Why This Newsletter Is

The annual anniversary issue, with lots and lots and lots of things

A Note for You, If You’re Having A Bad Day

Hello My Sweet Friend,

Today is the fourth anniversary of this newsletter. That’s wild. This newsletter is ready to enter the public school system! In thinking about what I wanted to reflect on today, I landed on the word “enough.” A nonzero amount of people have questioned it: Why not, “You are doing a good job?” Isn’t, “You are doing a good enough job” kind of back-handed? Doesn’t it just make people feel worse?

Because, I guess, we want to be doing a good (or better than good) job. A job that, when put against the average, would be superior. And the trouble there is that it gives one’s ego a whole lot of credence. If you are above average (and chances are, you think you are), who are all the other people who are below average? And what do you actually think of them?

Alright — it’s already too heady. So I’m going to tell you now about some of the times I’ve lost my job.

I don’t have any pictures of me at this job, but I did go to my grandma’s house last weekend for her memorial (and also my grandpa’s 100th birthday; lots there to unpack) and saw this picture of me taken the year I would have been working at this Target. My grandma knit me that scarf, which is why this photo exists. But just picture this girl at that job. OK. Here we go.

Time number one: I was a high schooler working in the soft lines (clothes) department at Target. The required uniform was a red shirt and khakis, which I really didn’t own, and, um, hello — I had to take a summer job because I didn’t have any money? So… how was I buying this red shirt and these khakis? I bring it up because I had to borrow my mom’s khaki skirt, which was a few sizes too big, and I wore a red top that had white polka dots on it that I had from swing dancing. I already felt like I was doing a bad job at my Target job.

And I guess that I was, because a month or so in, the manager called me to her office and said, “Hello, Sophie. It’s been brought to my attention that you’ve said something inappropriate to Ted.” I was astounded to hear this. “Do you know the incident I’m talking about?” asked the manager. I truly, bottom of my heart, had no idea what this could have possibly been about. And still don’t. “Well, I can’t repeat it because of confidentiality reasons —” (which, just as an aside to you, dear reader, doesn’t make sense, because I knew it was Ted. Wasn’t that the part that needed to be confidential?) “—but it was unacceptable. You are being dismissed from your role as a team member. Here are the rest of your hourly wages owed in cash. Do not clock out, do not return to the floor. Leave the premises immediately.”

I did, but wow: I was shaken. If I could lose my job at Target because of a reason that I would never learn, how would I ever be enough to do anything else? And plus, I would never be able to shop at Target again, due to shame.

This was a time that I did not do a good enough job. Good enough, that is, to remain employed.

Time number two: This time, I really fucked up, and I deserved to lose my job. I was employed at a high school in the Recovery School District in New Orleans. It was my first year teaching and I in no way, shape, or form knew how to be a teacher. I was supposed to teach Special Education and had next-to-no training. I was doing nothing for the students. I let them come into my shared classroom and go on MySpace and eat candy I brought them. I got my nose broken because I got in the middle of a fight. (!?!? Isn’t this Teachers 101?! Don’t step in between a kid who has his fist pulled all the way back and the person he is trying to punch?)

Here’s the worst thing I can name, though I bet there are worse worst things I’ve blocked from my memory: I was supposed to co-teach a Biology class, but the first day I was meant to teach it, I couldn’t find the room, so I just hid in the bathroom for the whole hour. And then three days of that later, I realized the Biology teacher didn’t seem to notice or care that I wasn’t there, so I started just sitting in the bathroom with my feet up on the stall door reading Scott Pilgrim every day.

I was fired in a “last in, first out” mandate, according to the principal, who also simply hated me, and she was absolutely right to. One of the other special education teachers had our students write letters on my behalf — but I happen to know they did it because they loved and respected her, and for good reason; she was awesome. I believe I got that job back because the school wasn’t actually allowed to fire a special education teacher because the law says you need a certain number per student with an Individual Education Plan. Nice try, Principal!

Nevertheless, I understood that I was not good enough to be a teacher. And you can say, “Oh Sophie, you cared about the students, and that is plenty.” But it wasn’t. I was not a good enough teacher. I needed more training, probably some years of student teaching, and for the entire education system in 2008 New Orleans to not be fundamentally broken. It took me five years to be a good enough teacher. “Enough” here means “equitable and fair for the students under my tutelage.”

Whenever I post something on Instagram about, “Consider the possibility that the amount you got done today was enough,” there are detractors. But I literally have to do more work in order to keep my job. I’ll get fired if I don’t do more, or better. There are other iterations. More money is required. More time. There is legitimately not enough.

But I’m not trying to say, “You’re doing a good enough job at your actual job; you’ll be able to keep your job because you possess the sufficient amount of competence and/or skill.” I’m trying to say, on a fundamental level, Here you are. You are an animal; a participant in the human species. You woke up this morning, and tonight you’ll probably go to sleep. On certain days, that is enough. Trust me: if it is true for penguins and sharks and camels and bears, it is true, too, for you.

The song I sang to my daughter every night for two and a half years (until she was able to articulate, “Mom, please don’t sing, you’re not that good at it”) was from Hamilton (I’M NOT SORRY!¹), and is called, “That Would Be Enough.” Often, my eyes filled with tears when I looked at her and sang, “The fact that you’re alive is a miracle. Just stay alive. That would be enough.” You’ve felt this exact same way before, when looking closely at the breath moving under the skin of a person you really love. The fact that you’re alive is a miracle. I think this about you.

If a bad thing happens because of something you’ve done, remember: You won’t be the first person to lose a job; to default on a loan; to relapse; to say something you didn’t mean to say. If you’re feeling a deep sense of shame, return to these words: You are not the only one, and this moment will pass. People are fallible, and shame is vulnerable, so we mostly hide the parts of ourselves we think aren’t safe to share. Everyone is walking around wishing —aching — that they were better at something specific.

And to that end, a few reminders:

1. Think of the person you feel most in awe over. They have also been rejected from something to which they desperately hoped they’d belong. I happen to know that it happens to everyone who lives in the world. We just keep going.

2. Chances are, you are probably a difficult topic of conversation for someone who feels jealous or left out or less than. Isn’t that wild?

   

3. Capitalism is the system that we, the generations of humans leading up to ones who read newsletters (et. al.), chose.² There are pros and cons. Among the cons: the system works by making you believe you do not already have enough. You probably do have enough. There’s so little we actually need. And:

   1. You still live under this system, so it makes sense to get caught in its web. Like, it makes sense to buy a bunch of cute underwear you don’t really need because it’s on sale and you have told yourself that maybe cuter underwear will make you feel more confident, and your overall quality of life will improve. Forgive yourself for believing the myth of scarcity from time to time. It’s not your fault!

4. Even if you die, you will still have done enough. Your whole job, really, is to be here while you’re here. Be curious. Interact with the world and wonder about the things you can’t know. On the days that are hardest, just be an animal. That’s what you are, ultimately.

You’ve heard this before, but I’ll say it again: you will not have the capacity to do anything for the collective good if you’re not meeting yourself with a bare minimum of self-acceptance. And that just means that you believe that you’re doing a good enough job. That simple belief will give you space to give.

I lost — or almost lost — plenty of other jobs. I lost a job teaching workshops with a nonprofit I won’t name here, because I wrote something untoward about a conference in a blog post. I didn’t think anyone would read it, I guess; and I also didn’t think it was that mean. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d gotten in trouble for something I’d said or written, and it wouldn’t be the last. I’ve always been a person who’s wanted to write things down, but it’s taken me a long time to be adequately careful about what I put out into the world. I wish I could say I learned this lesson after one infraction, or even two. But honestly, I’m still learning it.

This newsletter is called “You Are Doing a Good Enough Job” because it is the thing that I need to hear the most often. I remember the first time I wrote it down on a Post-It and put it up above my desk. I read it to myself and immediately thought, No, I’m not. I’m failing. And then my good sense kicked in and I remembered the enough. I might have been failing at whatever I felt like I was failing at, but I was doing a good enough job to survive. And that was enough for that day. Tomorrow, maybe, the bar could be higher.

By the way: a day will come when you will not survive. I’m not saying this to be bleak, but as a reminder that our time here is brief. Even on that day, my friend, it will have been enough.

Good luck out there, bravely facing all that breaks your heart.

Until Next Time,

Sophie

Housekeeping

• Where do I put a bullet point about my own personal finances? I guess here. A year ago, this newsletter was bringing in more paid subscriptions; and I understand that there are lots of reasons why people aren’t able to continue to support me financially. I’m in the same boat with a lot of people I wish I could give money to. As an artist married to someone who is just getting his own business off the ground with a kid who has some special needs, we are constantly in debt. Speaking of shame: we’ve recently come to the difficult realization that we need to take out a second mortgage on our home because we simply can’t make ends meet as is. In the grand scale, this is a tiny complaint. We are in the position to take out said second mortgage, because we were lucky enough to buy a house in 2018, before the housing market was bonkers. We could probably borrow money from friends or family members if we were ever really in a bind. But we’d like to be earning the money we spend, and so here I am telling you about it. This newsletter takes over twenty hours per week most weeks, and if the paid subscriptions for the letter translated to an hourly wage, I’d currently be making a little less than $2 per hour. I fluctuate between scaling way back on what I’m writing and making, and writing hopeful pleas like this one, and trying to offer even more. Here’s the “even more” that I’m hoping will move the needle this time:

  • If you’re a Tangible Items person (me too!), I re-stocked my store last week with a lot of hand-painted, handmade things. I bumped the price down on original paintings, so now you can get an original watercolor for $25, which is, I believe, the cost of an entree at a gastropub. I also made a bunch of trinket dishes, some painted clothes, etc.

  • I’m also taking ten pet commissions, and I knocked the price down on those, too! Order through the store.

    

  • Here is a fun item that is in the store that only a few people will be interested in, but if it’s you, HOORAY, WELCOME TO THIS BULLET POINT. I had a bunch of blank color-changing mugs, and a Cricut machine. I spent the entire day one day just trying to make vinyl stencils to put on the color-changing mugs. None of them turned out good, per se. They all have something a little quirky about them. Some of them are white vinyl, some are black vinyl. The thing is, the mugs are black when they’re empty, and white when they’re full of hot liquid. No two are exactly the same! But they’re all special, and they’re all cool, and I really didn’t make that many of them, because they took FOREVER. So I’m going to FILL THEM WITH SURPRISES and send them to you. Each will have 10 surprises, including at least one original sticker, one original (!!!) piece of art, and one Sophie home-made weird thing. And then there will be lots of other things in there, too. I basically can only promise that these mugs will be worth the cost of purchase. That’s what I can assure you. I will not let you down. What a surprise this will be! Here’s the link to buy that. There are only nine. An Erin already bought ONE of them.

  • I’ll offer a discount to my paid subscribers, which I’ll put in the newsletter I send just to paid subscribers tomorrow.

  • Paid subscribers also get a whole bundle of webinars they can choose to attend or watch videos for, which begin at the end of August and go through the next calendar year! You can take one without being a paid subscriber for $25, and the list is here. (So far, zero non-paid subscribers have signed up to take one!)

  • If you want to move the needle on my paid subscriber numbers, I’m giving the best discount I ever give, which is 40% off forever. Meaning: you can have all the many perks that come with a paid subscription for less than it would cost you to take a date to see a movie at the movie theater!

  • It is very uncomfortable to talk about money, and to ask people for money. I understand (Truly! Obviously!) that paying for this kind of thing is not financially feasible for many, many people. If you really love engaging with this work and would like to be put in the paid tier, but can’t pay for it, just email me and let me know. You can literally respond directly to this email and I’ll make the change forthwith, no questions asked. I’d love to welcome you into the fold. I will never turn away someone who wants to be a part of the community but can’t pay for it.

Loose Thoughts

• Please weigh in on Twizzlers. Thank you.

• OK, here’s what I think about Twizzlers. In high school, I used to buy them at the movie theater. I loved that they weren’t that good, so I’d eat them very slowly. Now they taste like going to the movies in high school — an activity I remember with fondness.

• I’m disappointed with the rain. It sometimes rains a little, but never enough that I don’t have to water. OR it rains WAY TOO MUCH and floods. Where is the medium-enough rain?

• Overall, I’m obsessed with my garden this year, but still, the rats have made their presence known, and it mostly manifests in a poor showing from the zinnias, and a bunch of native plants that have toppled.

• A butterfly landed on me for like 15 minutes recently! What does that mean?

• What’s going on zodiologically rn? I’m having SUCH a hard time, but so is everyone in my orbit, and I can’t understand why this would be happening during Peak Summer, usually a power season for me.

• Speaking of Peak Summer, Kat’s birthday is this week…

• I went night swimming in Lake Michigan for the first time last week because a mom invited me, and It. Was. Truly. Glorious. I can’t believe I have lived in Chicago for TEN YEARS (this is my ten-year-iversary!) and had not done this until last Monday night. It’s such a scene. There are people with bonfires, and a nighthawk swooped right down next to Jess, and the water is warm. I paddle boarded!

• You spend a lot of your planning on living at some point, but I’ve been doing a lot of living the life I’ve already built this summer, and I am really enjoying the riches and spoils. Despite the things that are hard.

• STONE FRUIT. RIGHT?

• Some really good thoughts last time from people on dysregulated children:

  • Elizabeth said, “Also, it's OK and also maybe sanity-saving to have some people in your life with whom you can exchange Knowing Glances or desperate texts to say "Can you even believe this is happening?!" while being present and blowing the bubbles and practicing the deep breaths with the dysregulated child.” SO TRUE, and thank you Lisa, my person I do this to. I will never not be grateful to have this.

  • Devon recommended “ANOTHER Dr. Becky for you - Dr. Becky Bailey of conscious discipline. Her stuff is amazing. My daughter was a real scary 3 year old and would have ridiculous meltdowns. This is the only thing that got me through. Conscious discipline is built on neuroscience - step 1 is regulating yourself. So when she is having a wild tantrum, it's okay to (as long as she will be safe and you will be safe) step away and take some deep breaths. You will not be able to help her if you are not regulated / calm yourself and it is extremely difficult to maintain calm in the face of that...” Immediately checked out books. Thank you!

  • Isabella said, “I was a screaming mimi as a 3 year old (my mom’s favorite description for it), I don’t remember what I had tantrums about but all sorts and I would scream the house down and throw things and one time I stood on the edge of a busy road and threatened to walk into it if my parents approached . And I think I turned out great! 😊 (I also was a kid in therapy lol).” I think you turned out great, too!

  • Juliette relayed this, and it takes the cake: “When my daughter was almost 3 I was making dinner and so could not play with her right this instant and she got so mad, she slammed her own head on purpose on the very hard tiles we had in the kitchen, then turned blue and fainted for a few seconds. We called 911 and 5 big firemen came and took care of her and she was absolutely fine (with a bump), and we had to go to the ER so she could get examined further (seems it’s mandatory for head injuries) and we had to stay there 4 hours just so they could make sure she was ok - with no one having had any dinner… and she was just an absolute delight, smiling and laughing and playing with the nurses, because now she had our attention . My god, the will on this child. She’s 14 now, and sweet and smart and a little stubborn but not so bad. So it changes…”

  • And finally, Rebs: “My kiddo had a big tantrum over being born in the Year of the Rooster.” Honestly, I get it.

1. AND “I’M NOT SORRY” IS ACTUALLY A LYRIC FROM THE VERY SONG I’M REFERENCING SO THERE

2. I’m using the word “chose” in a broad sense — not as in, everyone chose it, or even the majority of people chose it, but someone at some point chose it, and it has prevailed.