Apples and oranges
We are wired to compare ourselves to others, and it's so liberating to let it go.
First time here? Here’s what this newsletter is.
No print this week; I am hoping to give birth soon and I can’t promise to get anything in the mail on time! To that end, I expect there will be no newsletter next week. But more soon!
A note for you, if you’re having a bad day.
Hi My Good Pal,
My baby was “due” on October 29. It’s now November 3, so like so many other first-time birthing people, I am pregnant with a baby who is now late. And I’m thinking about comparisons.
Over the past nine months, my comparing-self-to-others-o-meter has maxed out. I fell into the category of pregnant people who read every possible book, to a fault, in the interest of being “well-informed” — but if we’re really being honest, I was mostly just hungry for comparison. Was I gaining too much weight? Were my ankles swelling up at a normal rate? Was my emotional reaction to being pregnant typical? What about my sex drive? What about my high glucose? Or my anemia? Or my constant blushing? Or my lower voice? Something is “normal” if someone else has experienced it, and if I deem that person to be “normal.” I have spent nine months looking around for anecdotes that would make me feel like I was comparatively at least fine-just-fine in terms of being pregnant.
And the big question I have for myself right now is this: why? What am I accomplishing by being “good at” pregnancy? How do I benefit (and how does the world benefit) if I can hold myself up as an exemplar? I have thoughts about this today — today, where I am five days overdue, and I know exactly how statistically “normal” it is to be five days overdue, and knowledge of that statistical reality is not going to make this baby come out any sooner, because this baby’s arrival is something I quite truly have zero control over. But enough about me. You are also a human, and you also compare yourself to other people. Let’s talk about you.
Here is a non-comprehensive list of possible comparative self-talk you may have recently engaged in. (Feel free to mix and match pronouns, regular nouns, verbs, etc.):
“She’s thinner / taller / prettier / clearer-skinned / more athletic / more attractive / younger / more sinew-y than me."
“He has more Instagram / Twitter / Snapchat / TikTok / Substack / old fashioned cult followers than I have."
“How come she is so successful at everything she tries? Her work isn’t even that good."
“I work twice as hard as they do and accomplish half as much."
“That yoga pose / career benchmark / running time / relationship duration / general accomplishment is more accessible to them than it is to me."
“Or maybe I’m just not working hard enough, and they ARE. What is wrong with me that I can’t be a harder worker?"
“Everyone else seems to get over stuff so much faster than I do."
“She’s a bad person. Why can’t everyone see that?"
“My score is below average."
“My score is above average!"
“I don’t know what I was thinking entering that contest. I’m not good enough to win a contest. Everyone else is just better."
“Jesus, look at how bad this contest-winner’s work is! Why did THIS win? It has to be nepotism, right?"
First, let me say (at the risk of ironically invoking another comparison): It is incredibly normal and quite human to compare yourself to other people. You’re not a bad person for doing it. You’re just doing what all of society has taught you to do since you were able to register your own consciousness.
Second: In fact, keep in mind that I am so sure about this first point that I feel comfortable sending it out to hundreds of people. By which I mean: everyone is doing the same thing you’re doing; doubting themselves against others, hating others (and themselves), comparing mercilessly, and (mostly) hiding it. It can feel fleetingly delicious to remember that you are probably an uncomfortable topic for someone out there in the world. (If you have even one ex who dated someone after you, you are an uncomfortable topic for the new person. I promise.) (This is only one example, and it is not particularly healthy. But it’s nevertheless probably true.)
And finally: Once you can name and own the comparisons you’re bound to be making, may I invite you to let them go? We are simply too unique as individuals for any comparisons to be remotely fair. Your body, your family, your weird unnamable soul dirt — in other words, your starting point is all yours and yours alone. What it takes for you to take one step forward is not the same as it is for anyone else in this whole wide world. That can feel lonely, but it can also be freeing.
It’s worth noticing if there are people out there whom you find yourself thinking about disproportionally. These are often people with whom you have comparable goals, and you feel a sense of satisfaction when they fail at something or do something badly. My advice around these people: stop following them until that schadenfreude starts to fade away, or at least dull out. Seek out people whose happiness brings you happiness. If there is no one in your life like that yet, make it your business to find some of these people.
If I were to do pregnancy all over again, I would read fewer books. If I’m being honest, I was rarely thinking, “Oh no, what if this baby is unhealthy” — modern medicine has made it so that those kinds of fears aren’t super relevant to people with the kind of economic privilege I have. I was thinking, “I want to be good at pregnancy. I want to know what is happening so people will think I am doing a good job.” In fact, I don’t need you to think I am doing a good job — just like you don’t need me to think that you are doing a good job. You are. (I am.) I spent so much time thinking, planning, tinkering, and trying to control, that I wasn’t always able to be present inside the experience.
I hope that you, too, can let something like this go.
With Love, Always,
Sophie
Add this to your to-do list.
If it is financially possible for you, give someone a dollar (or five) who is asking for money. (This time of year, as it gets colder, I go to the bank regularly to withdraw $20 in ones to hand out to people who are asking. It’s hard to ask for money. I have access to food, water, and warmth. It makes a small difference, sometimes, to someone when you are able to say, “Yes. Here you go. Good luck.”)
A drawing.
Here’s a random page from a comic I wrote about buying other people’s diaries. This comic ultimately led to my next book (which is pre-orderable now.)
What’s on my mind this week.
(This will be about pregnancy. Skip this part if you do not want to read about pregnancy.)
I appreciate the quiet of these days, and feel lucky to have even the two weeks off that I do have in order to relish time with Luke and Bethany and Kat and the cats, and to eat lots of cake and cry whenever I want and never have to put on makeup. I am crying all the time. At least nine times a day — AT LEAST. While I am appreciative, I also miss my body — my former ability to touch the floor, my once non-stuffy nose, what it feels like to sleep for more than two hours at a time, or to wear non-Teva shoes, my thinking brain (which used to write twice as fast, and allowed me to speak off the cuff in a way that I felt more safe about). I still feel tremendously lonely, even surrounded with people who love me. Feeling both lonely and loved is like standing in a shower that has two spouts on at the same time — one hot and one cold. You’re standing in both at once, and it’s hard to feel just one of the flows. But it’s interesting.
Extras.
We took all the rest of the green tomatoes out of the yard, and Luke baked a green tomato cake! It’s like zucchini bread, but cake, and they’re tomatoes.
I’m officially in the camp of people who watched the first two episodes of Sex Education and didn’t really like it, but then was told to try again, and tried again, and seasons two and three are EXCELLENT.
Elizabeth Haidle posted some excellent prompts for the end of October (she called it “Untober”) on her Instagram, and they are really great. Kind of better versions of “add this to your to-do list."
Last week, someone (a stranger!) wrote back to me after receiving a “Good Enough Job” print. Their daughter made me a NEW sign that said, “You are great at being you.” It had birds on it. I loved this gesture so much more than I can explain. I didn’t get permission to post this artwork (or even really this anecdote), but it made me think that maybe I should write a letter to a stranger, too. If you are the person who sent me this letter — thank you.
New Jenny Lewis song has the word “puppy” in the title.
My friend Carol gave me some mutsu apples. I have been loving trying new apple varieties.
You’re doing great, Sophie!