#145 - Happy Birthday, Smoke Show!

Three years ago I had a bit of a breakdown.

There's no other word for it, even if I tempered the severity at the time by keeping most of it internal. (Clock that "a bit" doing some heavy lifting in the opening sentence oops some habits die hard!)

In response to it, I forced myself to "get my life together".

I invented a strict schedule of morning walks and morning pages. I was only allowed to leave the computer after applying to at least four jobs every day, even if I sobbed through writing most of the cover letters. And I had to start writing again, publicly. And thus, the Smoke Show substack came to be.

The original conceit was media reviews with a high twist. I think across the hundreds that I've written, only a handful represent the Original Intent. Because I let this thing be whatever I needed it to be. I let myself be selfish with it. I wrote sporadically, and then for whatever reason decided that my next step of Look I Have Self-Discipline I Really Do! should be to write 52 a year. So I did! Because if there's one thing I'm going to do, it's hit a damn deadline.

Getting It Together was the goal because only I was aware of just how much I had fallen apart. It wasn't that I didn't trust anyone enough to tell them just how bad it had gotten – it was more that I knew words weren't going to get me anywhere. It was time, it was finally time, to stop blaming myself and just let myself live for the first time.

To take action babeeey!

I didn't know how to do that, so I invented a bunch of self-enforced structure and figured that if I just did Healthy Things I would eventually become Healthier. And that like, kind of worked.

I mean, it allowed me to feel In Control enough that I loosened my grip on the other elements of my life I had used to feed (or, lol, not feed) that urge. And then, months and months later, I was able to step into the "what am I trying to control so hard, anyway?" headspace because I was finally safe enough within my own brain/body to do so.

And then I got existential about the nature of control and the feeling of personal empowerment and what it means to be an embodied authority within your own life instead of treating yourself terribly in a "beatings will continue until morale improves" kind of way hoping that maybe YOU can abuse yourself out of victimhood.

(Uh oh uh oh the latter does NOT work. But hey, the existentialism reaaaally helped!)

Turns out, clawing your way up from rock bottom takes a minute and you can't actually just realize you're stuck and become unstuck you actually have to get really muddy/sweaty/gross pushing your car out of the ditch and THEN you have to become a mechanic and learn how to repair it and THEN you can finally get it back on the road heading towards a better destination. (And weirdly self-wrestle the steering wheel back from driving down the more familiar paths that lead nowhere you want to go anymore!)

And sometimes becoming a mechanic means getting back into personal essays and publishing vulnerable statements in hope that by being Honest and Authentic in front of other people it will feel far less scary to continue to be myself.

Somewhere along the line, I went from Getting My Life Together to just Living My Life.

I stopped having to wake up at 5:30 every morning. I don't force myself to do six morning pages anymore. Most days I write something, because I know exactly what I get out of it. Most days I still go for walks (throughout the day, even!) because it's a great habit that I'm truly so grateful I developed but also – I don't own a car so walking is my #1 method of transport so I didn't need to Force anything so much as just (ope! wait for it!) live my life.

This newsletter hasn't been written consistently this year. And instead of analyzing the why or whatever, it's just been true. I figured I would come back to it when I was ready, or when I had something to say that didn't feel scream-into-the-voidy, or when my thoughts had finally quieted enough, or when I watched something that compelled me to write about it. So like, yeah I'm not Totally Chill about it, but I'm relatively chill about it.

(and for that we are so grateful.)

I'm trying to assign less meaning to everything. Get less meta and actively make new memories.

It's not that the time I spent analyzing my behaviors wasn't well spent, but at a certain point ya hit diminishing returns and it's really easy to get trapped in a self help bubble where you're constantly making yourself into an Improvement Project which is really just a slightly nicer way of calling yourself a loser all the time. I was totally worthy of respect & self-dignity at my lowest, I just didn't know that so I thought I had to become a Better Version and earn it. But I didn't! I was deserving back then! Because I'm a human, and we all deserve to be treated as worthy of humanity.

Tbh, the biggest and best thing I've worked on since I started this thing is being honest. And writing about myself was one form of self-accountability because I couldn't just make shit up about Doing Okay on here, because like a lot of people in my life read this and I think would have rightfully been like "no?" if I was pretending that everything was hunky dory. But also like, and there's no way to tell people this without forever making them suspicious of me but again, whatever, I spent a lot of my childhood lying. In college I kind of stopped, after college I stopped fully. But I never got Good at telling the truth, because lies had kept me safe for so much of my life. My lying muscles were olympic level weightlifters, my truth muscles were full on noodle-arms. And while I allowed the atrophy of the former to occur, it took a long time to start doing reps on the latter.

But I slowly started to. I said I was hurt when I was hurt. I held boundaries when it was uncomfortable. I told people what I needed. I asked for raises. And then this year I told my dad exactly the ways his choices during my childhood had effected me for three straight hours and then we ate korean takeout in my living room afterward.

I cried to friends on street corners. I asked for my picture to be taken. I ate alone in public.

I stopped thinking that mania was a useful way to live my life.

I asked myself questions and didn't shy away from the answers. (Okay well, I didn't shy away from them forever and progress is a huuuuge part of achieving outcomes!)

I stopped wanting to be mysterious (not that I had literally ever achieved that vibe).

I started to live in ways that made me happy. And in being happy I was able to show up better for the people in my life – the people who also want me to be happy, and want to be told the truth because they ARE being sincere when they ask "are you sure you want to do that?" and in trusting in their sincerity I am able to offer mine in return.

I accept the glasses of water when offered. I'm getting better (and always practicing!) asking other people questions. I stopped thinking that I was an undiscovered super interesting person and started believing that everyone is.

(I, I, I. But also, yeah!! ME! ME! ME!!!! I did it for me! And in doing so, others benefited too!) (It's the ciiiiiircle of liiiiife and it mooooves us alllllll! Through despair and hope! Through faith AND love – okay I'm done.)

I am no longer so ashamed of my own instincts that I assume other people have better ones.

I'm trying to understand that everyone is seeking from different places of motivation in order to keep perspective on why we all behave the ways we do. I write generous first drafts in order to understand those who I cannot comprehend. It has made me more gracious and broken my heart in equal measure.

But I prefer to feel everything instead of being numb. I was numb for so long.

I like living alone. I really like my office space. I like my neighborhood – it's cute, it's walkable, and the ladies at the bakery are still really fucking nice to me because we're all real people (esp at 6:15 in the morning! morning people get it).

I love my friends. I love my job. I really love my cats a lot I literally can't think about how much I love them or I will begin to cry because they're just so fucking precious.

I love my life.

And three years ago that was so deeply untrue that I didn't think it was possible to get to the other side.

A lot has changed.

But most of all, I have.

And I'm so fucking grateful to be here.

(Even if the worlds on fire. It is still worth fighting for.)

(How terrible, for humans to be the greatest threat to humanity.)

(But how wonderful, for humanity to be the antidote.)