I am at this apex in my life where I am experiencing a swell of good fortune. I am in the middle of a really profoundly fantastic fun life.
I wake up some mornings with dread about it.
How ironic, right?
Make sense, though. It’s new. For the first time in my life, at 54, I do whatever I want to do and I don’t think that much about it. Before, I would spend a large percentage of my life overthinking everything. I didn’t want to get anything wrong. For who, I don’t know. No one was grading my life. They were too busy trying to survive their own lives and minds. In giving myself permission to fill the spaces of my life with a new sense of freedom, I feel like I live a very active non-static fluid life. I walk in step with variety and have this hunch I am practicing on a smaller scale (Los Angeles) what a more global life would look like. Do I want to live out of a bag and suffer from countless missed sleep hours due to jet lag? No. But I want to travel enough, just enough, that I don’t fall into a stale state of sameness. Do I want to be famous? No particularly, but I do want to reach a bigger and more global audience. Do I want to make lots of money? Sure, of course, but I don’t want to do it in a state of unhappiness.
In all these instances, it comes down to the simple idea that I finally am ready to live my life without much apology (except when I get snippy which does happen… ) and understand my living boldly harms no one except me when I wither like a flower.
I tell people how fantastic everything is going in my life and when I say it, I work hard to not let my brain then try and add a coda of the one problem I should add in to level out the field so I don’t sound completely insane for being so happy. If you think you don’t have a right to tell people how fantastic everything is going, take a look at what you have walked through. If you were attracted to this column, then you have walked through a pile of poo and want permission to finally not just exhale, but stand at the counter topless and eat the whole baguette with soft butter, dance to dirty music lyrics, and stop doing habits that no longer serve you even if people are annoyed you no longer want fish, or caffeine or sugar. Not every decision anymore is tied to some kind of childhood baggage, dysmorphia or hang up. We get to a point where we just know what works and what doesn’t and we see the path to happiness and we want to be on it.
Not complicated. Let’s not make it complicated. Decades were very complicated. Now we are just busy with all the people who want to know us because we are so interesting, and happy.
I stayed still for a long time to work out my demons, and now I am done being still. When we finally get to be on the other side of trauma, or drama, or stuckness, we can really have no idea in this new exciting state of being, but what we do know is we smile a lot, go to bed really satisfied and have a hard time not really looking forward to what’s next. We actually engage in living fully. Which can take your breath away with incredulousness if you allow it. My life has heightened experiences at the moment. Conversations are deeper, or I don’t have to have deep conversations but also discuss the peeling of a papaya or the formation of clouds on the horizon. I orgasm in a more heightened way, and laugh hysterically and sleep soundly. I was just in a lawn chair outside my boyfriend’s pool and I put on a ten minute meditation and realized I had become one with the chair and couldn’t care less about my responsibilities. I allow myself to be the shape of me.
You feel this way when you give yourself permission to be all the parts that you never allowed yourself to be before. When you hear a voice that tells you someone is going to be mad at you, fire you or punish you for being a little grumpy, or short or make a mistake (in other words for being human), ignore it. I do. I have taken stock and made amends and done the deep dive on every manic thought that has passed through my cranium and I am about ready to get over all over it.
So what is this boldness that also has a soft edge? I have no fucking idea because I have never landed here before. I was either too nice or too bold, and now I am like boldly nice or annoyed, or tired, or irritated. What I do know I do differently is I don’t feel I have to say every thought that comes through my mind, and I pause when irritated, and I practice restraint of pen and tongue, most of the time, but not all of the time.
Try not making a point, or giving the advice. In other words, stop trying to save everyone. Keep your energy reserves. You need them to keep up this incredible level of happy!
If someone needs to be called out, and they trust you, don’t not say what needs to be said to self-preserve. That’s lame. You will survive if they don’t like you for the truth. Don’t stop being accountable to others because life is so good. I want people to tell me reality and not lie to me either. I lied to myself for so long, I don’t even want to lie about anything anymore.
If I tell you a story about me, where I once disassociated in Mexico because I was still recovering from about abuse, or I thought I would drink a martini at Christmas because I was so lonely (I am 10 years sober) or I pretended to be someone else when my boyfriend and I went on a date, I expect you to accept me. Just like I would accept you. This is the permission piece we get to give each other. I have heard so many stories, we all have. We all have that story, of the big fuck up in the sky, or the secret no one knows, or the desire we once expressed and were shot down.
If you are in the part of your story where you have no idea what is really going on but you feel fantastic so you drive to the next place, and put on the felt hat with the patches, and walk around naked, and dance to that new indie album your college kid turned you on to… then you have arrived to the new space of greatness. Of gold. Where you get to turn whatever you want to into something without second guessing or crying or panicking.
Stop thinking someone is coming to turn you in, get you, blame you or condemn you. No one is coming. And if they do, then they need to do more work. You did the work.
It’s time to live your freaking life.
If you like what I write, you can donate to me. I think it’s possible on my About Me page. I took a class on how to charge in Substack and then when I applied the paywall it made it so no one could read anything which annoyed me so I took it off. If you do decide to donate, I will basically take the money and do nice things for others, or pay for stuff for my kid in college who spends stupid money on ramen, these Japanese Angel Babies, and God knows what else at Target, with the proceeds. I know it won’t get me rich, and I don’t really feel like I have to get paid for the column, but I do think money makes the world go around and I would love to use some of the money from this column to help others. So think about it.