Art I made to remind myself of what’s important. Image contains a blurry outline of a person standing on the edge of a hill with the words, “as a part of the universe I am infinite and expanding” written next to them.
I turned 31 in September of 2022 and ever since then I’ve been thinking about approaching my thirtieth birthday, 2021. I was a mess back then, 29 had not treated me well. I was burning myself out at a job that I didn’t love, I had recently been dumped by someone who had triggered all of my abandonment issues, and I was feeling like I didn’t belong here. On this earth. Anywhere.
I sat on the roof of my apartment building and hung out with my inner angsty teenager. The trauma left behind by past relationships had been close to knocking me down. I had a couple days when I wasn’t sure I would be able to stop from doing something to myself. I was scared of me, of the world, of the future, of the possibility of no future.
I remember being on that roof and crying and listening to pop punk music and wondering what the fuck was wrong with me. I remember looking out over the trees of North Seattle and realizing, like a freight train hitting me in the chest, that I had run out of road map. I never imagined I would make it this far.
I’d had plans throughout my life, and each of them didn’t come together in the way I thought they would. I’d been pursuing the acceptable version of a life, no matter how badly I wanted to pretend I wasn’t. I dated someone who showed me love because I wanted that love, not because I wanted them. I went to music school because it was the one thing I knew I was good enough at to be appreciated for. Up through 21, I thought I knew exactly what my life was going to look like. Or at least a rough estimate, married to my high school sweetheart, probably with kids, working as a singer-songwriter, maybe running my own little recording studio, living my life.
It all started to crumble as I learned to write poetry. I started excavating my heart and mind, digging away at the expectations and understandings that had been unnecessarily engrained into me. I started to recognize my fears of my queerness, my pain from not being seen fully, my trauma from not being able to understand the complexities of the world around me. I start to learn to use my voice, to say my pain out loud, to look it in the eye and learn that it would not kill me. I started to heal.
When college ended, I dumped my boyfriend of 8 years and ran away to CA for a while. I mourned and leaned into myself and others, and learned what healing could look like. I danced barefoot in the dirt of the Santa Anna Mountains beneath a sky full of stars.
My life is still lived in cycles. I still swing between disrupting the system to find my true happiness and trying to squeeze myself into it thinking maybe my happiness is hidden there and I missed it.
I spent six months living in Big Sur with no cell service or internet, working house keeping and working on my writing and healing. And then I ran back to Boston for an office job, because that felt like it was going to “get me somewhere.” And it did. But not the way I thought it would. I stuck around for almost two years before getting into grad school and moving to England for a Masters in Writing for Young People.
If there was a time I would love to go back to, and there aren’t many of those because of my chronic mental health issues, but back to my grad school experience is something I would love.
When I reach the end of the map
There is something waiting for me.
The void of nothingness
The fog of uncertainty even thicker than it feels every day
Who am I supposed to be?
Am I the daughter of my parents? the kind, gentle, peacekeeper one. The one who moderates and mediates and almost always keeps my cool. The one who is a magnificent musician and always striving for better.
Am I the queerest version of me, the one who refuses to apologize for my pronouns or that my name doesn’t match my license. Am I the one who shouts and smiles and breathes the freshest air so I can question the most ingrained beliefs of my upbringing.
I am all of these, and more. So to an old version of me, still contained in my heart, I wrote this letter.
Dear Lillian,
Hi darling. I know it’s been way too long, but I am finally making the time to write you. I’ve been thinking of you often. I’ve been trying to squeeze you into diagnostic boxes again. It makes me feel like I understand what I need and can communicate it. But it also leaves a bad taste in my mouth because these boxes were still made by someone, and all of my identity feels fluid and changing always.
I have tried all the diagnoses, major depressive disorder, general anxiety disorder, bipolar 2, CPTSD, ADHD, ASD. And honestly, I still don’t know exactly what boxes to attempt to put myself in. Each doctor has something different to say and I don’t have the patience for doctors anymore. It’s exhausting trying to explain myself to someone who isn’t inside my body. Especially when I want to peel my skin off or my head feels like it might explode.
But I think it’s enough of that.
Look, I’ve been trying to find a road map my whole life to how to live. But we reached the end of the map. And I can get more maps, try new routes by people who’ve tried to navigate this world too, but I think now it’s time for us to make our own maps. I think we could do it if we work together. I mean, why not right?
I often wonder if there’s any part of you that would be proud of me.
When I think back all I can think of is the things I desperately wanted to work out that didn’t. The times when I made one step toward my dreams but then stopped. The things that defeated me. The ways that I walked away from my childhood dreams.
But the truth is that I am so much free-er now. I am discovering the pieces of life that truly light me on fire. I am working toward things I want, not because anyone else wants it, but because I do. Because I love it.
I have always been a writer. I know that now, looking back, thinking back to the excitement you had when we toured old mansions in Rhode Island and imagined an entire life of someone who lived there. I saw it in the fact that you wrote an entire novel draft without any training or support. You just did it. While you were reckoning with a failed relationship and the realization that there were mental illness challenges in your life. Like you kicked some ass? You know that?
We moved from Cape Cod to Boston to Big Sur to Boston to Bath UK, to Chatham MA, to Seattle WA. We never gave up. We held out hope. We stepped back from dating for as long as we needed. We healed. We grew. We were born and died over and over and over again but we kept waking up and kept going.
I don’t know if you are proud of me. But I am proud of you. I am proud of how you stayed alive even when you were trying to build your life around values that drained you so that you would be loved. I am proud of how you started this writing journey for me. I am so proud of how you refused to give up finding yourself.
I am so proud of you.
And I promise, I’ve got it from here.
Love,
Fox