Light & shadow

Some thoughts on narrative, fear, avoidance, and a poem I wrote for my friends.

I turned 33 on the 20th. It felt different than other birthdays, as did the days leading up to it, and I’ve been trying to sort through why that might be without attaching any specific sort of narrative to it. In fact, the intentional choice to move away from narrative seems to be part of the reason why.

a walk after birthday dinner, taken by Anna

I love a story. I love making meaning out of every moment of my life, creating a cohesive story to make it all make sense. It always has to make sense. This is my comfort zone. I am very good at making sense of things, I think. I feel so compelled to create narrative that I became a writer (but also because it’s fun!! and also because it feels ~eyeroll~ as natural as breathing).

I could create a narrative about why this birthday felt sweet, sure: something about how I have never felt more myself, how I’m healthier than I have ever been, how I’m writing again, how close I feel to my friends. None of this isn’t true! It is in fact true!! But it’s also such a small slice of the complexity of being alive. How time passes, how growth happens, how so much of things clicking into place is a microscopic shift of brain chemistry, combined with new habits, combined with little choices I’m making every day to focus my attention on things that give me a sense of purpose. But also, it’s about caring less? About playing Stardew Valley and Hades 2 (aka opening myself up to the childlike wonder of playing a video game)? About walking through the neighborhood until I get to the house with all the skylights that I love before turning back? About walking to that house even when it starts to rain? About reading romantasy smut alongside ~serious literature~? About being SO inefficient when I run errands and feeling totally fine with it? I don’t know! I think maybe I’m finally old enough, or mature enough (it has nothing to do with age), to understand that narratives are too tidy for real life. I never thought I was a perfectionist, but maybe I was, and now I’m not. Aged out (thank GOD).

So much of narrative-making, for me, has been about making things feel less scary. The idea is if it becomes a story, I’ll be less attached to it, and I can understand it better from more of a distance. But I don’t know, I’ve kind of become addicted to letting things feel scary all of a sudden. Doing the thing even when it’s scary. I don’t know! I think it’s just so exhausting avoiding discomfort. And impossible!!!! (lol).

I was talking to a friend on the phone yesterday, and he said “what if I care and I’m not scared?” and it made me realize, wow, I think I’m SO scared all the time and maybe other people aren’t this scared. I said to him, when I want something it’s always intertwined with a fear of losing that thing. But the fear is part of the gift of being alive, I think. Like how incredible! To care enough that you’re afraid?? And not letting the fear stop you? Accepting that the fear can be a part of it all? It’s helping me realize that my huge capacity for fear isn’t a flaw, it isn’t a flaw for any of us. It’s only a problem if it keeps you from caring.*

So I’d rather care than avoid the fear, I think. Creating narratives for why people act a certain way, or why I act a certain way, just feels like avoiding the fear of actually feeling love or disappointment or annoyance or anger or upset or fascination or attraction or adoration. And those feelings are so worthwhile. They are high-stakes feelings. Focus on the feeling, not the story. Focus on the feeling, not the story.

I’ve been imagining fear as a shadow. It’s the unknown, cast in darkness. Letting yourself care, letting yourself want, is the light. And the thing is, when you shine light on a shadow it isn’t a shadow anymore. Shadow doesn’t exist without light, and light doesn’t exist without shadow. They are forever intertwined and opposite, and that’s okay. I’ve been playing with this idea, and it made its way into a poem that I’m sharing at the end of this rambling letter.

This brings me back to what I was talking about before, about my birthday. Birthdays, of course, are a natural milestone for reflection and meaning-making. I think with my other birthdays, I’ve tried to tie together the year like everything I did taught me something, like everything I experienced had to mean something. I didn’t do that this time. I’m not trying to avoid the discomfort of what happened this year, of the fear I may be feeling about all the things I want out of this life, of the disappointment I feel for the things I wanted that I couldn’t have. Making a story out of your life will inevitably leave you with some amount of dissatisfaction. I don’t feel dissatisfied this time. I just feel present.

To wrap this all up, I’m going to share a poem I wrote for all of my friends. This belongs to you, too, if you’re reading it. It’s for any and everyone who loves me, so if you identify with that (in whatever that definition means to you) it’s yours. I think what I wrote here ties into all of these other ideas. You’ll see when you read, but I used to be very attached to this story I would tell myself about how I wasn’t worthy of anyone’s love. I could love other people, but I wouldn’t believe it when it was reciprocated. That’s a narrative I’m letting go of, among others.

(I thought the Solstice was on my birthday this year but it isn’t - I like this flaw in the poem.)

I’m only sticking to narrative when it comes to my fiction!!! (Lots of updates there… more on that very soon.)

I love you! Happy birthday to me! Happy Solstice to you - I think this song feels like this particular time of year, you should listen.

xo Lys

*Maybe this whole thing is just about being avoidantly attached lmao. But I’m healing! See!