Happy New Year!
Photo by Lucie Dawson on Unsplash
Happy new year everyone! Sorry I’ve been MIA, but life got busy.
Some good news is that I’m out on submission with a new book, which means my agent is trying to sell it. But don’t get too excited, who knows what will happen? The industry is in a bit of a state right now and I’m girding my loins. But if you’re interested, it’s a queer, alt-historical, fantasy romance. And it will see the light of the day, eventually, whether it’s trad published or not.
So that’s exciting!
Also good news (for me, at least) is that I had a fabulous, relaxing holiday here in Pittsburgh with people I really adore, and who are very, very kind to me. I associate the Christmas holiday, especially, with stress, at best, so this was an incredibly nice change.
But one thing I’ve noticed over the last year is how much I resist nice things. I expect things to go tits up, but I question when things go well. I imagine everything that could be going wrong in the background and unbeknownst to me, or my mind parades in front of me all the ways that good things could end.
Basically, I’ve done a lot of work over the past three years to notice and defeat my negative self-talk. I can easily steer my inner monologue to neutral thoughts and, nowadays, even to positive thoughts. I can redirect an anxiety spiral and I can put a stop to ruminating. This is awesome progress, and I’m so much more content nowadays.
Working towards this mental equilibrium, however, has meant that I’m seeing other fun ways I’ve tortured myself over the years. Indeed, now that I’m not wallowing in a pit of self-abnegation that I lovingly dug and filled to the brim with societal and familial detritus, I can see how I still resist good things.
I no longer tell myself that I don’t deserve love, but I notice how my mind still automatically asks, “yes, but how will this end?” I don’t automatically think, “I don’t deserve success,” but I still think, “how will success ruin me?” I don’t automatically think, “you’re making all the wrong choices,” but I can’t help but think, “yes, but where will you be in 40 years?” In other words, I find it hard to live in the moment and I insist on prognosticating the future.
None of this is abnormal. Humans are time-travelers, our brains equipped, uniquely, to see patterns and anticipate what might happen next. Our brains also hate not knowing what’s coming. And for those of us raised in the West’s capitalistic, Protestant-etchics driven society, we’re also obsessed with things like progress, self-improvement, and the idea of investment. We use phrases like “wasted time” to describe any endeavor (be it a job, a romance, a friendship, a course, anything) that didn’t lead to something “more.” We see time as a currency that needs to be “spent” well, and we regret what we see as a sunk cost when things don’t go the way they should, according to cultural narratives of success.
And yet everything I just described is simply a narrative. It’s a story. Meanwhile, it’s not the only story we could be telling ourselves. Nor is it even that productive, for a society obsessed with progress.
So I’ve been trying to get myself to tell a different story. In those moments when things are good, even great, and my mind balks—I imagine what happens as an old-timey projector suddenly sputtering to life and showing me a film reel of all the things that could go wrong, from the ridiculous to the horrendous—I ask myself this simple question:
“What if you just let yourself be happy?”
This open-ended question short-circuits my projector. It makes me recognize that I’m telling stories. After all, I’m not a seer, or a prophet. I don’t know the future. The only thing I do know for sure (not to be a bummer) is that I’ll die. Whatever thing I’m not letting myself enjoy for fear of it ending… it will end. I just don’t know how, or when.
So what if I just let myself be happy?
Of course, I know some of the reasons why. If I don’t let myself feel too much, I can’t be hurt. If I don’t let myself trust anyone or anything, they can’t disappoint me. I’m a human, after all, and human brains like to feel in control by anticipating scenarios; it’s how we evolved to keep ourselves from getting eaten by lions.
But the people I could let myself love, if I just let myself love them, aren’t lions. Except in really extreme and rare examples (fava beans! Chianti!), people don’t eat other people. Obviously, love can be actually dangerous, especially for women, but that’s not what I’m afraid of. I’m just afraid of being (emotionally) hurt. On that note, losing a job or getting a rejection has never killed me. It’s stung, but I’ve never actually died.
So what if I just let myself be happy?
If I let myself be happy, I might let myself be vulnerable. I might let myself be open. To my beloveds, to my art, to my calling. I might let myself feel the whole gamut of emotional responses, including joy—not just the inevitable pain that I’ve anticipated and accounted for and, I’ve noticed, have no problem feeling.
It’s joy that’s terrifying. But when I let myself feel it…man, is it good.
Ironically, asking myself this question has also helped me be productive (sigh). What if I just let myself enjoy writing? Well I’ll go ahead and start writing today because it’s not about the end result, it’s about the enjoyment I find in ordering a fun little universe of my own making. What if I just let myself love the people already in my life? Well, I can stop obsessing about love, and searching for love, because I already am loved and I am already loving. So why not fill that obsession/searching-time with that screenwriting course I’ve been wanting to take for years?
Even more important to me than productivity, however, has been the fact that, in the last year, I’ve been able to really relax and rest. If I let myself be happy, I can see when I've done enough and that I can shut down for the day with pleasure-reading, or a new recipe, or a nap, or a wee Netflix binge.
Letting myself be happy has meant I can stop chasing a nebulous more.
Obviously, like negative self-talk, letting myself “be happy” isn’t easy. It’s not flicking a switch to “happy” (and I’m using happy in a very qualified sense—it’s a feeling that ranges from a v. neutral contentment to actual joy). It’s a constant dialogue.
Many of you who know this trick already are probably reading this and thinking, “wow, you make life so hard,” and you’re not wrong. But I bet a lot of you can also relate. I know my brain isn’t even that snarly, compared to other people’s. And this isn’t going to help someone who is genuinely depressed or pathologically anxious. But for those of us whose brains are pretty average in that they evolved to keep us from being eaten and nowadays transfer those primal fears to our email inbox—you might want to start asking yourself…
“What if you let yourself be happy?”
Love and light in the new year, bbs, and thanks for reading.
Nicole