So now I'm returning to myself

This summer, this fall, maybe this whole year has felt like A LOT. It’s felt sort of like I’m playing one of those video games where things are coming at you, slowly at first, then faster and faster, and you’re supposed to dodge them or arrange them or do something with the things coming at you. And you manage it for a while, you feel like you’re on top of the barrage of things coming at you, even if you’re gritting your teeth at the stress of it all. Even if what you really want is to lie down on the floor and let the things slowly bury you. Even if you want to lie there buried in the dark and quiet under the things for a good long while. That’s what the last few months have felt like.

This weekend, I finished the last event related to the young adult novel I self-published—a book festival. Book festivals are like gift-wrapped satires just waiting to be written. My husband jokes that all book events are designed to slap down any ego a writer might be at risk of developing. Or maybe that’s just my experience with book events.

This summer and fall feel a little like Tetris at the end, when it stops being fun. Photo by Aedrian on Unsplash

This weekend, I also attended the book launch for the amazing Playing Authors Anthology from Old Iron Press, a brand new press. That event was everything a book launch should be. Joyful and moving and full of community. Maybe there’s a lesson there that the secret to good book events is to get collective.

Still, after a summer of book activities and a fall consumed with oral surgery and the very, very slow recovery from that oral surgery, I’m beat. I’m exhausted. I’m done. I’m so ready for a winter break in which I curl up on the couch with a book and a cup of tea and maybe a football game on the TV and just not move for several weeks.

The phrase that’s kept bouncing around in my head this fall is from a Joni Mitchell song, Hejira—“So now I’m returning to myself.” She’s talking about a love affair. Joni Mitchell is almost always talking about a love affair, which makes me believe that her love life must be much more interesting than mine.

You don’t have to be recovering from a love affair to long to return to yourself, though. All fall that phrase has stuck with me. As a goalpost. As a ghost whispering in my ear. As a glimpse of a finish line. As a version of home.

I want to return to myself. I want to return to a version of myself who is not playing that god-awful video game. I want to return to a version of myself that feels bodily whole again or at the very least, a little less fragile. I want the spaces in my brain that have become preoccupied with constantly wondering, is this how it’s supposed to go, to find some fucking peace.

I don’t know if I’ll get there or not. I’m a sociologist, after all, and deeply skeptical about any coherent idea of self in the first place. Is there really some stable ‘self’ for me to return to in the first place? Have I invented a past version of me that wasn’t in a constant state of anxiety about book promotion or the gaping hole in my mouth where a tooth used to be? Wasn’t I always in a constant state of anxiety about something? Probably.

Here's what I do know. I feel most like a better version of myself when the fog clears and I can clearly see where I am, right now, in the moment. I feel like a better version of myself when I’m looking out the window at the trees on the hill in the distance. I feel like a better version of myself when I notice birds. I feel like a better version of myself when I really see the faces of the people around me in all their amazing detail and wonder.

This morning as I was sitting down to meditate, I heard the sound of my husband, grinding coffee beans in the kitchen downstairs and having a conversation with our littlest cat. This is it, I thought. This is the amazing, precious moment. This is what I’ve been waiting for. Not the moment when I’ve achieved some writing benchmark. Not the moment when my mouth feels normal again. Not the moment when all my anxieties are gone, because they’ll always be available. Anxiety is the ultimate renewable energy source.

None of that is what I’m waiting for. It’s just this. A normal morning in our house. Sunlight. Husband. Coffee. Cats. A quiet room. A bagel my husband slices for me waiting downstairs. This moment is the moment I’ve been waiting for. Every moment is the moment I’ve been waiting for. I just have to be paying enough attention to see it. I want to return to the version of myself who remembers that.

For your viewing pleasure, here’s me reading the last part of my story, “Hemingway Goes on Book Tour,” at the Playing Authors Launch event.