It’s a short week for us. By the time you read this we will be in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico where we’re celebrating our friends’ wedding. Consequently, the week is filled with tedious to-dos. Book the cat sitter. Find the passports. Pick up the dry cleaning. Take out the trash. All the little mundanities of life that somehow manage to take up so much space.
As a result, my brain feels like it has very limited space for anything else. I tried to let myself off the hook with the excuse of, “You don’t have to send a newsletter every week, it’s okay to skip this week.” And while I appreciate my brain trying to grant me permission (so kind of it!) the truth is that I love writing this newsletter and often it’s when I don’t feel like writing it that I need to write it.
of Big Feelings wrote last week about her experience of trying to write from a place of peace and contentment versus a place of pain. Her words resonated deeply with me. For months after my mental health breakdown I would sit down and pour my heart out into this newsletter. All my fears. All my doubts. All my sadness, so much sadness. The words flowed quickly, easily, a torrent of emotional wreckage.i opened up my usual substack draft, and i thought to myself, well shit, i don’t have anything interesting to say.
why do i feel like i’m only interesting when i’m in pain?
and also: what the fuck do i write about when i feel something akin to happiness?
But then sometime in June, after months and months of therapy, I started to feel... better. More myself. My friends have lovingly referred to me as “a ray of sunshine” over the years and I’ve always taken it as one of my favorite compliments. Here I was, ready to shine again.
I remember gushing to my husband over dinner, telling him how great I felt. How I was back, baby. He twirled his pasta with trepidation, “Okay but also know that it’s okay if you feel bad again. I don’t want you to get too excited.” My brain seemingly acknowledged the truth of this statement and then breezed right past it, eager to return to the promised land of dopamine.
The truth is I was myself again, but that self was irrevocably changed. This ray of sunshine had seen darkness. And she wasn’t going to push it down into the depths of her being where it festered any longer, no ma’am. (Instead, she was going to publish it on the internet, ha!). I am still learning how to let go of this old version of self. How to grieve her properly. How to embrace this new, more dimensional self who still feels a little foreign. Some days I’m a ray of sunshine. Some days I still feel like crying for no reason. I’m no longer riding the high, but have settled into something more like peace. Acceptance.
The problem was, how to write from this new, peaceful place? Like Sarah, I was struck with a sudden fear of “if I’m no longer depressed, am I no longer interesting?” For months I struggled and questioned this newsletter. Was it boring now? Did I have anything worth saying? How do you write about mental health when your mental health is actually… good?
Then I remembered what the endlessly wise Liz Gilbert said about “martyrdom” and how we shouldn’t have to suffer in order to make something worthy. Creative endeavors are not always something to be slaved away at, blood sweat and tears. Creativity can be light, playful. We can create from joy the same way that we create from grief. (Ironically, it was during this surge of joy that I published my my most popular piece).
In the spirit of that, I’m sharing something I wrote this week, inspired by this week’s partial lunar eclipse. I’ve been experimenting with writing more poetry lately (I feel so cringe just saying that out loud, blech), and while it feels deeply vulnerable and scary to share, if there’s one thing I've learned from writing on Substack, it’s that vulnerable and scary is GOOD. Vulnerable and scary pushes us out of our comfort zone, stretches us to the edges of our being. And then that edge brushes up against someone else’s edge and MAGIC is made in the form of human connection.
And isn’t that is truly what it’s all about? Not follows or likes or subscribers (although let’s be real, those are all very nice). Substack is a place to make art. A place to experiment. A place to take little bits of your innermost humanness and shyly offer them up in exchange for little bits of others. I’ve grown so much from this platform and I can only continue growing here if I continue to push myself.
Eclipse season is all about transformation. It asks us to shed old ways of being, old patterns, relationships and identities that no longer serve us. Eclipses are a catalyst for growth. So this is me, leaning into that growth.
The moon contains multitudes.
She rises bright in the sky tonight. A full moon. A harvest moon. A supermoon.
How confident she is! to take on these many identities. To wear them with pride, never questioning, never doubting. Each label fits her like a glove.
Of course this is me, she seems to say. Who else could it possibly be?
And still, she goes through phases, shrinking and growing in an endless cycle. Never stalled, never stuck. It seems so natural to her.
Look, look! how she trusts the process. How many centuries did it take her to get to this place?
An eclipse passes over, the moon swallowed in the Earth’s shadow. Upstaged in the sky. We hold our breath through the darkness.
But wait, here she is again. A sigh of relief. Her audience is rapt, chins tilted up, eyes wide. She holds their attention in the palm of her hand and yet she shrugs as if to say, So what?
She doesn’t depend on us the way we depend on her. Her emotions are her own.
When will we realize it’s not a performance?
We try in vain to capture her beauty again and again, frustrated when the magic disappears on our small screens. We frown, adjust the settings, try once more. We love how elusive she is.
We write poems to her instead. We write songs and sonnets and soliloquies. We profess our adoration a million different ways and yet she drifts away from us. Can you feel her pulling away?
Perhaps she longs to be off on her own, our rebellious moon. To break free of the gravitational pull and assert her independence in the cosmos.
The thought strikes panic into our hearts. To no longer see her familiar face. To no longer worship her soft glow.
Who will govern the tides? Who will light the paths of lovers? Surely no one else could master these tasks.
And yet, if we love her so, shouldn’t we let her go?
Her multitudes are not ours to hold.
Next week is Sundays in high school’s one year anniversary. I am forever changed and forever grateful.
Until next time, thank you for being here.
P.S. If you enjoyed this newsletter you might also like:
Well, I feel this down to my bones. Beautiful reflection.
Your wholeness is beautiful!