I’ve been carrying a theme of impermanence this week.
Last Sunday, I wrote about my unlikely fascination with Orwell, the orb weaver in my backyard and by Monday morning he was gone.
Sid has stage 4 cancer. Josh was fiddling with our broken irrigation system on the side of the house when he hobbled over and broke the news. “It’s been a rough year,” said our 87-year-old neighbor. The diagnosis came after his divorce—a beginning and an end. I want to bring him dessert though he says he has no appetite.
The weather is finally changing in Southern California, gifting us the kind of breeze you can smell. My mother is still living with us, and I am softening—trying empathy and humor on for size instead of clinging to my old favorites: resentment, self-pity.
At work, I’m marketing anatomy dissection courses—a literal product of impermanence. I need to write a tactful, persuasive message that essentially says: “Sign up now! We have to order the brains soon!” Crafting a compelling CTA that honors and respects the dead is hard, but I find the right words eventually. I start thinking about my own death and how if I donated my body to science, I could be on the dissection table one day. What are the odds of that?
Speaking of which, we need to finish our life insurance applications this month.
Lately, I’ve felt called to reconsider many deeply held convictions. This surprises me, not because of the subject matter, but that the possibility of change has entered my headspace at all. My past and present identities, beliefs, words (always the words)—feel precious. I carry them around instinctually, protectively, ready to take them to the grave when called. I said it! I own it! It’s forever!
But now—
I consider adding meat back into my diet, wondering if more protein will be the thing that repairs my lifelong, unhealthy—at times obsessive—relationship with food. I think about signing up for my local studio’s yoga teacher training program despite recoiling at the thought of becoming yet another White Woman Who Teaches Yoga in California. This leads me to think of woke culture—how toxic and complicated it was/is even as I was neck-deep in it. I think about how I no longer talk politics online even though my political beliefs remain largely intact—a change of vehicle, not of cargo. I wonder if Josh and I would be good parents—a thought I haven’t entertained since my twenties (his thirties), when we decided for good (forever and ever) to be childfree by choice.
There are no decisions to be made today or even tomorrow if it comes for me and Sid. I don’t feel rushed or afraid—I feel aligned, intuitive in my flailing. It’s freedom unfamiliar yet welcoming and safe. I’ve stopped pushing back so hard. Like my attitude toward my mother, softening is the best word to describe this mental relaxation—the freedom to question what I wanted ten years ago or how I’m moving through the world today. I’d like to think this new outlook is a culmination of years of therapy, sobriety, and self-healing. More likely it’s that I’m on the precipice of 40, nearing the decade I’ve heard described as one of the best in terms of living freely and not giving a fuck.
Change is the natural order of life. We grow older, gain new perspectives, open our hearts and minds, test hypotheses or see the experiments play out in someone else’s life and think, “Huh. That’s interesting.” Our first instinct is to push back. No, thank you! We don’t want to admit we got it all wrong. We don’t want to see our friends step out of the roles we’ve assigned them. It’s painful. But sticky, messy change is what we signed up for.
Death and taxes.
Writing, for me, has been the ultimate act of impermanence despite the horror of knowing the internet is forever (big yikes). I write and edit and edit and edit and post and try not to crawl into a hole because oh god, what if I’m truly seen? It’s the perfect opportunity to practice non-attachment. I think of what Rick Rubin and Stephen King and Julia Cameron and Anne Lamott and all creative teachers—especially writers—would say to me: Your art is for you. All that matters is the process. Create and release.
After marinating on what felt like a particularly cringey post a few weeks ago, I had an epiphany behind the driver’s seat of our trusty Jetta. Clear as headlights, a list of affirmations arrived in my brain as if I were summarizing a book or podcast. How to realize your creative potential and do the thing.
Shifting into third gear, I asked Josh to grab my phone so I could record a voice note to myself.
It’s o it’s OK to be misunderstood. Number two it’s not my business or anyone thinks that my writing a number three it’s OK to suck at it and write badly.
Translation:
What other people think of my art is none of my business.
I will survive being misunderstood.
It’s OK if my writing is shit sometimes. I have to be bad to get good.
Tomorrow, I’ll bring my dying neighbor his mail and my mom’s crustless pumpkin pie if there’s any left. I won’t know what to say, but do we ever? What is there to say when everything is temporary—the pie, the life, the weeds that grow through the rock between our driveways?
What is there to do but try to enjoy it all?