I’m sitting on my couch eating boxed mac and cheese and playing loud music and drinking wine and I can’t remember what it feels like to dream of a future. What used to be my welcome escape from reality is suddenly the most difficult image to conjure up. I’ve been waiting for the heaviness to lift, to suddenly feel fulfilled and happy again, but I’m growing impatient with the slow dredge of it all. How long have I been like this? Have I fallen into this miserable mind pit or have I been slowly working my way in, one shallow dig at a time?
A few nights ago, I was dressed in sequins in a laser-light flooded club, when, at 12:40am I received the following email:
Dear Nina,
Thank you for your interest in [REDACTED].
While we were impressed with your background and abilities, we have decided to move forward with candidates who match the position requirements even more closely.
What I wanted to do, in that moment: chuck my phone into the sea of sweaty bodies before me, watch it fail to swim and sink, weighed down by rejections. To close my eyes and do a little spin, to think, “What’s meant for me will never miss me. It’s a feeling, that rightness, that certainty that I’ll be okay. I’m so glad that peace lives on me and within me.”
What I did, in that moment: yell in the women’s bathroom.
It’s quite exhausting to constantly be chasing a made up idea of happiness, battling baseline anxiety and depression, working a full time job that makes you want to scream upon opening your eyes each dim lit morning, trying to establish a writing career when nobody would like to publish your work, finishing graduate school and being a TA, living across the country from your closest friends and family, getting job and rejections daily, not being able to afford therapy, and having a partner that works in a hospital 80 hours a week.
Maybe I should drink more water.
I thought that 2023 was my flop era, but it’s been extended due to lack of consistent leadership. I like to pretend that this is me moving in silence, akin to Mitski taking years away from social media only to return with a robust and beautiful work of art, but I don’t know when the sad lethargy stops and taking charge of creation begins. I don’t know how to let the calm in.
Historically, my least favorite destination has been the present, but I’m going to try it out and see how it goes. If you don’t hear from me, I’m sorry, but I also ask you to understand where I’m coming from. For now, I will work on forcing myself to do things that once brought me joy, and “hoping for the best”.
There are such seasons in life. Hard, sometimes long, sometimes heartbreaking, all drudgerous. I promise you, like everything, they will pass. As a writer, you will make them into your wings. God bless, and keep going, the road is long, and it will eventually bless you.
Nina 🫂 You are not alone in feeling this way. I think this echo is rippling through so many of us right now. I’m not sure if this will bring any comfort but if you ever want to write for MODEST, just let me know! We are accepting submissions right now. In those frustrating, chaotic moments when nothing seems to be working, I have to physically get up and see what nature has to teach me. No one expects a tree to grow overnight or flowers to instantly bloom. Am I not life as well? So why do they expect that from me? Why do I expect that from myself? Maybe it’s not what our dreams produce but the fact that we can even dream that’s the most important. Just something to think about. And I’m always here if you need it. ♥️