Thirty-seven things I'm learning about myself, my body, and the life I'm building.
As I turn 37, I've been thinking less about what I've accomplished and more about what it took to get here. The things I've had to unlearn. The ways my body has changed the way I move through the world. The people, experiences, grief, joy, and ordinary moments that have taught me something I didn't know before.
So, these aren't rules for living or lessons I've mastered. They're simply 37 things I've learned, or am still learning, as I make my way through this life. Some came gently. Some absolutely did not. But all of them have brought me here.
On Self
Nine reflections: the qualities you appreciate in yourself, the people you keep close to, and what you allow into your life.
1. Do you even like yourself?
When I was in my twenties and started working on self-love, I realized that love alone wasn't enough. What did I actually like about myself? Not long ago, I told a close friend that my hair was the one feature I felt proud of, mostly because it got the most compliments. It made me notice that I still struggle, at least on some days, to see myself as pretty because my peers used to tease me about my facial features and my weight.
I wish my younger self, who was so agile and beautiful, knew what I know now: that I really enjoy who I am. I like how I think, my creativity, how I can sing an aria one moment and switch to Rihanna the next, the way I love, how I connect with others, and how I laugh. I appreciate my chin dimples, how my eyes squint when I laugh hard, and my crooked smile. I also love that my features are clearly Black and show my family background from both my mother’s and father’s sides.
I like myself and I love myself, even when it’s hard. When I struggle, I take a photo to remind myself that I’m still someone worth seeing and being with. I write down what I appreciate about myself, even on tough days, so I remember—and maybe this helps you too—that I’m still worth liking and loving, even when things are hard.
2. A village, not a crowd
You might notice some relationships fading and wonder, "What’s going on? Am I the problem?" But really, as time passes, the people you feel close to will change. When I look at old photos from school and now, I see I’ve gone from big groups and parties to just a few people I truly need to hear from. It’s shifted from 'everyone is my friend' to 'these are the few who help me feel calm and cared for.' Having a small, supportive group of friends is better than being surrounded by a crowd.
3. Learn to receive
If you’re always the one giving, people will notice and eventually try to care for you too. You need to learn how to accept help. Accepting means knowing you deserve care, trusting others to look out for you, and believing in community instead of just relying on yourself. It’s about showing your vulnerability, letting go of control, and not holding on too tightly. We all want to belong, but who actually makes you feel safe enough to be part of a community? Being in a community takes vulnerability, a willingness to be inconvenienced, and letting go. If you struggle with this or can’t accept it, how can others know your giving is real?
If this feels uncomfortable, try not to brush off compliments. Notice how you feel after the discomfort passes, and get curious about where that feeling comes from.
4. Your face is a family record
People will tell you which of your features they find acceptable, often as a compliment. For example, they might say you have nice hair, your nose isn’t too wide, or you’re pretty for a dark-skinned woman. What’s really happening is that they’re deciding which parts of you are acceptable and which you’re supposed to quietly accept.
I didn’t realize this at the time. I just knew my hair got compliments and the rest of me didn’t, so my hair became the thing I mentioned when asked what I liked about myself.
No one told me that my face is a record of my family. I see my mother in the curve of my mouth and how I move my eyes. My father’s side shows in my nose and the way I laugh and smile. My features are clearly Black, and both sides of my family are there. So when someone judges my face, they’re judging people I’m proud to come from.
If you ask your family who you got a certain feature from, your sense of self changes too. Now, I enjoy highlighting my features and trying new ways to appreciate them. Learning about the relatives I got them from has helped me enjoy myself even more.
On the days when you cannot stand yourself, take the picture.
There will be days when you can't find anything at all to like about yourself, and your first reaction will be to go away—with no pictures taken, the mirror left untouched, the camera switched off for the call, the hood raised and walking quickly. I completely understand; I've done that myself.
Take the picture anyway.
Don't post it—don't put it on anyone's feed or ask for their approval. Take it because the part of you that feels that way is still part of you, and she too deserves to be recorded. You've already kept a record of all the good days with your hair and all the outfits that worked. Then what about the days when you were still there, and it was difficult? Those are days that count as a life lived.
Now I go back and have a look at those pictures, and I no longer see what I saw at the time. All I see is a person who turned up.
In the future you will need the receipt from a day when you didn't believe in it yet, because you were still worth looking at and holding on to.
6. Being the strong friend has a price
When you are the capable one, people will cease asking if you're all right—not since they've stopped caring—but because you've conditioned them not to. Each time you dealt with the situation, rescheduled the meeting, arranged the ride, covered the cost, provided a supportive atmosphere, and stayed with someone at two in the morning without ever saying, "I'm having trouble too," you have taught the people nearby that you don't need to be checked on, and they have come to believe you. Why shouldn't they?
There is a time when you can't manage it, and when you try to speak the words, nothing comes out, since to ask at this point would mean admitting that the entire situation was a performance, and in some way that seems worse than simply going through it once again.
The part that I spent too long on is this: to be needed is not the same as being known. If the only means by which people can find you is by reference to what you can do for them, then no one in that room has your address.
Request a small thing before you ask for something big. Not because you need it, but because you want to see who shows up.
7. Recognize those who value you versus those who find you valuable
You won't realize which is which until the first season when you can't deliver it. Not when you're tired, but when you actually can't; when the body refuses, when the money refuses, or when your capacity is insufficient, and the thing that people have become used to receiving from you ceases to arrive.
That season costs a lot and at the same time gives you the most accurate information about your relationships.
For many years, I granted things to people who saw my generous nature as something they could use. When my time came, and I couldn't meet that standard, the same kindness I had shown before wasn't returned. I am not bitter in so doing; I am simply giving the facts.
The next time you say no, notice what they do rather than what they say. If they continue to call when there's nothing left to collect, then that is your answer, and it is more honest than anything anyone will ever say to your face.
8. Bitterness will be effective for only so long
When sufficiently many people treat you unfairly, bitterness appears. And I have to be honest with you about something that most people won't say out loud—it does work. It is effective; it prevents you from being hit in the same place twice, it makes you more careful about who you let get close to you, and it will actually feel like discernment. For a period of time, it is truly protective.
Then it turns.
The issue with bitterness is that it doesn't act as a filter; it can't distinguish between someone who has hurt you and someone similar to someone who has hurt you. As a result, it begins to turn away people who have never in any way offended you, and you won't notice this because it just seems to your inner self like it's applying standards.
The difference is this, and you should keep it in mind: a boundary is information and a wall is a verdict. A boundary clearly states what one needs to stay within, while a wall means nobody is allowed in and applications aren't being accepted. One of these two things keeps you in a relationship; the other keeps you safe and alone.
What are you really running for?
9. Living with something is not you BEING that something
If any kind of illness occurs to you, there is a period during which it becomes the only subject you can discuss. All the conversations eventually turn back to it, and every update is just a report of symptoms. That period is not a sign of any weakness on your part; it is what takes place when your whole life is rearranged around something you didn't choose. Allow yourself to have it.
It becomes a problem if the stretching doesn't end; once the condition stops being something you have and becomes your entire identity, your identity is effectively carrying out the role your treatment plan should be playing.
I am not asking you to downplay it. I received a formal diagnosis of endo and adeno in 2021, and ever since then we have had further conditions added to that list, and I shall speak frankly about this for the rest of my life. All I want to say is that you are still there—you still have a sense of taste, opinions, a sense of humor, and interests that have nothing to do with your body.
Consider the way you respond when someone asks you how you are. It's worth looking at the fact that each answer begins with a reference to your body; not because the body isn't real, but because you are more than just a bodily report.
Body
There are nine: the one you currently have, the one that you are mourning, and the maintenance that no one teaches you.
10. Get ready for the day when you can no longer be fully non-disabled
I really need to emphasize this. Look after your entire self. If you have glasses, here’s the thing: you are still, in a technical sense, not fully disabled. Make sure you have your checkups, note your range of motion, stretch, move around, drink water, take care of your body and eat properly, and, if you're able, find out your family's history so you know what to watch for. No one of us is invincible. Carry out the activities that will keep your body and cells in a happy and healthy state so that your quality of life can be maintained.
11. Chronicle your life
Record your range of motion: note how far you could reach on a good day, the amount you could carry, how long you could stand, the way your sleep was when you were working. Also record what you ate and what occurred afterward, as well as the odd thing that you are certain is nothing at all.
It's not because you're being dramatic; memory is unreliable, and the medical system will want you to give a precise account of the decline you felt rather than one based on data.
Who is going to ask you to show something that you already know? Everyone is, and who kept a record for you? No one did.
I never knew how to do it. After gradually making adjustments for so long, by the time someone asked me when it started, I couldn't say. I lost several years' worth of information because I thought I would remember it.
If you can't obtain your family history—since many people are in this situation for reasons beyond their control—then you will have to be the first entry. Begin the file, because someone who comes after you is going to need it.
12. Health is no matter of luck; it comes down to proper maintenance
You suppose that you'll age well, even though you never actually say so out loud. Maybe your mother is in good health, and your grandmother remained sharp right up to the end. So you assume that will happen for you. That is not a plan; it is a hope wearing the outward appearance of a plan.
The fact that no one ever mentions is that the majority of things which will determine the quality of your life in the future are currently being decided in the appointments you never made and the pain you have chosen to live with.
The bill arrives without any warning label.
Get your checkups—make sure you have all of them, even the ones you're avoiding because of what the results might show. In particular, find out if there's any family history relevant to the issue. Whenever something changes in your body, record it and say it out loud to a professional rather than waiting to see if it goes away.
You're not being dramatic; you're doing maintenance work. Nobody refers to changing the oil as being dramatic.
13. Going home to yourself isn’t about being who you were previously
When your body changes—which it will for every one of us—you'll have to put in a lot of real money and real time looking for a way to go back. I did. I thoroughly researched how to get back to the point where I was, as if it were a place with a specific address.
There is no backward direction; only forward movement, using different equipment.
I need to be careful about this, since I'm not asking you to give in or settle for less. What I am saying is that the energy you're using on the return journey is energy you aren't using on the kind of life that is actually open to you right now, and that kind of life can be good; mine is; it just isn't the one I intended.
The sorrow is genuine, and you should allow yourself to feel it; grieve the body you once had, take a complete moment to do so, and then use the energy that remains to focus on getting to know the body you have now, since it is she who is carrying you. She therefore deserves the same serious study.
14. Don't compare this body with the one you possessed when you were twenty-six.
You're judging yourself by an older version of your body, using a scale that stopped being relevant years ago. The hormones are different, your sleep patterns are different, the level of stress you're under is different, you're in a different decade, and yet you're still assessing yourself using a criterion that was created by a twenty-six-year-old who had no idea what was going to happen.
The cost isn't just your mood; it's also your time, since every hour you spend measuring is an hour you could have used to move, rest, feed yourself, or enjoy the body you're in.
Here's what makes it even worse: she didn't think she was good enough either. I can assure you that she didn't. You're comparing yourself with someone who, in turn, was comparing herself with someone else.
As soon as the comparison begins—because it will—ask a different question: instead of considering how this body compares, consider what this body needs today. For one of these questions, there is an answer you can act on; for the other, it is just a loop.
15. Overexplaining is exhausting
You will spend an enormous amount of energy trying to be believed. About your pain, about your capacity, about how much you are actually carrying. You will rehearse in the parking lot. You will bring notes. You will arrange your face and your vocabulary and your tone so that you sound credible enough to be taken seriously, and you will still walk out of some rooms unbelieved.
That doesn't show how well you explained it.
I would like you to consider a point. It isn't the case that some people fail to believe simply because your evidence is inadequate; rather, they are not believing because it would require them to do something. For most of your life, this has been presented as a problem with you when it is actually a problem with them.
Rather than going over it four times, ask someone else's advice, take a friend with you, or put it in writing so that it exists independently of your voice. Then save your energy for all that comes after you've been believed.
16. The canceled plan is not a character failure
You'll decide to cancel it because you don’t have the spoons, and then spend the rest of the day justifying yourself, drafting the text six times, adding more details so that the explanation seems reasonable, promising to make up the money even though you can't actually afford to; you'll feel the need to prove that the reason was good enough to qualify.
I have apologized for my body carrying out the things it does more often than I can remember, and each of those apologies cost me energy I didn't have.
What I want you to realize is that a change of plan is not a moral matter. You haven't failed anyone; your body did what bodies do, and therefore the calendar had to move.
The next time it happens, try starting with something besides 'sorry'. I'd like to thank you for being flexible with me. I have to move this; here is when I can. Pay attention to how you feel in your chest when you say it that way, and also notice who is entirely okay with it, since those people are telling you something important.
17. Rest is not payment for output
Think about how much productivity you currently feel you need to achieve before you're permitted to sit down; actually say that number. We all have some figure, a certain level of productivity which permits us, and yet most of us have never stated it out loud since doing so shows just how arbitrary it is.
I was aware of this in a clinical sense for many years before I realised it myself in my body. When I told a client about it, I would use my whole chest and then go home to rest like a shift worker.
What is the real answer? Nothing at all. You don't need to complete anything. Rest is not a reward for having produced something; it is a necessity of being alive, just as water is. No one makes you earn water.
And if you're reading this thinking that it sounds pleasant yet not understanding my situation, I can see that you're thinking that, and still I want you to give it a try once this week. Sit down before it's over and notice that the world remains precisely as you left it.
18. Your body is more than just something that needs to be managed.
Once you're ill, all the aspects of your body turn into logistical issues—such as appointments, medications, keeping track of your symptoms, dealing with insurance, the kinds of food you can and cannot eat, how far you can walk, and how much tomorrow's visit is going to cost. Instead of viewing your body as a place where you live, you start to see it as a project that you have to manage.
The kind of pleasure that fades away is that of sensation for its own sake—not exactly sex, perhaps, though it could be. I mean the whole category: doing something to your body just because it feels good and for no other reason.
The last thing my body enjoyed, unrelated to managing it, was a solo dance party that began in my office and then spread through the whole house—no playlist for the feed, no step count, and no one else to dance with.
What I'm referring to isn't a wellness routine. For a wellness routine is still a form of management, merely one that has more attractive branding. I mean something that has no possible outcome linked to it.
This month find one thing—cold water, a genuine stretch, music so loud you can feel it in your chest, the sun on your face, a texture that you prefer, dancing badly in your kitchen. It should be something your body gets to enjoy, and that isn't included in the treatment plan.
Mind
Nine reflections: what you believe, what you are still proving, and who you are performing for.
19. For yourself, define the terms listed below together with the associated behaviours: friend, values, morals, quality of life, financial health
Take some time to think for yourself about what makes a person a friend to you. What makes you a friend? What specific behaviors and characteristics constitute a good or quality friend? The same applies to romantic relationships. Of course you might have an aesthetic preference, but when that disappears, then what? What needs and what wants do you have? What morals and values do you hold?
Regarding finances, what is your personal money story? What about your family's money story? How do you deal with money? Since we live in a capitalist society, what steps can you take at the moment to prepare for what you expect to need and want in your financial future? To what extent does money affect your quality of life? What does a good quality of life mean to you?
Access is a privilege that you grant.
You'll think that when you block them, you're giving them power over you, that blocking means you're losing, that it shows they've got to you, and the mature thing to do is to leave the door open and rise above it.
Here's what actually takes place when you block: nothing at all. Your day goes on as before. The sun rises. That person no longer thinks about you, and you no longer think about them, which was exactly the aim.
My block list is long since I have a low tolerance for negative things. I choose the content I see and who I interact with. I don't apply for the right to just be in somebody's peripheral vision.
The shift for me came not from 'I have to' but from 'I get to'. I get to choose who has access to me, and I get to decide what enters my head the first thing in the morning. Access is not something that someone gains just because they know you; it is a privilege which you give and which you can at any time stop giving, full stop.
21. Stop proving you belong in the room
You'll have to put in tremendous effort to show that you belong in a place that had already formed an opinion about you before you even sat down at the table. You'll overprepare and will bring with you the receipts, the credentials, and the data; although you'll be twice as well prepared as all the other people there, you'll still end up having to answer questions that no one else is being asked.
The only thing you lose isn't the labor; instead, you start acting out a version of yourself tailored for a room that doesn't want you, and ultimately you can no longer remember which version is the genuine one.
The most recent place I tested this in was a toxic work environment that I got myself into right after completing my MSW program and obtaining my provisional license. If I had known then what I know now, I would have allowed my dreams to flourish. As it was, I didn't because I let other people convince me that I wasn't experienced enough.
I no longer wish to show that I belong in any place, but instead prefer to go to places where I am already welcomed, for there are in fact many more of these rooms than you imagine. They are generally just smaller and less striking when written down.
State the name of the room you are presently auditioning for and then honestly consider what you would be doing with that energy if you were to stop.
22. Nobody is coming with the invitation
Don't wait to be chosen; act as if you already are. There's no point in waiting for someone to notice you, for the opportunity, the platform, the promotion, the place at the table, or the recognition that you are ready; you have always been ready and have always had what is necessary. Waiting might seem like the right thing to do; it might give the impression of being patient, humble, and not rushing ahead.
That's not the case at all; it's merely postponing the value you should provide to those who are on your side. It's shifting the duty of giving that value onto someone else, and that isn't fair to you. What I was most eager to wait for was approval that I was 'seasoned'. In fact, I never really needed that kind of approval since I always had something to give, and waiting indefinitely wouldn't have changed that; it would only have increased as a result of starting earlier.
Build the project at any scale that you can afford nowadays, within the capacity that you actually have, and make it small and unimpressive at first; afterward, let it grow as you gain knowledge, absorb experience, and become more aligned and refined. If you want to be chosen, then you should choose yourself first and let other people see your light and boost it.
23. You cannot make yourself legible to someone who will not read you
People view you through their own experiences and the hurts and pains tied to them. As a result, a large part of what anyone thinks about you has already been decided before you even entered the situation, based on things that happened to them and that you were not there to deal with or correct.
You'll carry on trying. You'll rephrase it, soften it, then go into too much detail, then soften again, and keep editing yourself as you search for the version they finally understand.
The last time I edited my writing to please someone, I spent twenty minutes rewriting a two-sentence passage, removing every word that sounded overconfident, because I didn't want an adult to conclude that I was being too strong. They would have read it the way they always intended to. I had devoted twenty minutes of my single life to their point of view.
That isn't anything for me to deal with, so I won't make it my concern. It took me years to come up with that sentence, and it is the most useful thing I have.
Then quit translating and just say what you truly mean. Some people won't read what you say no matter how clear you are, and the energy you save is better spent on the people who have been reading you all along.
24. Define Your Yes
Consider what occurs in your body from the moment the question is asked until you give your answer. When someone asks you for something, there is a pause—perhaps half a second—during which something tightens and your mouth has already begun to move. This is not a sign of agreement; it is a reflex, one that may have been developed since childhood.
You must have picked up the idea that responding quickly was safer. You came to think that a pause would be interpreted as reluctance, that reluctance would in turn be seen as selfishness, and that selfishness would cause you to lose the relationship. That's why you began to respond quickly and eventually became so quick that you started agreeing to things without knowing what they would involve.
A pause isn't a rejection. Say it once more. A pause isn't a rejection.
This week, say one sentence. I'll contact you later on. That's all there is to it. You don't need to provide a timeline, an explanation, or an apology. Simply say it once, watch no one die, and the relationship stay intact, and then it will be available to you forever.
25. Be intentional with apologies
This week, count how many times you begin a message with 'sorry'. For example, 'sorry for the delay', 'sorry this is long', 'sorry to bother you' and 'sorry to be a pain'. Count them, then wait for me.
They aren't really expressions of regret; instead, they are preventive. You're apologizing for occupying space before anyone has even indicated you were. It's a minor charge you pay at the beginning of each interaction, and it adds up over a lifetime.
How about that instead? I'm grateful for your patience. Thank you for taking the time to read all of this. I appreciate the effort you've made. The same information, only now you're expressing thanks rather than asking for permission to be in someone's inbox.
The first time you send one without an apology, check what happens in your shoulders, since it is a full physical experience and it will show you how long you've been doing it.
26. A brain going a hundred miles an hour is not a problem to fix
People will advise you to slow down and concentrate, asking you to focus on one thing and finish it before starting another. Although they mean well, this advice is mostly useless, since what a fast brain needs isn't a brake but a container.
People do say that I keep on doing things, and that is accurate. My mind works so fast that I can be in one place and another at the same time thanks to my creativity, and for a long time I saw that as a flaw I should bring under control. It wasn't a defect; it was an engine lacking a fuel gauge.auge.All I really needed was a place for the ideas to go so they wouldn't all compete for the same afternoon. I should have recorded everything and only acted on a small part of it. The ideas themselves were no problem. The real issue was believing that whenever an idea came to me, I had to do something about it that day. Today. Build the container, then let the brain operate. run.
27. What the chair teaches that the degree does not
Anyone working in the care sector will eventually come to need care themselves, and the first thing you'll realize is the extent of your ignorance, even though you've had training, even though you have the letters after your name, and even though you've been on the other side of that room hundreds of times.
I was never taught what to do with my hands in the waiting room, and no one tells you how long twenty minutes is when your name hasn't been called yet, even though your body has already started writing the report.
Before I occupied the therapist chair, I had been in the community for many years. Nothing I learned in formal courses taught me what it costs to explain yourself when you are already drained, what it is like to be evaluated by someone who is late, or how care can feel like being believed.
If you're working in a field where you provide help, act as a client before it's necessary, and not for research. Take the seat, complete the intake form, stay in the waiting room, and notice what your body does.
This will make you more skilled at it than any continuing education credit you later buy.
Spirit and Energy
Ten reflections. What you have to give, what you want, and what you are holding too tightly.
28. You are capable of anything, and you do not have the capacity for everything
They are two separate sentences and hitherto you have been combining them into a single one. Capability refers to what you can do. At the same time, capacity relates to what is actually available right now in this body, with this amount of sleep and this much energy remaining.
Whenever you treat them that way, each 'no' becomes a statement about your own value. You don't hear 'I don't have it today'; instead, you hear 'I am not the person I thought I was'.
A doctor once asked me if I really had to do everything I did each day, and I replied that yes, I did. I was very confused by the question since I wasn't.
Before you add any further item to your day, don't ask if you can. You can. That has never been the issue. Instead, find out what it will cost and whether or not you have it to spend. Your ability is a fact concerning you, while your capacity is a fact about today, and today has a vote.
29. Find the source of the urgency.
People will someday ask why all this has to be happening now, and you won't have an answer. All you'll be able to offer is a justification, which is quite a different matter. You can cite the deadline, the opportunity, the season, or the window. But beneath each justification lies a feeling that has been affecting you long before any of those deadlines came into being.
What I had was a complete calendar and a body that awoke unable to move. At the time I didn't know what a flare was, though I knew that I was going on and on, and then one morning I was unable to.
Urgency is generally a survival mechanism which continues to exist even after the original threat has gone. At one time, failure to act quickly would have resulted in something bad happening, but later the situation changed, and the need for speed remained.
Find out where yours originated from; not so that you may psychoanalyze yourself and get yourself into a difficult position, but so that the next time it appears you will be able to identify it as an old alarm and not as correct information about today.
30. Softness is not something you earn
You're going to think that gentleness is a reward for having withstood a certain amount of hardship—you get a chance to rest afterwards and are allowed to be soft once you've shown that you can be hard, once the money is in order, once the people are safe, and once you've earned the right to stop.
You were never directly told that. Instead, you picked it up by observing. You saw how the women in your family became strong and, as a result, 'strong' was the only term people used to describe them afterward, and you realized no one ever asked if they wanted to be.
Softness isn't a bonus round you earn after leading a sufficiently hard life; it is a way of living that is right here for you, yet you have been treating it like something you have to qualify for.
This week, take it without first earning it, before the list has been completed and before you are exhausted enough to consider it justified. Notice just how uncomfortable that feels. That discomfort forms the entire lesson.
31. Say the thing out loud
You have something you'd like which you've ceased to mention aloud, and you know precisely what it is; you stopped doing so because someone made a face, or because it seemed unreasonable in view of your situation, or because the feeling of having said it without receiving it seemed worse than simply never having said it at all.
I have been manifesting Japan ever since I was a teenager, and I documented this over a period of three weeks. At one time I simply stopped referring to it because I was uncertain as to whether my body would allow me to have it, and it caused me less pain not to mention it.
That's what happens to a desire when you keep it in the dark; it doesn't disappear; instead, it becomes heavier and starts to seem more like a character defect than a desire.
Tell this to one person this week, saying it out loud in the form of a complete sentence and without adding any qualifier at the end. For example, don't say 'I would love to someday' or 'I want this'; instead say it and observe the effect that doing so has on your relationship with it.
32. Make something nobody is paying you for
When you're good at doing something, that activity becomes your source of income. That does sound like a positive development, and it mostly is. However, there is a cost no one talks about: the thing you once did for enjoyment now has a deadline, an audience, and a price tag. Eventually you'll come to the realisation that you can't remember the last time you made something just to see what it would look like.
What is lost is play, not rest; play and rest are different, and rest cannot take the place of play.
The kind of thing I put together without having any business case in mind are the solo tabletop campaigns that I run for an audience consisting of just one person; there are dice on the desk, a character who nobody will ever meet, a spread in a journal bound together with washi tape, and not a single page of it will ever become content.
Keep one thing protected. Only one. A thing that you're permitted to be bad at, which no one notices, that will never be satisfied, and which has no way of becoming a source of revenue.
When the more productive part of your brain comes to you and asks what you intend to do with it, say nothing. That is the whole idea. Say nothing whatever.
33. You do not have to pick which version of you is real
You will have to make a choice, though often not in a direct way; people will meet one aspect of yourself and then become confused when another aspect appears, and it will seem as though you are the one responsible for solving their confusion.
It is not.
In the same afternoon, using the same body and with no one watching, I'll start by hooting and hollering an aria and then drop it low towards Rihanna. I am both a licensed clinician and a big anime fan. I can address a room professionally and, at the same time, be entirely unserious with my friends. All of this is no contradiction; it's just a matter of having different kinds of range.
The need to make a choice usually comes from people wanting you to be simple so they can predict your behavior.
This week do both of them in the absence of an audience. Whatever your two activities are, carry them out one after the other on purpose and notice that you did not split in two.
34. You can want people without wanting to talk
If you are an introvert yet still want rooms, you'll think that there's a problem with you. All people tell you that being an introvert means that you want to be alone, so whenever you find yourself drawn to people, you'll assume either that you aren't actually an introvert or that you're doing it wrong.
Not at all. All you really desire is to be near other people, not to perform. There is a big difference between wanting to be around people and wanting to interact with them, and very few people name that distinction.
I would like to be in a room where everyone loves the same thing—a convention, a conference on a topic entirely unrelated to my line of work, one that involves a subject I know nothing about. I do not need to work the room; I just want to be close to people who are excited about something.
Surround yourself with people who love something. It's okay to sit in the back, leave early, and not swap a single number—that still counts as a connection.
35. Grief, like language, is ever-flowing and evolving
There is no one to inform you that certain kinds of grief have no fixed end date; you continually wait for it to finish, check in with yourself to see if you should have moved on by this time, and regard its coming back as proof that you have made a mistake in the grieving process.
You didn't make a mistake in this. Certain losses aren't incidents that come to an end; they are conditions you have to live with, and they reappear at anniversaries and on ordinary Tuesdays, as well as in situations that have nothing obviously connected to them.
The one I am still in is the version of my life that was meant to occur on the timeline I wrote before my body had a chance to make its decision. She appears on mornings when the calendar matches hers, but my capacity doesn't, and I have given up hoping this will change.
The idea of grief as consisting of stages has caused real harm in this situation. It has led people to think that grief is like a corridor with a door at the end. In some cases, it's more like a room you keep going back into, and the aim isn't to stop going in, but to stop being surprised to find yourself inside.
Don't wait until you're finished; instead, consider what this grief requires of you today, and agree that the answer will be different tomorrow.
36. You do not have to be the exception
You'll want to be the person who deals with it better than all the rest—the one who doesn't require any sort of accommodation, who recovers more quickly, whose diagnosis doesn't hinder her, and who makes the entire situation seem manageable. That is what you'll call resilience.
That is not the case. It is a deal—you are attempting to get yourself out of a category by exceeding it, as if, by being impressive in that area, the rules will be different for you.
They do not. The body does not grade on effort.
What I was actually running from was the idea that needing help meant I had become somebody who needs help, permanently, as an identity. I would rather have been exhausted and exceptional than rested and ordinary.
Being ordinary about it looks like taking the accommodation the first time it is offered and using the seat, saying I cannot today with no paragraph attached. It is deeply unglamorous, and it will give you years of your life back.
37. Yahweh and my ancestors willing
You are going to make plans as though the next year is promised to you. Everybody does. It is how we function, and I am not telling you to live otherwise, because that is its own kind of paralysis.
I say Yahweh and my ancestors willing.
I started saying it somewhere in the stretch after the first diagnosis, once my body had made it plain that it would be making some decisions without consulting me, and a plan I had written in ink came apart in a week.
I do not say it as a hedge, or as false modesty, or as a way of protecting myself from disappointment in advance. I say it because I have watched a year take a hard turn with no warning at all. I say it because the people who came before me made plans too, and some of them got to see theirs and some of them did not, and I am not more entitled to the future than they were. I say it because a want held loosely is still a want, and it hurts a great deal less to carry.
So make the plans. Write them down and mean them. Then hold them like something you have been lent, not something you own.
Which plan are you holding too tightly right now?
