I am nearing a point in my life where I could be light. Playful and carefree. A time when, on paper, I should be the happiest. My grown children seem to be, so far, somewhat dialed in with life. I have a strong, loving network of family and friends and colleagues. I am married to Pa Ingalls. Well, not really, but a man who is hardworking and kind, who would look good even in wool prairie pants and who has a twinkle in his eye.
Getting to this place took tremendous effort and courage, daily, for actual decades. Part of me feels there should be some sort of commemoration—some sort of party. Maybe at a clubhouse with loads of tall windows and maybe a swimming pool and with helium balloons and streamers and blooming peonies and a heavily frosted yellow cake served with vanilla ice cream on a plate, so the melty bits of ice cream can touch the cake but not so much that it gets soggy.
But I have not been invited to any such party. And instead of leaning back, chin high, a hand casually anchored on my hip, recalling all that I have accomplished, it strikes me that it is, at times, in ironic actuality, the most unhappy I have been in my entire life. Not all the times, certainly, but sometimes.
I think about different words I could use. Maybe more specific language will help me cope with these occasional, sharp and fast emotions, will help me identify and, in so doing, solve. Am I sad, dissatisfied, malcontent, anxious, burdened? Yes, I am feeling all of these things. Each of them. All of them. Sometimes, all at once. Sometimes before dawn.
Instead of feeling light, I feel heavy. Heavy with burdens, my own and those of others. Too often, I’m pinched and sour and worried and controlling and overly cautious. For the first time in my life, I find myself at the airport three hours before my flight to quell my anxiety over an unexpected wait at security.
When I was young, I was fun. So fun. Like really, most spectacularly fun. I was fearless and up for anything. I remember feeling playful and punchy and unafraid and open to experiences that blossomed before me, my lungs full, open and expansive. I remember wearing hiking boots with miniskirts and occasionally, obnoxiously, randomly doing a twirl. I remember the feel of my hair whipping across my forehead and beating down my back when I took the downhills very, very fast on my banana-seat bike. I remember once boarding a train just to see where it might let off. I remember occasionally collapsing in giggles just for the sheer delight of it all.
Not that it helps me to remind myself of how fun I used to be.
Over the last few years and with various levels of desperation, I have devoured all the happiness books, pre-ordering, downloading them to the kindle app on my phone, and reading, reading, reading.
When these books provide particularly sparkly insights, I re-read them. I highlight notes and compile the notes and then re-read those. But I find that after a certain number of re-reads, even these insights don’t do it for me anymore. They no longer have the same effect. It’s like I’ve worn them out. They, too, are exhausted.
I know I’m not alone. I watch my friends embody a heaviness unlike any other time in their lives. This isn’t weight gain but a heaviness of spirit, as though we’re all walking around our world, squinting into the dazzling sunlight and saying, to ourselves, and to one another: “Well, we could go and do that fun thing, but isn’t parking going to be a pain in the ass?”
For me, some of this heaviness can be attributed to a sense that the world is growing less friendly, less inclusive. And some can be attributed to disappointment. I’m successful in a career, but not the one I dreamed of. And the level of success I have achieved in the fall-back requires me to devote vast amounts of time to it, to trade nearly all my personal freedom, and so it doesn’t allow me to pursue the non-fall-back career. Which maybe would inject some life back into me. Which maybe would help me rediscover some pop and fizz.
And it’s also that cliché kick-in-the-butt: “Psst, you are on your way to the grave, so when are you going to wake the hell up and do what you were meant to do with your life? When are you going to do what you know you are supposed to do?”
And I hear these words deep in the night when I am staring at my ceiling and early in the morning while I am brushing my teeth and properly applying my anti-aging eye cream, tap tap, never pull. And I resolve to make changes. I resolve to flow in awareness, to live lighter, to cut myself some slack. But as I go about my day, it seems that every moment, every action, every responsibility, takes me further from a sense of my own agency, even at this time when I should have some degree of it. And this makes me feel resentful.
These are everyday mundane tasks and chores (all of those tasks that I did once for a single time, after which they somehow became mine to do until the end of time) but also the accolades and the successes.
“I don’t know how she does it,” they say.
“Well, neither does she,” I feel like replying. “She is smiling, but she’s about to burn it all down.”
So I recite more affirmations and remind myself again and again how I should be feeling and—oh, here, I have a moment to myself at the coffeehouse drive-through, so I scroll my news feed, and learn that drug cartels in Mexico are planting land mines that civilians are happening upon and which subsequently explode them to bits and scatter their remains across the hillside. And here I am waiting for my 16-ounce Americano whining about my lack of self-actualization. This makes me feel shame.
But it truly can be miserable at times. I have wandered through entire days asking, What is wrong with me? on endless repeat. Good Lord, woman! I then say. Just be nice. Be happy. Flow. Love. Catalog your delights. Raise your vibration. Enjoy life. Then: Really, what is wrong with me? Come on. People buy me TJ Maxx knick knacks and decorative wall hangings that instruct me: Be grateful! Live, love, laugh. Like I also need a dinner plate to chide and reprimand me. As if my inner dialogue isn’t doing a good enough job.
And I watch others go about their days. They archive books and treat cancer and shake martinis and polish mirrors. They don’t seem to be torturing themselves. Or maybe they are and, like me, they aren’t talking about it with anyone.
I suspect I am not alone. That for some of you, your light feels dimmed. Your radiance feels muted. You have a sense of groundlessness that occasionally makes you feel like you are floating up into the ether, without a tether.
And like me, you are trying. Wow, are you ever trying.
In my time battling this, I have found that two things seem to help the most:
1. To laugh. To somehow catalog in a light and playful way the absurdity of this human experience, all of us pushing ourselves through the wilderness, with no clear idea what for.
2. To know that I am not alone in feeling this way.
I started this Substack to share the hope and aliveness I find in the world, in anticipation that it will help me to connect, to capture and recapture a joy, a spark, a radiance, and, at times, to laugh. It is my sincerest hope that it may help someone else to do so, too.
My goal is to create a community where we help each other maximize aliveness, playfulness and our own sense of agency, while living lighter, with more levity, and capturing the humor in the human condition and experience.
You can expect at least one new essay each week, and some conversation starters as the community grows. I would love for you to join me.