Micra glided down a road sandwiched between mountains and water. On the left, there were white cliffs that the afternoon sun turned to gold. On the right, the Mediterranean melted into different shades of blue. And somewhere between the rocky alchemy and the wavy azure, there stood sprinkles of hot pink flowers that would out-flamboyant all the Barbie decor back home.
According to Google Maps, our blue dot hovered over the Greek Island of Crete. But according to my twenty-eight years of life thus far, we were in:
Heaven on Earth;
Utopia;
Barbie Land; or
All of the Above.
We had just broken into a resort in northern Crete, and now our next stop was the southern city of Chania, where we had actually paid (lots of) money to stay. It’s like we were bandits on the run. Kinda.
⏸️ Before we become the faces of Greece’s Most Wanted, let me explain our lil stunt to fellow readers, as well as the staff of Lyttos Mare Resort.
Weeks before we left for Greece, Lucy and I decided that we would each plan a “surprise date” for the other during our trip. Surprise and I go together like Barbie and Ken, just ask my friends (& childhood babysitters). This is my area of expertise. I knew I had to execute.
After extensive Googling, I discovered that America’s favorite pastime was not so popular in Greece. But then a miracle ensued. A Facebook group entitled “Hellas 🇬🇷 Pickleball” was the vessel of this divine act. Not to be mistaken for pickleball hell, the “Hellas” (i.e., “Greece”) pickleball community disclosed the locations of potential courts in the Greek Islands. This was a huge lead.
Lucy loves pickleball. I mean LOVES. She has her own net, paddles, balls, and even invested in courtlines after a frustrating summer of pickleball Hunger Games trying to secure a court in Chicago. After one year of dating, my mind has become conditioned to see every slab of concrete as an opportunity to pickle–abandoned parking lots, city alleys, suburban cul-de-sacs, even basketball courts. Dear Earth: unless you have grass or moving vehicles or a handicap sign, consider yourself Lucy’s pickleball court.
Back to business. Thanks to the Hellas 🇬🇷 Pickleball community, I landed on a pickleball court tucked inside a premier resort on the island of Crete. Game over.
Once I conceived the surprise, the next course of action was to plant the seed. Therein lies my favorite part.
“Ah, I really don’t know if you’re going to like your surprise,” I’d allude to Lucy in the days leading up to our Greek pickleball dual.
“I’m sure I’ll love it,” Lucy soothed my counterfeit concerns.
“It’s hit or miss,” I said, pulling out a pun that only I could appreciate, until now.
▶️ Friday, July 14, 2023 was both Game Day and one of the best days of my life thus far. Our Nissan Micra vibrated down the beaten path as we entered the resort premises. A building to our right was labeled in bold red font: Lyttos Mare Tennis Academy. Not “Center” or “Complex” or even “Courts.” This place was undoubtedly an Academy–twenty-two tennis and padel courts in total, twelve of which were those fancy-schmancy clay courts used at the French Open. And then, as promised, there was approximately one:
We were the only people crazy enough to rent a court that afternoon amidst the 95-degree heat. We each wore our yellow Nike running shorts and purple Under Armour tank tops. After four years of matching fourteen girls in tracksuits and groutfits and backpacks and everything down to SOCKS, college basketball has taught me that love wears a uniform. Thank you for playing along Lucy.
We pickled for an hour at the deserted Academy. I sprinted around our slab of concrete like a drunk compass. Twirling, backpedaling, extending my right arm across my body as I whiffed another backhand (my area of weakness). The other side of the net was much less of a circus. You smiled, shuffled a few steps, and then watched me desperately dive towards the net to retrieve your dink shot. Every point became a bodily battle for me. As the saying goes, you took my breath away.
Pickling with you has become one of my favorite things to do. It’s one of few activities on this planet that allows me to be competitive, without the risk of ruining my day. I have this theory that we each secretly want the other to win. Not in a way where we aren’t trying. We are both as competitive as they’re bred. But there’s just this itty, bitty feeling when the score is (miraculously) close, and we converge to game point. Win by two. We take turns nearly claiming victory, but neither of us has the heart to finish off the other. So we kinda just stall for a few minutes. Pickle-stalling, we can call it. Our desire to keep the game alive outweighs our desire to win. I think I’ll add that to my definition of love: something better than winning.
Okay enough of the rom-com script, for now. To clarify, we PAID to use the pickleball court. We even became buddy-buddy with the tennis instructor (shoutout Ilias, G-d bless your patience as I repeatedly mispronounced your name). Afterwards, our legs decided to explore the rest of the resort. It wasn’t our idea. It was the legs. They walked us to the indoor gym, and then found solace on their respective cardio equipment. Next, our legs got hungry so they led us in a labyrinth around the resort until we landed on the point of no return: a complimentary, all-you-can-eat International Buffet.
Chicken, cod, eggs, sushi, pizza, pasta, tacos, burgers, fries. I couldn’t name all the vegetables at the salad bar, and don’t get me started on the dried fruit selection. I mean dried pineapple?! That’s just being cocky now. The ice cream had its own freezer right next to the display of fifty shades of Greek yogurt. And then there was bottomless-lamb-curry. That melting pot of meat made me want to overdose on iron. Of course, the fountain drink station was an open bar, with dispensers for wine, beer, champagne next to the nicest corporate coffee machine I’ve ever witnessed. Heave on Earth, indeed.
We got multiple plates and went to town before lunch ended in fifteen minutes. I wouldn’t call it stealing. We were making sure the all-you-can-eat didn’t go to waste. Lucy, we aren’t bandits–we are pareto efficient!
Afterwards, our legs kindly returned us to our Nissan Micra, and we began on our two-hour road trip to Chania. Back to the top. Luke Comb serenading us with “You got a fast car. Is it fast enough so we can fly away?” But my favorite part of the song is that steady tap from start to finish.It begins at the one-second mark and continues all the way until the very end, at 4:13. Chu-chump. Chu-chump. Chu-chump. I think musicians call this the “pulse” of a song. Whatever it is, I never noticed it until “Fast Car.” That gentle, relentless tap is louder than any of the lyrics. Is it a cymbal, a tambourine, an ultrasound of a heart? That’s above my instrumental knowledge (which is not necessary for a successful karaoke career, I’ve learned).
The car stereo pulsated as we flew down the single lane street that magically evolved into a two-lane street whenever my foot lightened up on the gas. Cars passing by on my left as they sped to avoid the approaching head-on collision. My right hand unglued from the wheel and parked between your fingers. All of a sudden I gained the confidence of a GreekHellas driver, pumping iron to 120 km/hr without a worry in the world. And then it began. The tears. I started crying under the sunglasses that make me look like an influencer, according to you.
“I’m not sad,” I assured you. I used to feel a tickle of sadness during some of my happiest moments. The moments where I felt like everything in life was perfect on paper, yet I still felt a little empty. It was just a nibble of yearning, and then I’d return to my world of happy emojis. But that nibble left bite marks in my gut. It was the worst. It took me to my own island as I prayed for the person or achievement that would sail to my shore one day and shoo away my sadness. “If I could still feel sad during my happiest moments then I was doomed,” I explained to you.
“But now I’m crying not because I’m sad,” I continued. “I’m crying because everything is so perfect. I’m crying because I don’t want this to end.”
So I let my tears go as permanence played pretend. Because this moment would not last forever, but maybe if I cried then I could stretch it out just a few seconds longer. Like win by two, or an all-you-can-eat buffet. Maybe we could prolong the inevitable with little illusions that trick our minds into believing that our happiest moments never had to expire.
I amend my definition of love to include: stalling.
“I will not take this moment for granted,” I concluded my Nicholas Sparks monologue. I will not take this moment for granted. I will not take this moment for granted. I will not take this moment for granted.
⏩ Twenty-four hours later, my right hand reclaimed its parking spot inside your left. We sat on velvet chairs in an empty restaurant at our hotel in Chania.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” you said. Your thumb rubbed my cold knuckles as you tried to calm me down.
It felt like I was on a plane with the fasten seatbelt sign activated. Turbulence raging under my skin. My head heavy, stomach falling, heart echoing, any sense of gravity discombobulated. And then my anxiety hijacked the plane. What if I pass out? What if I’m dying? What if there’s no more stalling?
I sipped on the lemonade you brought me and kept my focus on your eyes. My tranquilizers. Your blue gaze brings me back to the present more than my own breath–I hope you know that.
We sat like that for about twenty minutes, at which time the storm inside me subsided, and my anxiety stored itself away in the overhead bin. We checked out of the Nicest Hotel We Will Ever Stay At and drove to our next home: an AirBnB centrally located in the Old Chania Market. I still wasn’t feeling great, so I was demoted to shotgun, leaving you to navigate us through all the one-way streets and dead-ends, as Google Maps fed us impossible directions that assumed our Nissan Micra had wings.
⏸️ Another important note for fellow readers: Lucy is amazing at directions. She’s from Iowa, but you’d think she grew up in Chicago simply by her detachment to Google Maps while on the road here. Even when we go on trips to places we’ve never been to before, she somehow knows where to go without ever pulling out her phone. Maybe she uses the sun like the cavemen did? I don’t know. But it’s like the world is an escape room that Lucy has memorized. It’s quite remarkable.
▶️ We parked a few blocks away from the AirBnB, which was located in a pedestrian-only marketplace. An important detail.
We climbed a creaky staircase that rose above a jewelry shop, and then we landed on our home for the next two nights. It was almost time for you to execute on your surprise date for me: A MEDITATION RETREAT! Just what I needed. In one hour, a woman named Olena would teach us how to breathe. The day was turning around–a major comeback, some might even say. I went to shower and wash off any of the residual anxiety from earlier.
Showering in Europe is a whole ordeal. You gotta turn on the hot water button and wait for ten minutes. Then you take a handheld shower head. Yes, handheld. Which leaves you with one hand to juggle between soap and water and pray that the chia pets sprouting from your skin can wait one more day. Please G-d: just let me have one more shaveless shower. As soon as you’re done cleaning your business, you must turn the hot water knob back off or else your neighbors will be stuck with cold showers. It’s all a very grueling, if not traumatic, process.
After ten minutes, I turned on the water faucet and BAM. Power outage. I had caused a multi-building power outage amidst a heat wave in downtown Chania. I was butt ass naked and now butt ass anxious and had nothing but an iPhone flashlight to navigate me through this dark and sticky place. The jewelry store owner assured us that the power would return at an undisclosed time. Until then, we would carry on with our meditation retreat, with the hope that it’d give our minds a chance to reframe the day’s setbacks. Well, a girl can dream.
As you remember, it was HOT. Like 💯 degrees. Even at 7 PM, it still felt like there was a portable sauna following us. Our instructor Olena met us about a ten minute walk from our AirBnB. She was originally from Crimea and had lived in India, then London. She visited Crete a few years ago and never left. Had her stuff from London shipped to the Greek Island. Olena is young, but old enough to be a mom, and she’s one of those generous humans who wears a resting smile face. A constant 😊.
Olena led us to our meditation spot: an intimate, secluded space along the bouldered shore of the Aegean Sea. Our breaths synchronizing to the sound of waves as the sunset fell down in its red parachute. We closed our eyes, each of us lost in enlightenment as we inhaled the world’s problems and exhaled our life purposes. I heard G-d’s voice in bird chirps and wind whistles, and when my eyes peaked open they saw a lifetime of meaning.
At least that’s what was supposed to happen. Instead, my eyes opened to the frightening face of reality.
“I can’t do this,” I whispered to you while the Aegean Sea mesmerized Olena.
Before we could even begin our breathwork, the three of us adopted new roles: I was light-headed, sobbing, and the antonym of meditation; you sprinted back to the car to rescue me from the heinous heat; and Olena waved a paper fan in my face as we sat in the rocks and awaited your return.
“So incredible. I’ve never brought this fan before,” Olena began. “But for some reason, I left my house today and something told me that I should bring it.” I turned my head and caught a glimpse of her 😊.
In hindsight, I was experiencing a mixture of inner ear vertigo, heat exhaustion and inevitable panic. But anxiety doesn’t know hindsight. It only knows the world of what ifs. And Google. Anxiety loves Google. My web browser history:
“signs of heat stroke”
“panic attack symptoms”
“dizziness and dry mouth”
(and my fav) “can constipation cause anxiety”
It was roughly 8 pm local time when I became a meditation class dropout. A failure at doing nothing. You appeared in our Nissan Micra and picked me up from literal rock bottom. I got in the passenger seat and bathed in the car’s AC as I watched our rom-com script unravel into a new movie I would call My Big Fat Greek Anxiety Attack.
We decided to ditch the AirBnB and return to the Nicest Hotel We Will Ever Stay At, where I was much less likely to cause a power outage. We waited in the lobby as they prepared our last-minute reservation. Fuck, here it comes again.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” you told me as I squeezed your hand, begging for the turbulence inside my body to dissipate once again.
There was an old couple sitting in the lobby near us. Plus a hotel employee who persistently offered us champagne.
“How about just a little bit?” she asked with an innocent grin. I gripped your hand and lifted my head above my shoulders. My blood-shot eyes gave the woman the “thank you, but no thank you” glare as I declined her bubbly one last time.
Another twenty minutes until my turbulence subsided. The room was ready. We got driven to our villa in a golf cart. I may never have the opportunity to write such an honest, assholic statement again. I chugged electrolytes in bed next to you as we watched YouTube videos from WNBA All Star weekend. By 11 PM, it was showtime.
All of our luggage was still at the AirBnB so one of us had to drive back to retrieve it. At this point, I couldn’t be alone or outside or of any help beyond offering you a cracker. The only time I’ve been more of a liability to someone was when I was a fetus. So we both got in the Nissan Micra as you drove us back to the marketplace.
The whole ride was a beautiful mess. For starters, neither of us could figure out how to defog the windshield in the rental car. We pressed every button multiple times until finally we conceded to the champagne receptionist.
“We can’t see out of our car, can someone help us please?” I asked from the passenger seat.
The woman smiled and then proceeded to take her bare hand and wipe the windshield from outside. Voila. From there, our Nissan Micra rocked up and down as we left the dirt road premises and drove into the night with our headlights on blast.
BEEEEEEEEEP. Our first left turn onto concrete nearly ended us. All because I didn’t inform you that a car was coming from our right. You were stressed. I was anxious. And together we were a vicious cycle that could combust at any second. How much stress and anxiety could fit inside a Nissan Micra? We were about to find out.
Navigating a car through the Old Chania Market in broad daylight was difficult enough. But doing so in the dark while sitting next to an anxiety attack? I honestly don’t know how you did it Lucy.
As I mentioned earlier, I was a full-fledged liability. Even when I thought I was helping, I would soon discover that not to be the case.
By 11:11 PM, we found ourselves squeezed between an alley that was the width of our Nissan Micra, plus four inches. This allowed for two-inches of deviation on either side. Which was fine when we were driving forward. But of course I led us to a dead-end. And no matter how many 11:11 wishes I expended, it was still a dead-end. The street fed into the marketplace, which did not allow cars. Pedestrians only, remember that detail? This meant we would have to reverse a hundred meters in the dark and pray we bought car rental insurance (we didn’t).
“You guys can’t back up,” a Greek man told us through the window. “It’s too narrow. You need to turn around.”
By 11:13 PM, two generous Greek men took it upon themselves to be traffic guards for the next few minutes as they directed folks in the marketplace. The men made stop signs out of their hands and flashed them at the crowd, while you weaved our rental car around pissed off pedestrians, holding your focus and biting your smile the entire time. I stood outside the car pretending to help, but the only useful thing I did was snap a picture of your heroics:
We returned to the streets where cars belonged, and you got us as close to the AirBnB as possible before parking on the curbside. The plan was for me to wait in the car with the hazard lights on, while you retrieved our luggage. You would need to take multiple trips to collect our four backpacks, which amounted to over a hundred pounds. In the meantime, my iPhone would entertain my anxiety.
After fifteen minutes had passed, I started getting worried. My text message didn’t go through to you. What if you got into a brawl with the AirBnB host?What if you got heat exhaustion? What if you’re screaming for me and I can’t hear you because I’m too lost inside my own head?
Holy shit. My eyes widened in disbelief as they stared out the (defogged) windshield. Like a superhero rising from rubble. Every square inch of your torso was covered in backpacks. My 55-liter gray Gregory backpack. Your I-don’t-even-wanna-know-how-many-liters Cotopaxi bag. And each of our Personal Item backpacks that barely tucked under the seat in front of us. Putting more than the team on your back. You wore over a hundred pounds of baggage, yet you moved with the poise of a dog walker. Arched back. Steady steps. On a mission to get shit done.
In keeping with the theme, I started crying. This time I was back to happy crying as I watched my knight in shining REI armor emerge down the street.
I always thought of love as that thing that holds stuff together–that thing that keeps us from falling apart, and that thing that keeps our memories intact. Life’s bandaid. Time’s glue. The binding of our worn pages. Love was the cast around a broken world that was never meant to heal on its own. That’s what I used to believe.
As you approached the flashing lights of our illegally parked car, my definition of love shattered into a billion broken pieces. Wings busting through a cocoon. Love wasn’t meant to save my sadness off its island or rescue my anxiety from an AirBnB. Heck, love won’t even save us from us. If saving is what we need, then we are doomed.
Lucy, I know we talk a lot about flying–the idea of rising in love, as opposed to falling for each other. When we’re thirty thousand feet above the ground, it’s easy to see how earth’s broken pieces fit together. Skyscrapers squeeze shoulder-to-shoulder like Tetris blocks, highways seem to move with the synchronicity of conveyor belts, and humans camouflage into the same miniscule specks.
My revised definition of love lives in that airplane perspective. When the plane shakes us, love will hold our hand while it whispers: “it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.” Love will stay seated next to us longer than any fasten seatbelt sign I’ve ever met. And when love looks out the window and sees our broken pieces, it won’t try to hold them together. To love is to rise high enough to appreciate the parts of us that we thought needed saving–and then to care for them. Thank you for giving me that this year, Lucy.
Our first trip around the sun together has been a little bit of everything. Best days and longest days and the in-betweens. Our love at first flight story writes much smoother than it lives. It’s difficult rising sometimes. Truly. I don’t know how the sun does it day in and day out. It must really love us. Taking off from the ground with someone feels more naked than taking off clothes. Every lil thing exposed. It’s scary. Uncomfortable. A hard launch, might I call it…
Love you Luc, let’s keep flying our Fast Car. Chu-chump. Chu-chump. 😉
Don’t worry, I’m not asking for a favor. I’m sure your mailbox has enough of those right now.
⏸️ And before I stumble any further in my words, let me do what every paranoid person does before talking about G-d, and carve out a giant c-a-v-e-a-t:
When I say G-d, I don’t mean King of the Universe, though that may be one interpretation. I guess I’d define G-d here as your deepest layer of belief in any given moment. Maybe G-d is the green mermaid on your Starbucks this morning, or your neighbor’s bernedoodle locking eyes with you in the elevator, or the way the sun kisses your face on the first of October. G-d can be anything and nothing. Today I like to think of my G-d as a green bernedoodle flying over the October sun…i.e., something that’s in a little bit of everything.
▶️ As I was saying G-d, I’m not asking you for anything, so don’t hold your breath (does G-d even need to breathe?). For my birthday, I wanted to write you a letter, as this has been a big year for us. When I look back on these past 28 years, it seems like I spent most of my life ghosting you. I hope you know it wasn’t out of a lack of belief; I’ve always believed in you. I guess I just didn’t know how to speak to you. Do I just start yapping and assume you can hear me up there? Do I talk to you in my mind? Pigeon post perhaps? It took me 28 years, but I finally figured out how to reach you—with my pen.
This whole writing thing has become bigger than a blog or a book. This is where I feel closest to you, G-d. I can write anything without judgment. I can tell you my deepest, lightest secrets (cuz we both know I don’t harbor any of that dark stuff…). I can vent to you, which is quite liberating for someone like me who’s spent a lifetime being Switzerland at the dinner table. I can ask you how Heaven is today, and to say hi to my stepdad Stu, and Erica, and Eytan, and a whole list of angels who take the ink out of my pen. Most of all, I can write with you. I swear (if it’s okay to swear in front of you) sometimes words come out of my hands before my mind can even process them, as if I’m your ghostwriter or something. Those lil bursts of creativity are when I feel most connected to you here. So writing has become my sacred space, where I go to unravel my deepest layer of belief, a sanctuary existing inside the Microsoft Word account I borrow from my generous girlfriend (thank you Babe!!).
Okay, back to the head honcho. G-d, this year has been kinda crazy. The funny thing is, my stepdad Stu had claimed that my 28th year would be a transformative one. It had something to do with numerology I think, who knows–Stu always had a spiritual seasoning on life, which I learned to appreciate more toward the end. Anyways, the thing that makes this even funnier is that Stu told me this around my 27th birthday–i.e., one year before my predicted rebirth. At the time I was a bit frustrated–”You’re telling me I have to wait an entire year before I have this life-altering journey?!” Well, what can I say, the man was right. I left my job and spent all of Year 28 writing a book. I celebrated my first anniversary with a partner who I can imagine growing with for the rest of my life. And two weeks after I embarked on this transformative year, I lost my stepdad.
I’m still processing everything. I don’t know if I’ll ever be done processing the topic of death. Grief plays this weird pendulum game in my mind, swinging back and forth between guilt and gratitude. Sometimes I feel guilty that I miss Stu. He’s my stepdad, shouldn’t I “step-miss” him? Shouldn’t I quit moping and embrace the three parents I still have here? After all, I have friends who only have one living parent, or friends who have both parents alive but no relationship with either one–and here I have THREE parents who will drop the world to have dinner with me. So then my grief pendulum swings to gratitude. I’m grateful to have had four amazing parents. Four adults to link arms with while I walk onto the court for my basketball senior nights in high school and college. The two best rebounders (Pops & Stu), and the two loudest fans (Mom’s “BLOCK ‘EM” chants & Patricia’s epic hand whistle). G-d, you gave me four perfectly imperfect parents, and every ounce in my fiber knows there will be a fifth one day.
The pendulum swings again as my mind grapples with what’s happening in Israel. G-d, I am grateful my best friend moved to the states six months ago, after having lived in Israel for eight years. I am guilty, too, because this is not the case for other best friendships, parents, children. People are suffering in ways the human brain was never meant to comprehend. There are no words, at least none that I know of, to articulate these times. Dear G-d.
Going into Year 29, my grief pendulum still swings back and forth, from gratitude to guilt, which really just becomes an oscillation between celebrating and mourning–as I’m learning that Joy is the child of gratitude, and Pain is the child of guilt. So where does this leave us? Well G-d, you and I both know that in a few hours I’ll be surrounded by humans I love as I go karaoke to Mariah Carey. Just how I did last birthday. I will find a way to celebrate life, to sing at the top of my lungs, as the world stays broken. Just how I did last birthday. When I stopped by the house and locked eyes with my stepdad, five hours before karaoke, and knew. This year I’ve dealt with the painful paradoxes of life and death–celebrating and mourning–and I don’t see this cycle ending any time soon. As my therapist informed me a few days ago, “That’s just life.” An emotional economy of highs and lows, as we perform a balancing act between joy and pain, and everything in the middle.
G-d, I’m not writing for your pity, rather I write to tell you that even when things get dark here, I believe in you. I know you’re here–somewhere, everywhere. When shit hits the fan, what do we do? We pray to you, G-d, and beg you for your help. But I wonder, maybe sometimes you need our help too. Maybe you have prayers and favors to ask of us. I’ve thought about this idea a lot this year. What’s the best thing to do when the worst things happen? What does this place need from me? What do you need from me?
I don’t know if I have the answers; besides, I’m 29, what the heck do I know! But I had this thought a couple months ago that I want to share with you today–I understand there are circumstances that make joy a difficult (if not unbearable) choice. Terrorism, cancer, anxiety. There will be days, months, and maybe even years, where the depth of our pain paralyzes us behind our screens. With that said, maybe the best thing we can do for you–when we’re ready–is to pick ourselves up and pick joy. Maybe when we celebrate life, we are answering G-d’s own prayer in some weird, incomprehensible way. It sounds silly, I know. But I like to imagine a world where celebrating life is an act of faith, a rally cry for G-d, our way of showing we haven’t given up on you, that we’re a team.
Before I conclude my public proclamation to you G-d, I want to swing my pendulum toward gratitude and thank you for the amazing birthday gifts from this past year:
The basketball huddle of a lifetime with my teammates on October 28, 2022. Love you Force.
Luc–your Microsoft Word is just the cherry on the top…thanks for being here, always, even when love gets tough. You’ve been my greatest blessing during this transformative year, and you’re the gift that keeps on giving–with parents, Granny Goat, and so many other family members and friends who’ve made my life richer. Keep shining, Beautiful. The sky isn’t even the limit.
Thirteen months (& counting) of self-employment!! AKA thirteen months of pouring my heart into my pen, and manifesting that I win the lotto one day…
One of the best (& worst) parts of writing a memoir is you get to relive moments a second, third, fourth time–and you always notice just a lil more detail each time around the block. With that said, I’m grateful for my investigative Facebook research that landed me in the weeds of my stepmom Patricia’s profile. Now watching a baby boomer use social media is probably one of my favorite pastimes, and Patricia did not disappoint. On Facebook, you have the option to add your interests (ex. favorite music, books, movies). Most of these subjects are covered under the plethora of Facebook pages, but every now and then, there will be a “favorite” that doesn’t exist in the FB database, in which case you can manually add it (think of it like a “write-in” at elections). Well, through my research, I discovered Patricia wrote me in for her favorite athlete, and for favorite sports teams she put: “any team lena is on.” G-d bless you Patricia.
I am grateful that the sun came out for International Girlies Day this year. (G-d, what are you doing July 6, 2024?)
SuperSteve, the sage man in my apartment building who gives me my two love languages: tuna salad and words of affirmation. As he put it, “I think folks miss out on miracles all the time because they’re just not looking — their hearts have very little room for anything other than what they expect. I mean, what a shame if a person were to not notice and therefore miss out on meeting the amazing, spiritual seeker/warrior/poet just tearing up the treadmill right next to him!” I’m grateful I had my eyes open at the gym this year–love you Stevie!
My book editor Toni, who (for some strange, cosmic reason) believes in me!!
Playing the lottery with my dad–Pops, you’re the real mega million. Thank you for your countless bike rides to my place, your Buddhist insights, your farts, and for sharing your birthday with International Lesbian Day this year! I love you.
Alissa & Justin, I am eternally grateful (& still quite shocked) you trust me to officiate your wedding next year–here goes nothin’!
For all the selfish reasons, I’m grateful my Lil K is now a two-hour plane ride away, and just one hour ahead of my Central Time zone–and knowing that if I really needed to, I could steal my girlfriend’s Chevy and drive thirteen hours to New York. But more so, I’m grateful my friend has found a way to create a home everywhere she lands, and to trust her home will always be enough to weather the world’s winds.
Having my step-sister Emily five floors above me, and all the yummy chocolate souvenirs she brings to my door–love you FIRLIE.
Jodz–it’s been a YEAR for us, but I think it’s safe to say the storm has finally run out of rain…and I am SO proud of your patience, introspection, and heck even that F word–faith–as you navigated it all. Though it may seem like we are living different “seasons of life” at times, I hope you know you’re stuck with this sidebraid 4 eva.
Uncle John–my dad’s bestie who’s been joining our family’s bi-weekly Thai dinners. You rock Uncle John, but don’t let me take a shot of Malört ever again.
Peanut Sauce eating competitions with my future sister-in-law Jess, as she prepares to marry my big brotha next year
I’m thankful for Billie Kenneth Koe, who Google tells me is responsible for discovering Zoloft.
Katie & MPG–I realize your random acts of kindness are less random and more you. Thanks for the vegan chili, your holiday cards & treats, last year’s birthday basket, and G-d knows whatever treasure you got me this year (spoiler alert: even the gift bag exceeded expectations). And thanks for constantly trying to bring humans together.
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
Mom–not sure if these words will reach you, but I’ll tell G-d and the rest of the world: This past year has been the closest I’ve ever felt to you (yes, including when I was a fetus). Our movie nights, couch chats, walks. I don’t take these mundane moments for granted. Thank you for loving ALL of me, letting me in, and showing me how to shine my light even on the long days. I am so proud of you, and I know Stu is too.
I love you G-d. We got this.
XOXO,
Lena
P.S. Okay I lied…I do have one favor to ask of you. If you happen to have time (& a portable karaoke speaker), please play this song upstairs for Stu:
Sidebraid Stories 