For the past few weeks, I’ve been debating letting Substack go.
Have I said everything I needed to say? Have I bared my soul enough? Was I honest?
I feel as though I’ve run out of stories to tell. There’s plenty left, sure. I’m just not quite sure if there’s anything worth retelling.
Boys I liked and shitty friends can be looked back on with a sense of humor. My best friend from twelve to twenty-five going out of her way to flirt, fuck, or get in the middle of every guy I “liked”? Hilarious, in hindsight.
My best friend implying I’m a pathetic, delusional loser who doesn’t know any better and needs her to guide me? Priceless.
And also slight hyperbole. But the best writing usually is.
Or I could tell you about my emotionally distant mother. Her boyfriends, her depression, her drama. Who really cares about any of this? I’m not sure I want to anymore.
I have no interest in rehashing it because, well, it happened. And wondering about myself so much that it makes me borderline narcissistic is getting kind of boring. Fetishizing unhappiness is boring.
I told my therapist that I always feel like there are two roads:
Suffering; you choose the hard path and hopefully enjoy the journey toward contentment.
Happiness; you choose peace and contentment with your decisions, even if they destroy you in the end.
I know plenty of people who choose path two. Their lives seem objectively bad to me—failed marriages, unstable relationships, constant financial hardship, untreated mental health.
But they seem happy. Or, at the very least, at peace with their decisions.
I feel like I’ve been on path one since I was twelve. My life has been a cautionary tale about trusting too much, maybe. I assume people are generally decent, and, in their defense, they usually are.
But when people choose path two, they kind of forget that other people have to exist beside them, too.
It’s easier for the brain to accept that you are fatally flawed and therefore deserved your mistreatment. There’s no definitive answer in they hurt you because they couldn’t be what you needed. And in my mind, that has never been good enough.
As a kid, you can’t seek out a new mother when your current one is an emotional failure. Not because she’s a bad person, but because she just couldn’t hack it. A kid can’t understand that people have limitations. A kid understands that they lack love because they’re bad.
So I carried this sense of badness with me into my other interpersonal relationships. And I think I really shot myself in the foot.
When I was a kid, I remember watching the world pass me by. I remember asking my mother why I had to suffer because her husband was useless. And I remember all the times I was reminded of my place.
Then it became clear to me why I was triggered so badly. I’ve spent my entire life trying to Tetris something that can’t be solved. There is no divine explanation. My life happened. My childhood is gone. My teenage years are dust.
I’m holding my anger like a withered stuffed animal because I’m afraid to let it go. That stuffed animal is the only proof I have. But people don’t care about that stuffed animal. They say we hold onto things for a trial that’ll never come. For a just in case.
Do I really want to spend my adulthood wondering why my mommy loved me but never really liked me?
Not really.
I feel like I’m on a tightrope. Or on a roller coaster just before it drops. The wind whips through your hair. You squeeze your eyes shut and inhale sharply. I’m too far into the rest of my life to turn back now.
That’s why comfort zones are so divine. They don’t demand that you change. When I made active choices to change, I lost everything that mattered. The comfort of my mother’s instability. Two best friends who cared just enough.
But I was still unfulfilled.
I went searching for something.
I almost found it.
Consider this a Substack hiatus. I found a better medium for my troubles: screenwriting.
I’d love to discuss the projects I’m working on and really care about. I’ll probably continue The Tragedy of Being an Icon, but infrequently.
Thank you for reading.
