I Have No Words For Everything Is Fine

A few years back, maybe ten, maybe a dozen, I went to see a therapist. I was trying to figure out what I really wanted to do, and unhappy because I felt that whatever I was doing wasn’t it. 

A few years later, I went to see a different therapist. I was angry at work, angry all the time more or less, and wanted to figure out whether the problem was me, or the situation, or something else (although what else is there, really, between the concept of ‘me’ and the concept of ‘the situation’?). 

Partway through the pandemic I tried to go see a therapist, and couldn’t find one who was accepting new patients. I spent an hour or so on Thursday afternoons for a couple of months journaling in my car in parking lots as a substitute. (It worked pretty well. I recommend it.) 

In every case, I knew what I wanted to say. I sometimes needed help to figure out how to say it, or to sort through the details and figure out what to do next, but the fact that there was something – that was unequivocal. That was known. Something was wrong and needed to become different. 

And now things are different, and I have no idea what to say.

This week I caught up with a couple of people I care about, people I’ve known for years but who for various reasons I haven’t seen or been in touch with for a long time. “How are you?” they asked, and I struggled to know how to answer. 

When things are wrong, the answer to “How are you?” is easy. It’s dramatic. It’s potentially interesting. It usually has some kind of narrative arc, maybe a villain (whether human, or again, situational). When things are wrong, there’s a challenge to overcome. There’s a story. 

But now … 

I recently ate some really delicious tomatoes. And the really great fruit place south of San Jose had a crop of my favorite nectarines, and I got to eat a lot of them too. And my fig tree has figs this year! I hope to get to them before the squirrels do. 

I planted a bunch of different kinds of flowers, and they are so pretty. 

One of my morning walks has my one of my favorite plants blooming along the path right now. It smells amazing. 

I am learning, slowly and in fits and starts, to play the drums. I’m not going to light the world on fire as a drummer, but I *am* going to get up to 120 bpm on some basic beats. This is satisfying. 

I can do pushups! I am so pleased. This has been a goal of mine basically forever. 

I like my colleagues at work. They’re fun to hang out with. In that context, I am doing my best to make some tech tools work a little more smoothly, and I believe that tools should work smoothly, so that’s a nice fit with things I value. My team culture is a pretty good fit with my personality, and although the people senior to me are puzzled that I don’t want to manage a team, they’re willing to go along with it. And they keep asking me to do more of the stuff I like doing and am good at, or at least potentially good at and want to learn, vs stuff I don’t like doing and really *don’t* want to learn –> this is a win.  

My family’s healthy and I like them as people. The older I get, the more I realize how rare this is. And very cool.

I miss my Dad, who died in 2020, a lot. But I am grateful for good memories of him. And as one of my cousins said, it’s much better to miss your parents when they go, than not. Because it means your parents were awesome and you liked them. 

I have this writing project I’m tackling. Slowly, because I have a lot of hobbies (including lounging in the sun on weekend afternoons, possibly the laziest activity known to humans). But I’m tackling it. I have five stories ready to send out, and a pretty solid set of plans for where to send them. Up next, poems. 

I got to hear my favorite poet read last weekend!!! And she remembered me from a prior reading she’d given!!! 

I am honored to be an honorary aunt to several awesome kids 🙂 

I have a bunch of people I care about, who care about me, who I’ve known for years. And some I haven’t known for anywhere near as long, who matter to me too. Variety! 

In other words … I am doing some stuff! It is interesting to me, and wow is it actually progress in my life on multiple dimensions (now that I can do some pushups, I want to do more pushups!), but I don’t know how to make a good story of it. It is just… kind of working. I am not trying to massively overhaul my life; I am trying to keep doing what I’m doing. 

I assume this is all temporary, of course. Everything is. This seems to me inherently obvious, but I’ve also been reading a bunch of philosophy lately. Zen, nihilism, and Epicureanism all have a similar focus on temporariness. So the key is to notice: 

Now. 

And now. 

And now. 

Right now I am fortunate. It’s a pretty great state to be in. 

Even if I don’t know how to talk about it as a story.