A note for you, if you’re having a bad day.
Dear Friend,
I didn’t write to you last week. Well, that’s not true, exactly: in fact, I did write to you. I wrote 2,000 words! And then, for no reason I could figure out or fathom, all but the first paragraph got deleted. It was unrecoverable. I had just written this whole thing about “perma-joy” (how cute is THAT as an idea, huh?), and had optimistically plowed out a giant missive on the importance of savoring pleasure, and blah blah blah, but the universe deleted it.
And I’ll be honest with you: it wasn’t easy to write. I’ve been so down for the past five months. Everything feels like it’s getting away from me, and I cry basically constantly. It’s that whole thing of having everything you ever dreamed of — a partner(s), a house, a baby, a job, a book — and not having enough time or energy to give sufficiently to any of them.
There are a few things about that last paragraph that I feel hesitant about sharing. First of all, while it is sometimes nice to connect to people about long, sad spells, it also inevitably happens that a stranger will send me a lengthy message prescribing this or that thing, or seeming to assume that I do not have a therapist or a healthy exercise routine or a bottle of Wellbutrin. I have all these things, and long bouts of sadness are familiar; they are normal. This is not a cry for help, nor an invitation to tell me about what might work to make my sadness go away. But then, you and I are not strangers. We’re in this weird friendship, where I write letters to you every week. And why shouldn’t I tell you the truth? I’ve been sad.
The other thing that I feel hesitant to share is that bit about “having everything you ever dreamed of.” Because every one of the things on my “dreamed of” list are huge privileges afforded to me mostly by a comfortable middle-upper-class upbringing, access to education without a need to hold down a job simultaneously, and being born able-bodied and white-skinned. I don’t want to breeze past the fact that this is not everyone’s reality. What IS true, I guess, is that the one thing that we know about happiness is that accomplishing one’s goals or achieving one’s dreams don’t necessarily correlate with it.
You’ve likely read the science on this. It crops up in pop-science NPR-type articles a few times a year. Time is more important than money, but money matters. It’s hard to not have enough money to pay your bills; happiness increases with income levels up to about $75,000 (or a little higher or lower depending on cost of living). Acts of kindness and service make people happier. Slowing down to enjoy things, exercising, and meditating can improve your happiness too. But the most important thing — and you aren’t going to be surprised, my friend — is having strong relationships.
Yesterday I turned 36. For the first time in my life, I have been physically divided. A chunk of myself came out of my body in November, and now I physically exist in two places at all times. When I am with my other chunk (an appropriate word for the wonderfully plump baby to whom I’m referring), I’m always a bit tense, holding in the back of my mind how vulnerable and delicate this powerful little life is, and how the most important thing for me to do in the world is to keep her not only alive but thriving. When I am not with my other chunk, I feel incomplete, and like something fundamental is missing. And yet, we sign up for this when we become parents.
It’s not unfamiliar. We sign up for something similar every time we choose to love something that’s alive. As Zadie Smith writes in her great essay, “Joy”:
Sometimes Josh multiplies itself dangerously. Children are the infamous example. Isn’t it bad enough that the beloved, with whom you have experienced genuine joy, will eventually be lost to you? Why add to this nightmare the child, whose loss, if it ever happened, would mean nothing less than your total annihilation? It should be noted that an equally dangerous joy, for many people, is the dog or the cat, relationships with animals being some sense intensified by guaranteed finitude. You hope to leave this world before your child. You are quite certain your dog will leave before you do. Joy is such a human madness.
And then:
The writer Julian Barnes, considering mourning, once said, “It hurts just as much as it is worth.” In fact, it was a friend of his who wrote the line in a letter of condolence, and Julian told it to my husband, who told it to me. For months afterward these words stuck with both of us, so clear and so brutal. It hurts just as much as it is worth. What an arrangement. Why would anyone accept such a crazy deal?
I’ve been thinking about what I’ve been building. All these loves, and all the joy and hurt and work that goes with them. These are what hold you to the earth and also let you safely drift from it: the people who show up on your birthday; the ones who know your favorite food; the friends with whom you can pick up a thread from four years ago at any moment, and it will be like no time has passed. They are all over the country, and the really really deep ones are necessarily few. “Necessarily” because the human heart can hold love to infinity, but the limitations of our time on earth make it so we have to choose carefully the relationships that will nurture us most, that will feel most reciprocal, that will fill us up.
This is the home we make for ourselves: it is about the people we love and how we practice loving them. This is the home that I — that we — have made for this second chunk of myself who is only just learning to live. And someday soon, she’ll find her own people, and her own joy, and her own pain. Zadie Smith is right: it is such a human madness. I wish as much of this madness upon you as you can bear. It breaks us apart, but also, it keeps us alive.
Love,
Sophie
Add this to your to-do list.
Eat your FAVORITE FOOD this week.
Use a sticker. If you don’t have a sticker, acquire a sticker. Then use it.
A drawing.
There is ONE DAY LEFT in my “nickname the warblers” project. Please read about this project and then participate in it! Or just wait to see who the winners are tomorrow, and buy a print.
What’s on my mind this week.
(This will be about new parenthood. Skip it if you don’t want to read about new parenthood.)
Tanager eats formula. First of all, I want to be transparent about this: I feel a lot of shame that I wasn’t able to breastfeed her. I always thought that I would breastfeed, and I found it to be so beautiful and joyful when she was able to eat just a little milk from my body. But I turned out to have a glandular disorder that prevents me from producing more than an ounce of milk per day (despite having a giant daughter who eats 30 ounces or more per day). This was heartbreaking for me, and I didn’t want to tell people because I was afraid they’d think I was lying (???), or they’d think I was weak. But I was also grateful that modern medicine had made formula readily and affordably available for my hungry baby, and I was able to keep her alive because we had access to it. The formula crisis has made every day feel a little scary. At most grocery stores you can find a few cans of the really expensive stuff, which we are able to grit our teeth and pay for, although it’s really not in our budget. (We’re relying on a built-in support network that allows us to lean on credit cards that we assume we will someday be able to pay off.) T has also been eating solid foods for the past two months, and so she can get a lot of her nutrition that way. But I’ve been thinking about how it would feel to have less access to money and the time it takes to drive around and find formula, and to have a newborn who couldn’t breast-feed for whatever reason. Reading about the very preventable causes of this shortage (namely, a few big brands saturating and monopolizing the market, with no financial incentive to make their product more available — this is a huge oversimplification, but you can read more about it if you’re curious) infuriates me. The added irony of the imminent end to access to safe abortions makes parenthood feel very “Midwive’s Tale” (which it already kind of did; there is no maternity leave in the United States, and I am legitimately stumped as to how low-income earners are expected to keep their children alive). Anyway, it’s gratitude and horror, which is a familiar combination in these early parenting days.
Sophie asks you for stuff!
If you have read my book and enjoyed it well enough, it would be so meaningful / helpful if you could review it on Amazon or GoodReads! I know these are evil corporations and we hate them, and yet they run the book algorithms of the world, and this kind of thing sadly matters for authors to keep making careers off of being authors.
Also! If you subscribed to a paid tier of this newsletter — thank you. My first paid subscribers-only post is IN THE WORKS; I think it will go out within the next week. (Birthday week is always busy for me, but I’m almost done!) Also, I have started putting together in-the-mail packages for the “Get Mail” tier. If you want access to these things (or if you just want to support me), you can subscribe by clicking here. (Keep in mind that you can subscribe to the “Get Mail” tier for any price between $51/year to $250/year; you’ll be prompted to choose your own amount when you select that option.) (This newsletter in this shape will always be free.)
Extras.
I brought these accidentally vegan Entenmann’s individually wrapped snack fruit pies to school to give to the kids to celebrate my birthday and they were a HIT. Everyone liked them, and I liked them, and wow, what a treat.
I found out that Molly Shannon’s history of masturbation is the same as mine in this “Armchair Expert” episode, and I liked that.
Speaking of Molly Shannon, I love “I Love That For You.” Thank God they’re still making great comedies.
Luke and I re-watched “You’ve Got Mail” and went to see the musical adaptation of “Moulin Rouge,” and we have come to this important conclusion: Holy shit, not only did 1999-2001 Us ACCEPT totally loathsome, creepy, terrible masculine love interests, WE WERE ALL WILLING TO ACT LIKE WE LIKED THEM! Both stories are a good cultural study into what was so recently so acceptable in terms of toxic masculinity. (Lying! Stalking?! Manipulating!?!? Slut-shaming!?!?!?! Threatening suicide because you don’t get your way!???!?!?!!??!)
Lizzo’s “Good As Hell” has TWO music videos, and if you haven’t watched the update, get on it. I also thought Lizzo’s SNL episode was charming and strong.
I’m sure you’ve heard, but the free birdwatching app Merlin added a feature where you can hold your phone up and it will identify all the bird songs in your area. It is AMAZING, and I didn’t believe for an instant that it would work, but it totally does and is so, so helpful.
Also, Rest In Peace to Monty. Gone too soon.
Please enjoy this great old standup clip of the amazing Jean Carroll.
sending you love and light as you maneuver through this tough time. postpartum depression and anxiety was one of the worst things i’ve lived through. i’m glad you have support and that you’re also sharing your stories with us. so often we feel like we’re alone, and we suffer for it. i hope that you can feel a little less alone, and i hope that others who read your beautiful words also feel less alone. happy birthday and may brighter days come soon!