Yesterday afternoon, I wrote up a business plan.
Yesterday evening, I wrote “FUCK THIS” across the whole thing in blue felt tip marker.
One of my themes lately is doing things because I think I should, not because they bring me any particular joy.
Reframing the oatmeal to bring you joy is always a possibility - even if that doesn’t make it taste like a fresh chocolate croissant - but it takes some effort. If you’ve let the joy drain out of you for so long that you don’t really remember what joy feels like or why you should make that effort, you’re screwed. (Meaning, I've screwed myself over a bit.)
So I’ve been thinking about joy and how to have some.
One of the things I've noticed about joy is that it’s like working out. You can’t just target your arms and do a bunch of weight lifting and expect your arms to look amazing. You still have to eat nutritious things and do cardio and work on your whole physical self before you get to have amazing arms. Unless you’re 23 and can thrive on pizza and tequila shots and still look amazing, in which case don’t talk to me.
You can’t just say “Hey, I want joy.” You have to target your whole emotional body. You have to feel all the things. Now, this is for those of us who habitually repress. Joy can be one of the easiest things in the world - just look at a happy baby. But if joy is hard to find, you’re probably a feelings represser like me.
After my dad's death, I went through a few years of enforced feelings because none of my well-honed repression techniques were working any more. Anger and frustration joined the grief standby of crying on the floor. The up side of my dad’s death was that joy came more easily, because all feelings came more easily.
But I don’t think that means that having joy requires a whole lot of grief. Joy just asks you to feel all your feelings, not just the fun ones.
Babies can be little joy machines - and they haven’t had to plow through deaths and breakups and getting fired and whatever else life likes throwing you as an adult. Babies find joy in flinging oatmeal onto the walls. Babies find joy in yanking the dog’s fur.
Sure, babies can be jerks and some of that joy comes at the expense of the caretaker who has to scrub the oatmeal off the wall and the dog who has to hide under furniture until the yank stops smarting, but joy is joy.
Babies get that kind of joy because 1) someone else will clean up for them and 2) they’re taking care of their whole emotional selves. If a baby is unhappy, you will know. Everyone in earshot will know. They aren’t repressing anything, they don’t know how. So as often as they shriek with utter abandon in the grocery store, they’re just as often beaming out instantaneous and effervescent joy.
It's time for joy again. Because joy is necessary for humans - and it can fuel all the other things that need to happen too, the ones like job-hunting and weed-pulling and tough-conversation-having that don't necessarily scream "Hey, this will bring you deep and abiding joy!" but will ultimately make your life better.
We don't even need to make it that complicated. Because, hey, meeting a new tree brings me great joy:
Joy is Holding a Baby Goat
Someone once told me, “You really understand pain.”
What a terrible tag line.
While I would argue that every human on this earth has a more thorough understanding of pain than they’d like, this is still true. Pain and I have been bunkmates on a fairly regular basis.
We could say that those who understand pain understand joy on a deeper level, but do we really want that to be true? Can’t joy just show up without needing a PhD in Ouch first?
Here’s a new world belief I would like to instill:
JOY HAS NO PREREQUISITES.
Doesn’t that sound nice? Can I call myself god and make it so? [Poof! It is done. You’re welcome, world.]
My real problem with pain is that sometimes I take a nice snack of pain and turn it into a multi-course meal of suffering. I need to stop doing that. Pain, fine. No one gets through life without some pain. But suffering is a more self-inflicted syndrome and I for one call bullshit on suffering.
I stopped writing for awhile, because I worried that I was getting whiny, what with all this pain and suffering and who wants to read that? But then my soul started shriveling up from lack of verbal expression and that’s not a good look on anyone.
Apparently, I would rather whine than let my soul shrivel. Or declare myself god and prescribe joy that doesn’t require an equal balance of suffering.
Or maybe I’m just thinking about this too hard, because clearly the only thing joy requires is a baby goat.
Here’s me and a baby goat in Half Moon Bay awhile back. It fell asleep in my arms. Best thing ever.
Where's My Montage?
Like so many of us, I’ve been trying to write a novel for, oh, thirteen years now.
My first attempt was so long ago that the technology needed to access that draft no longer exists.
A few weeks ago, I took a class on plotting your novel, because I have a terrible habit of writing ten pages of some story that occurs to me and then forgetting about it completely.
It’s not even giving up - giving up implies some form of active plan. Instead it just vanishes from my mind, like I’m a goldfish with a laptop.
Having a plan in this area of my life might serve me well, even if plans do very little for me otherwise. So I show up to the class with my brand new Harry Potter moleskine and diligently take pages of notes.
When the instructor started talking about the crisis point that leads into the third act of a novel, I felt a deep sense of relief unwinding through my being.
I thought, “I’m not failing at life, I’m just at my crisis point.”
Someone please print that on a t-shirt, and make it available in pink.
I’m not sure why this was such a revelation, but I have an Instagram account and so maybe can be forgiven for thinking that life needs to be an endless upward cycle of victory.
Sure, my crisis point has lasted about a year - approximately 51 weeks longer than the crisis point in most movies (or maybe life isn’t served up in montage form, though it should be) - and instead of reaching a resolution, it seems to be extending itself via world circumstances and socially-isolated lockdown for the foreseeable future because apparently our lives have turned into a dystopian novel. (I never realized those were supposed to be instructional.)
I’m now realizing that maybe I was in preparation for this moment. Maybe that’s all my crisis was about. I’m not sure why preparation had to be “Learn the lessons early” rather than “enjoy your last months outside with friends” but the universe works in mysterious ways.
As for my novel, I’m not forcing anything right now. I’m going to let myself write for fun, write to entertain myself. Write something I would like to read, rather than something that feels Important. Because we are not required to write King Lear right now, plague or no plague.
When Your Wings Aren't Waterproof
Being in a human body sometimes feels like roaming a crowded shopping mall on December 23rd.
People are shouting things, I’m being bumped into, all the emotion and energy is overwhelming, there’s a lot to do and I can’t manage to do any of it, and I just want to go home and crawl into bed.
Unlike the shopping mall, which you can leave any time, experiencing this from within the confines of your body means you can’t escape it. Not without some serious pharmaceutical assistance.
I don’t know what escaping the human body looks like - floating ephemerally through the Northern Lights maybe? - but I want it. Sleep sort of works, but I get yanked awake between 3 and 4:30 a.m. by Jerk Brain who wants to get a nice early start yelling at me.
I was feeling wildly uncomfortable this morning, like the expansion that’s trying to happen in my body and life is at complete odds with all the things my brain is screaming about - write the book, earn the money, throw food in the crockpot, go for a run. So my nervous system started panicking. Jerk Brain is really good at turning Meek Nervous System against me.
When I remember to check in before I get too far into the spin cycle, I can sometimes pull myself out.
Luckily, I got there before panic became meltdown this morning and heard:
“Your only job today is to breathe and keep finding home in your body.”
Well, that sounds doable. I mean, my breath is coming more sporadically these days. I’ve finally realized that I feel like I can’t catch my breath when I’m not fully in my body. This weekend I was asked, “Where do you go?” I didn’t have an answer - this person specializes in Let’s Stump Amber Questions - but I can only assume it’s to float disembodied through the heavenly ether. That said, I really like breathing and it’s apparently good for circulating oxygen and so I should probably do more of it more regularly.
So, okay. Today, I breathe. Consider it done.
Even being able to contemplate that “keep finding home in your body” thing is an improvement from yesterday when a friend asked, “If you weren’t being hard on yourself or looking backwards or forwards, is there a space you can sink into inside yourself that you can trust?”
And I thought, That’s a wonderful idea, I will try it. And then I tried it and everything in my body said NOPE UH UH THERE IS NO SAFE SPACE EVERYTHING IN HERE IS GOING TO TRY TO BITE YOU NOW. To which I thought, perhaps now is a good time for another meltdown. Because this is very uncomfortable and shows no sign of stopping and I do not enjoy.
I’m just in a process right now.
I don’t know what it is, I don’t know when it’s going to end, I don’t know what will happen when it’s over.
I just know that it can be wildly uncomfortable, it can incite my brain to riot, it can send my nervous system into unfamiliar rapid fire response, and make me feel like I’m going to jump out of my skin.
Mostly, it feels tender and raw. Like I’ve emerged from the chrysalis but my wings aren’t waterproof yet. If something unexpected or triggering happens, my responses are vintage Amber. Namely, panic and crying.
All my deepest wounds are floating to the surface. My biggest fears are a free-form barrage of terrible. (No one will ever love you enough to take on this level of crazy on an even semi-regular basis, which is really too bad because you’ll never be able to afford kids on your own, etc.) (Typical Jerk Brain stuff.)
If it happens at the end of the day, I feel safe crying and then watching a movie to help Jerk Brain return to Heh Heh Lake Bell Is Funny! Brain.
If it happens when I feel like I should be working because it’s day time, that time when most people are earning money and being good citizens, the panic accelerates because Jerk Brain suddenly has a lot of mean things to say to me, things that seem to be backed by reality. (Most of these things are about money and being productive and you’re already so far behind you can’t afford to be self-indulgent by having feelings or being human. Says Jerk Brain.)
I have no answers for any of this, besides the fact that I’m in a process. A lot of people are in a process right now. We’re shifting and integrating something new. What that means, I can’t say. How it will end, I have no idea. All I know is that I need to do my best to not get frustrated with the time it’s taking or the panic that ensues when I think about money and being a responsible human and all the things I think need to happen.
All I can do is move through each day the best I can, avoid taking on what isn’t mine, nurture myself through this wildly uncomfortable process of feeling and embodiment, and trust that my life has a path and I’m on it and doing a good job (no matter what Jerk Brain says).
All I can do is breathe, and feel, and sink in, and appreciate whatever floats in front of my eyes: blue sky, a dog carrying a pack, a toddler in a sparkle skirt and rainbow boots, my own fingers on the keyboard, the teal converse on my feet, the trees growing nimbly through the concrete.
I don’t have my own answers, let alone anyone else’s. My channel knows a lot more, but I’m giving it a rest while my body catches up. But I can write my experience, in case it’s useful to anyone else who feels like even the simplest elements of life - like breathing and being in a human body - are challenging right now.
I would also like to remind us all that great joy can be found in sending T Rex and giraffe emojis to your friends and loved ones. It helps more than you might expect.
Sometimes being in a human body is fun. That’s a good thing to remember too.
Meltdowns Lead to (Parentheses). Apparently.
I always feel so much better after a complete meltdown that I should put them in my weekly calendar.
"Friday, 4 pm, mental breakdown."
Breakdowns empty out the cup - dumping out every emotion and worry, everything I didn’t even know I was carrying, and suddenly I’m all free and light.
Meltdown: 5 stars, would have again.
I always resist the break like mad. I do everything I can to avoid it. I grit my teeth and stuff my emotions into my spleen, because I’m not supposed to have feelings. I watch TV to stave off that wave of fear that really wants in. I eat a hamburger, because - well - I eat a hamburger because I’m hungry and a person’s gotta eat.
But once it finally overtakes me - usually because the universe pushes me to the edge of the cliff and boots me over - and I spend an hour or two sobbing and throwing a, let’s just call it what it is, temper tantrum, clutching my stuffed therapy otter until I finally drag my soggy carcass out for bagels. I’m still kind of cranky as I bolt down my bagel, but at some point, I begin to feel better.
Surprisingly better. Better than I’ve felt in weeks. Incidentally, just about as long as I’ve been attempting to stuff my feels into my spleen where I hope they’ll die a quiet and unremarkable death.
On the heels of feeling better after the ignominious breakdown usually comes an answer to the situation(s) that led to the breakdown in the first place.
(This time, my answer to the work breakdown was “It’s time to be channeling star families now. Yes, it’s weird, but is channeling aliens really that much weirder than channeling Jesus or unicorns? Right. So get on with it.”)
(My answer to the relationship portion of the breakdown was “Hold your self-worth and self- esteem and stay focused on yourself and your work, no matter what the other person is doing or saying or how either of you is flying off the trigger handle.”)
(Two very helpful answers, it must be said.)
But we usually have to allow the meltdown before we get the relief and the answers. Which can be really hard for those of us who fancy ourselves adults who no longer have meltdowns or maybe were scolded or shut in our rooms for having meltdowns as children.
(Which has got to be a conundrum for parents. I don’t pretend to have the answer for this. I’m just trying to parent myself the best I can and not be too hard on myself over the inevitable breakdown.)
But when we finally let it just flow through, the post-meltdown relief is palpable. It’s like you’ve emptied out the bucket of everything you’ve been carrying around - judgment, overwhelm, fear, sadness, worry, pain - and then tossed the bucket into the Pacific Ocean.
When we’re emptied out and feeling better, that’s when answers come.
So what if it requires four bagels, a stuffed otter, and a temper tantrum that would make a three-year-old blush?
Sometimes that’s what being an adult is all about.
Channeling my inner child in a more photo-friendly fashion.