It's The Way We Are Together, Want To Feel Like This Forever

Written in a flurry after being asked to be a fill-in reader for Happy Endings after they had a last-minute cancelation. I wrote this in about 3 hours and continued writing both on the way to the event and at the event. Finished it up about 10 min before I stepped on stage. But all told it turned out pretty good, clearly I thrive under pressure.

Yesterday when Joe texted me asking if I could hop on the show last minute my response was mixed. First, of course, the elation of being thought of, of being asked to do something- have you ever been asked to do something? I love being asked to do things. That shit is amazing. 

Excitedly, I said I was available, no problem, I’m breezy like that, and then immediately I started to panic. There’s a big difference between being asked to do something, and having to do something. The “ask,” like a marriage proposal, is full of possibility and hope. The “doing,” like a marriage, can go so horribly wrong. 

 You see, I haven’t been writing. As often as I tell myself I’m a writer, you’d think I wrote more but I don’t. Writing for me is a fickle and fussy process. My creativity is entirely contingent on my mood and my mood is all over the place. I have to be Living my Life with two capital L’s for the words to come out, and these days I’m not really doing anything with a capital letter except perhaps commiserating. I’ve been sad y’all. 

My days have been consumed with a job that I’m not passionate about. It asks more and more of me while giving back less and less and I stay because I tell myself it could be so much worse. When explaining it to my sliding scale therapist, I describe myself as a vending machine, folks expect to just input the number for their desired deliverable and when it gets stuck or I’ve run out, they just start to hit and shake me until I have what they asked for. 

My world has shrunk during the pandemic, as I know everyone’s has. I’ve learned to live with less. Want less. Do less. Mourn less. So when it came to tonight’s show, I really wasn’t sure if I had anything to write about, much less something someone might qualify as happy. 

But I said yes, and the show as they say most something-something. Also, I’m a stickler for rules and guidelines and since new material is requested, I set the 24-hour timer and got to work on the age-old task of faking it until you start making it. 

As soon as I got home from work last night, rather than starting to write right away, which some might think I would do when dealing with a tight time limit, I set about choosing my outfit for the show. A matter of frightful importance. I put on this dress last night just to make sure it felt authentic. Or maybe that I felt authentic in it. This is something I do a lot, the putting on, the taking off, the frowning at my reflection in the mirror. What is it they say about outfits, they are never finished, merely abandoned? 

Some days all of my parts, my arms, my legs, my neck, my back, my pussy, and my crack work together as the gestalt machine that they’re supposed to be but a lot of the time all of the elements of my body are at odds. My body is perpetually in the first act of a superhero film, zero cohesion, no one is getting along, quips are being slung recklessly, the villain aka my self-doubt is getting away, and everyone is upset. 

The dress passed the test after the 6th or 7th time my partner assured me that I looked cute in it. I would love to be someone who independently can assure myself of… well, anything… but unfortunately I’m a Libra and I always have to do a lot of market research. Don’t get me wrong, I can take care of myself but It really really helps when someone else does the assuring. They have the necessary perspective. Clearly, I would be biased. 

The next step to starting a writing project on a tight time limit is again not writing but instead to dance around in your chosen reading outfit to whatever music makes you feel the least like the world is ending. For me, that was Carly Ray Jepsen’s classic 2015 synth-pop album E-mo-tion, arguably one of the most perfect albums of all time in my opinion. Every song on Jepsen’s third studio album is bursting with energy, exuberance, and youthful optimism. Even the songs that deal with heartbreak or romantic frustration have a consistent beat and take a turn towards the hopeful.

I want to take a turn towards the hopeful y’all. I spent most of my youth being the person people would turn to for a positive spin on whatever was happening, silver linings were my mutant power, and after the last five years, I’m not sure where that person went. Well I know where they went, they’re here, they’re just very very tired. There was a time when listening to “Run Away With Me” made me want to run through the streets screaming the lyrics to whoever would listen, but that was 2015 and in 2021 whose got the time? 

When I talk to my therapist about the joys and desires that used to fill my life I use the phrase “I want to want something again” and that’s the closest I can get to the heart of my current dilemma. Because of various traumas both personal and widespread, I’ve turned the volume down on my wants and needs and now I can’t hear my heart and I’ve lost the remote and when I try to turn it up the knob breaks off. Did I take the listening to a record metaphor too far? Roll with it! 

Nostalgia is often spoken of derisively, likening looking back at the past fondly as an inability to live in the present, but if the present is an actively evolving global collapse, how can we expect anyone to live here all of the time? Looking back at the moments when we experienced joy or felt safe and held can help remind us of the foundation that our identities are built upon. 

I left work at 3:00p today and after eating, showering, questioning the dress again, and finally getting dressed I decided it was maybe time to start writing. This piece started at about 5:00p today. Thank you for hearing my desperate ramble, we’re nearing the finish line. As Carly Rae sings “Let my guard down tonight, I just don’t care anymore” I write this knowing you’ll understand. She sings “I’ve told a hundred lies, but I don’t want to tell you any at all.” 

On the ride across the Bay Bridge, the piece still isn’t finished but I know it will be. I’m writing this on my phone as my partner Sam drives. Taking care of me more than he should have to. The fog pours over twin peaks, shrouding the eye of Sauron in a pillowy white bliss and I remember why I love living here. On the stereo, Built to Spill does its jam band-y best to inspire the words and I think for the first time in a while “I’m good at this.” 

You see, maybe I needed to be reminded that Happy Endings don’t come easily because our stories rarely end. Not really. Is this too schlocky? Well, I’ve been listening to pop music all day and it’s what I wrote. I go up in like 10 minutes so it’ll have to work. 

I miss this so much, the nervousness of having to write something, reading something new to people who want to hear something real. I convinced myself that maybe this life wasn’t for me, that maybe I should walk away from the words that are the hardest to write. I haven’t been okay for a long time, but in moments like this, small lovely moments I feel real. On her album, Carly Rae Jensen, doesn’t sing about endings, so why should I force myself? Carly returns again and again to the idea of a love that releases you from the things that bind you, on “Gimmie Love” she sings “It’s the way we are together. Wanna feel like this forever.”