More Meta Navel-Gazing
Gang, maybe my whole deal is meta navel-gazing. My goal for this newsletter was to post at least once a month, and here we are on May 31st, late, Pacific Time. I initially thought I might use this space to write about current events if you can believe it, but by the time I sit down to gather my thoughts my brain has already been poisoned by tweets and TikToks and stories, and no ideas feel like my own anymore.
I also thought I might use this space to write about pop culture, but I watched a beloved 2020 movie I didn't like last night and it feels too mean to say it. I don't put ratings on Letterboxd or Goodreads because of who might see it, so I don't know how I thought I could actually publish whole sentences of me being a hater. Hating is for the group chat. (Text me and I will tell you the movie. I didn't like the director's second movie either! Imagine what a fun blind item this could be if I put in even a little effort.)
But I won't because I feel exhausted. I would like 10 3-day weekends in a row, just to see. And my life is actually, materially fine (except for the moral injury of being a U.S. citizen, etc.). So if I'm feeling like this?? Jesus Christ, you know?
And now I will make two recommendations: whenever I need to do focused work, I listen to this YouTube video. I know it says it is for the DEEPEST Healing Sleep, but I mostly write to it. And actually the truth is that I first read the comments and cry because it is the nicest comment section you will ever see. It's a bunch of people who have trouble sleeping for various reasons coming back to the video to post their gratitude or to send a loving message to anyone out there who might also be struggling, telling people to keep going. Or it's people still in the thick of it, reaching out for kindness. My fucking eyes are tearing up just typing about the nice comments. I find it faith-in-humanity-restoring, and hopefully this isn't coming across in like a Some Good News with John Krasinski kind of way.
After I read those and weep for 30 minutes, I usually get some good writing done.
My other recommendation is my favorite meditation: Five Minutes Of Self Compassion. You're not gonna believe this, but sometimes I am not very nice to myself. This helps! It also makes me cry.
Meditation makes me think of (what is this? a monologue at an improv show?) this very nice man who met my husband one time and added him to his meditation app family plan immediately. Such a kind thing to do! And so the first time I was going to meet this man, I thought, wow, what a nice, probably normal guy I am about to meet.
We're talking before a show his band is playing in, and he's telling us about what a tense day he's had. But he finally found relief, thank god, because his partner had sucked his dick earlier, and it made him feel immediately better. The tension just went away! She's amazing – so talented!
I tried not to react visibly to this disclosure, which surely he said by accident?? But his cool, hippie partner was standing beside him, and she beamed at this, so proud and loving. I looked at my husband, who was standing beside me, and even he nodded like this was a regular thing to be talking about to people you've just met and said something like, sometimes you just need that! And because I can be a prude on occasion, I did some very fast inner work and started thinking, y'know what, why don't we talk about this stuff?! Normalize it! That's just real life!
But still, the second those two deviants left, I said to my husband oh my god what did he just say?? And he said what?? And I repeated the story I just told you, and he let me know that what the nice man actually said was that his partner had MASSAGED his NECK, and I did all of that very fast, albeit temporary, inner work for nothing. (You see why I had to use the language I did up there. And sorry if the tenses in this story are all over the place.)
In real life (not this newsletter), I am addicted to telling people when I have hilariously misheard them, even though I know in my heart of hearts that it's only funny or interesting to me. Hopefully this was different. Let me know in the comments.
I'm going to be a completely different person in June, so please look forward to more than one post.
