I’m Sorry, Sinéad

On October 3, 1992, Sinéad O’Connor tore a picture of Pope John Paul II into pieces after performing a rendition of “War” by Bob Marley on Saturday Night Live. In 1992, I was not alive. My parents would meet about a year and a half later—both raised in New Jersey in Catholic families—getting baptized, receiving communion, and getting confirmed. My father was an alter-boy, going to the church on his lunch breaks at school to help with mass during the week. (He was always agnostic, but he played his part in the ritual).

I grew up vaguely Catholic. I was baptized, went to CCD, and right before my First Communion, my Jersey-Italian mother with a correspondingly strict Catholic upbringing pulled me out of the Catholic Church in favor of a church under the Presbyterian denomination. I was happy to be freed from sitting for hours weekly in an old classroom that smelt like dust and had crucifixes of a nearly naked, bleeding, emaciated Jesus hanging from the walls. I made my first communion casually, without a white dress or formalities. I lined up in the sanctuary and ate a little cracker and drank a little wine (grape juice, probably) and walked back to the pew, my mom with tears in her eyes, likely because of the importance of the first communion in her upbringing, which I didn’t understand at the time. I thought it was just prayer with snack.

Even though Sinéad O’Connor ripped up that photo nearly four years before I was born, I remember the controversy still present in my family when I was young. Her name was spoken in hushed tones, and I don't think I had ever even heard her sing. It felt sacrilegious to even mention her in conversation. As a child, I never knew what she had done, but I knew it had to be something horrible—something so wretched it rendered her name unspeakable. I grew up making assumptions based on silence and hushed conversations, like many children do.

On October 3, 1992, Sinéad O’Connor tore a picture of the Pope into pieces to protest child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. This was nine years prior to Pope John Paul II publicly acknowledging the abuse within the Church—a now commonly recognized issue, and even the butt of jokes by many mainstream comedians. But O’Connor, a pop singer and a survivor of abuse herself, was blacklisted by the media (and in turn, by many Catholic families like mine) for speaking the hard, vile truth. She was not acting how a pop princess with doe-eyes and a pretty face should act. And her resistance was punished.


Sinéad O’Connor’s death was announced this past Wednesday. Upon her death, I had never heard a song of hers—maybe a part “Nothing Compares 2 U” on the radio. (I know this might seem unexpected from me based on the other musicians and bands I listen to: i.e. The Cranberries, Kate Bush, PJ Harvey, Alanis Morissette, 4 Non Blondes, etc.) I never explored her music because I always thought that she had truly done something horrible. Reading the articles about her postmortem, I realize that her major controversy is that she was brave enough to call out child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. To think that this person was blacklisted by the media, booed at public events, left without support by other entertainers (not you, Kris Kristofferson), and made out to be the villain because she was advocating for the safety of children is beyond contemptible.

On Thursday, I put on The Lion and the Cobra, Sinéad’s debut album. The 1987 album is named after Psalm 91. I am immediately met with regret. “Jackie” starts the record—her voice rings like a siren and I have chills down my legs. The album continues, exploring relationships and sexuality, society and injustice, and religion all while maintaining radio-friendly musicianship. I feel nauseous because I missed out on loving her and her music while she was still alive.

For He will give His angels orders concerning you, To protect you in all your ways. On their hands they will lift you up, So that you do not strike your foot against a stone. You will walk upon the lion and cobra, You will trample the young lion and the serpent.

—Psalm 91:11-13


I see myself in Sinéad—except I’m far less brave. I wish I could say I am as brave as her, but a lot of the time I get so anxious at the prospect of being perceived that I am frozen in fear. I don’t even know if I could perform one of my songs on SNL, let alone protest arguably the most powerful institution in the world when the cards are so obviously stacked against you. But we both are queer artists, musicians, lyricists, and writers with fibromyalgia, borderline personality disorder, agoraphobia, and misdiagnoses of bipolar disorder.

Early last year, her son Shane passed away due to suicide. I don’t mean to speculate on the cause of her death (which has been unannounced), but I know based on my family’s own experience that suicide within the family is something you never really recover from. My two uncles (my father’s older and younger brothers) both committed suicide. Todd died in 2014, the day after his father was buried. Keith died in 2018. Both had multiple attempts, and none of them were easy on our family or close family friends. We tried at support, at rehabilitation, at recovery—but ultimately, it was futile. None of us were ever the same afterwards.


“You praise her now ONLY because it is too late. You hadn’t the guts to support her when she was alive and she was looking for you.”

—Morrissey

Sinéad, I’m sorry. I am so sorry. The world owes you an apology, and I’m sorry that you could not witness that in this lifetime. The media led a campaign against you, egging on the public to crucify you for doing what a true artist does: being a conduit for the unadulterated truth, no matter how uncomfortable it makes the audience.

So many women are revered in death after living a life of shrouded in criticism and condemnation. This isn’t a new phenomenon. Amy Winehouse, Whitney Houston, Tina Turner, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Britney Spears—the list goes on. The media are way more than complicit; they are a huge, if not the main, reason that we see lives and reputations destroyed until it is tragically too late. Then upon death, like the flip of a switch, we see the media completely change its tune. The very people who wrote the articles perpetuating the narratives that turned these women into villains and pariahs are now the people writing eulogies and in memoriam think-pieces for clicks and ad revenue on their websites.

Sinéad deserved better. Artists do not have to be tortured to be artists. As consumers of media, we have the ability and a responsibility to think critically, practice media literacy, reject dangerous narratives, and stop torturing artists. It is a privilege to witness art. Artists deserve better.

Fifty Years of Blue

The Blue album, there’s hardly a dishonest note in the vocals. At that period of my life, I had no personal defenses. I felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes. I felt like I had absolutely no secrets from the world and I couldn’t pretend in my life to be strong. Or to be happy. But the advantage of it in the music was that there were no defenses there either.
— Joni Mitchell (1979)

There have been few albums in my life that have impacted my artistry and innermost landscape as much as Blue by Joni Mitchell, an album that came out twenty-five years before I was born. 

I was familiar with Joni Mitchell’s music in late high school/early college (actually, my junior year of college I recited “Both Sides Now” as my all-time favorite poem in a creative writing course and proceeded to cry halfway through it Ten Things I Hate About You style in front a guy I really liked, and I think he was put off by that, but if he didn’t fuck with getting emotional over “Both Sides Now,” then we clearly weren’t meant to be in the first place), but the real reason that I got crazily into Joni’s music—Blue specifically—embarrasses me a little. My senior year of college I watched Practical Magic (which is an incredible movie, but it still doesn’t warrant having such an alarmingly stellar soundtrack). In Practical Magic, there is a scene in which Nicole Kidman’s character is driving, singing alone in her car to “A Case of You”—

go to him, stay with him if you can, but be prepared to bleed 

and at the time I was dating someone who made me feel like that—a love that is so gut-wrenching, likely unhealthy and unsustainable, yet magnetic and intoxicating—and I had never heard a song that acknowledged a relationship’s intensity, turbulence, and heartbreak while sounding so eloquent, camouflaging pain into a love song. 

I dove into the record headfirst the moment the end credits rolled on Practical Magic.

Blue is visceral, emotional, transparent. It’s a gut-punch to parts of you that you might not have known you had. It’s cathartic in an unworldly way that turns something so bleak into something beautiful without trying to turn anything into hope or joy—it just allows you the space to feel ugly feelings without guilt or shame. The minimal production, just Joni at the forefront, makes you feel like you’re sitting on her floor as she sits on the couch in her living room, threading together what feels like your own isolated emotions with hers into an endless quilt (or an endless river iced over to skate away on) that covers the complex and frequently ugly experience of being a human being. 

At its core, Blue is an ageless testament to the complexities of love and being—an oscillation between regret and desire, destitution and hope, memory and reality, strength and fragility, youth and age, hate and love, callus and vulnerability. 

Supposedly when Kris Kristofferson first heard Blue, he said, “Joni! Keep something to yourself!” and I am glad that she didn’t. Anything less vulnerable would have been a disservice to her—and to us. 

Cheers to fifty years. I could drink a case of Blue and still be on my feet. 

thank you joni, for everything.
—c

I Was Not Productive in 2020 & I Don't Feel Bad About It

When January 2020 hit, I wrote an extremely ambitious list of resolutions, likely driven by the excitement of the new decade–most of which I barely adhered to by the end of February. By mid-March, my creative energy lulled like a candle at the end of its wick. I abandoned blogging. I starved my YouTube channel of new content. I could not write anything longer than a caption to a meme. Wildly uninspired and oscillating between apathetic and overwhelmed, my creative process felt less like writing was once my passion and more like a root canal without anesthetic. Everything that I attempted to write felt dreadfully irrelevant or a depressing reminder of normalcy long gone.

At the start of quarantine, I bought a tripod to film vlogs and covers for YouTube. The tripod continues to sit in the corner of my room, unused. In a futile attempt to jumpstart my creativity, I began The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, promising via contract in the preface of the book to complete all twelve weeks of the course. I took an indefinite break after week ten. (Sorry for breaking my contract, Julia Cameron). I purchased a bizarre amount of books that I did not read. In all honesty, I’m not even sure if I read a single book after the quarantine began.

I neglected working on my novel, recording my album, writing new tunes, making new content, reading, writing new short stories and poetry, and getting out of my pajamas for nearly a year. 

Simply, I was exhausted. Creativity is not compatible with exhaustion. I was not productive in 2020, and I don’t feel bad about it, because in reality, rest is productive. 

Rest. Is. Productive. 

You cannot pour from an empty cup. 


Towards the end of 2020, I desperately needed to find my footing. I tried to find a way out of my nauseating anxious apathy. I started journaling again. I picked up Gilda Radner’s memoir that I started (and put down) in July. I indulged myself in nostalgia, baking traditional Italian cookies that my great-grandmother used to make for my grandparents, shipping them to New Jersey, three-thousand miles away. (Those cookies traveled more miles than my entire family combined this year). I got out of pajamas. I sang Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” at the top of my lungs and watched claymation Christmas movies. I felt like the Winter Warlock in Santa Claus Is Coming To Town—convincing myself that progress is simply one foot after the other. 

I started writing some standup comedy ideas. I kept making silly memes. I reread my old work. I launched the merch for manicpixiememequeen. I started working with my cousin, Amanda Amato, who is insanely gifted (and seemingly tireless—unfortunately, I did not get that gene), writing content for her business, AMA Designs & Interiors. (If you’re at all interested in interior design, I highly recommend you check out what I’m writing over on her blog).

On New Year’s Eve, I wrote about the loss and grief that we all experienced in 2020. I reflected on the year, what I learned, how it made me access my life and values, and how I want to apply that to this year. My resolutions this year aren’t necessarily less ambitious than last year, but they are more flexible and offer some much needed self-compassion. Yes, I want to be more present blogging and making YouTube videos. Yes, I want to finish the manuscript of Unfunny Girl (my novel) and record and release hunger. (my album) by the end of the year. But as 2020 so brutally reminded us: nothing is for certain; take nothing for granted. Whether this reminder holds a flame under my ass to get shit done or whether this reminder makes me slow down and enjoy the time I have right now in this present moment with my loved ones, I am going to accept it and appreciate it for what it is, because as gross and trite as it sounds, we genuinely never know what tomorrow will bring. 

Be back soon,

—c

P.S. I’ve already amended my resolutions. It’s January 5.


If you feel so compelled—send me a message about what you would like me to write about on the blog! 

I Don’t Think I Can Celebrate New Year’s

New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day have always been my least favorite holidays. They feel sort of morbid, a bizarre combination of popping celebratory champagne while singing “Auld Lang Syne,” which inarguably sounds like a funeral song, despite that very wholesome scene at the end of When Harry Met Sally. The holiday feels ridden with irony—a traditional New Year’s Eve centers itself around debauchery, while New Year’s Day is about making new, healthy resolutions. If you’re really serious about setting intentions for the New Year, it’s probably best that you abstain from the drunken festivities of New Year’s Eve to avoid the inevitable New Year’s Day hangover and settle soberly into that eerie mortality feeling that January 1st always seems to bring about, as we become momentarily hyper-aware of the fleeting nature of time. 

New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day have always been my least favorite holidays, but I’ve always celebrated them. But this year, I don’t think I can. 


Today is New Year’s Eve, and I am intensely unamused by it. I record Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rocking Eve. I pour a glass of champagne. I get dressed up because there’s nothing to dress up for anymore and I’m tired of wasting my outfits. I think about tomorrow. We’re still going to be in a pandemic, anticipating something, waiting for some boot to drop. Changing the calendar isn’t going to fix anything or transport us back to normalcy.  

Blame it on my lack of amusement with the holiday prior to the pandemic, but celebrating this new year feels tone deaf—laughter at a funeral. What should we raise our glasses to? To loss? To grief? 

Tell me, what are we not mourning? 


The other night I dreamt that I walked into an old building downtown. The floorboards creaked underneath the echoes of conversation from a group of elderly people in the farthest part of the room. The pandemic had no relevance to the dream, so I thought, but when the group began to approach me to greet me, I backpedalled, appalled at their lack of masks, but I could not exit the building before they got much closer than six feet away from me. The elderly woman spoke in a soft, sweet voice, asked me for a hug, and I had a visceral reaction to another human’s presence. I woke up.


Before my eating disorder wreaked havoc on my ability to go out to eat, my favorite restaurant in the Bay Area was Franchino’s on Columbus Avenue in San Francisco. It was a family-owned hole in the wall in North Beach, decorated with 1970s-esque pastel paint colors and faux Renaissance murals, candles on every table (tables positioned much too close to each other, but the food made up for the lack of space), and every waitress was a daughter of the woman who made your pasta. Some of the tables were adjacent to the windows facing the avenue and you could people-watch while dipping hot, savory bread into peppery olive oil. The older woman who made all of the pasta would happily stand by my table for fifteen minutes giving me all of her tips for how to make homemade gnocchi. 

Franchino’s is closed now. 

I haven’t been since 2017. I always assumed it would still be there for me to return when I fully recovered from my eating disorder, to eat spaghetti carbonara, to drink Chianti, to talk to the cook about how long to knead dough, to re-experience the joy of food, to make a new memory. 

The Cliff House, a San Francisco establishment since the Civil War, has outlived detrimental, mysterious disasters, shipwrecks, and fires. The last time I was there, I saw the vast Pacific beaming through large windows as I sipped wine with someone I loved. I genuinely don’t even remember what I ordered to eat because the view was so captivating. The ocean seemed to extend for eternity. The water, a miraculous shade of blue, shone with the sun’s September golden specks, and I sat there, mesmerized. Sitting in the grandeur of the Cliff House while staring out into the infinite sea gave me that spectacular feeling of being so big yet so small at once. 

This morning a crowd of people gathered around the building watched as they removed the sign from the top of the Cliff House. It is permanently closed, as of today, after 157 years. 


I obsess over the inability to build new memories, especially at the places that now only exist in history. They vanished, all within a year. These building are empty, closed but still standing, and their image, floating at the forefront of my mind, makes me hyper-aware of the pace and intensity of these changes. 

Are the sands of time truly slipping through the cracks in my fingers that quickly?


“Auld Lang Syne” literally translates to “old long since,” but actually means something similar to “old times” or “the olden days.” It sounds like a funeral song because it is nostalgic. It remembers the friendships and relationships of the past, the times that are no longer tangible, the lives lost, the hugs we currently cannot have, the holidays missed, restaurants that have closed, and the streets that are now empty.

So maybe this year, I won’t celebrate the turn of the calendar from December 31 to January 1, but I will celebrate memories, and feelings, and sentimentality, and yes, I will mourn. I will mourn, I will remember, and I will hope. 



Boo Radley Bitch

I didn’t describe myself as an agoraphobe until six months ago. “Agoraphobe” sounds gross—eerily similar to “ogre,” but also sadly housebound. A depressed, housebound ogre. Doesn’t that sound so wonderful? 

Boo Radley—the fictional reclusive character in To Kill A Mockingbird, created by author Harper Lee, a fellow recluse—initially was shadowed by the potential of his darkness, mystery, and predation. Later, after saving Scout and Jem, Boo revealed his true character: a good man, just plagued by agoraphobia. 

Six months ago, I realized that I am a Boo Radley Bitch. 

There are many misconceptions about agoraphobia, perpetuated by shitty representation in the media. “Agoraphobe” comes with negative associations: isolated; withdrawn; prone to addiction; neurotic, or worse—psychotic. The very word “agoraphobe” feels like an attack on one’s character. 

As your resident Boo Radley Bitch, I can inform you that being an agoraphobic individual is not gross. Agoraphobia is simply a disorder—that I happen to have. While I admit it does make me somewhat isolated, neurotic, and a fan of self-medication, my phobia has never been a reflection of my character. Mental illness is never a reflection of one’s character. (Ableism has tricked us into thinking that being mentally ill and/or physically ill is a personality flaw. Ableism can go fuck itself). 

To put it in perspective: agoraphobia is when your brain puts you on corona-virus-esque quarantine for no fucking reason at all. At-home self-quarantine, as per the brain’s orders. The panic that the average person feels during a pandemic is the average amount of panic I feel on a day to day basis just leaving my house.

For many privileged neurotypicals, there is nothing to survive on a regular day-to-day basis. But for a person with panic disorder with agoraphobia, leaving the home puts your body into a primitive state—like you’re gambling your chances at survival by simply leaving your porch. Fight, flight, or freeze. The amygdala takes no vacation days.  

If I am forced to leave my home, my brain forces me to wake up early, with at least three hours of downtime before leaving the house—including time to make at least two lists, take an herbal tea that’s supposed to sedate me (but definitely doesn’t have any effect), take my prescribed benzodiazepine, smoke a CBD/THC ratio that I’ve nailed down to perfection, and then occasionally drink some wine or vodka (depending on how much time there is and the severity of the panic) to get out of my house and into the real world. 


I had a therapist once tell me to rank regular activities on a scale from “1-10,” illustrated on a worksheet with a graphic of a thermometer, ten being the upmost anxiety, labelled, “No Way—I Can’t Do It!” in a childish and approachable font. She said that I should be pushing myself daily to do a “three or four,” but what she failed to understand was that I panic in my house—my safe space. The only time I’m lower than a three or four is when I am sleeping, unless I’m having an insomniac episode and sleep evades me, or I’m having a nightmare or a panic attack in my sleep—then I’m still hovering at a three or four, sometimes even a five in my own home. I am constantly in a state of panic. 


About a month ago, I couldn’t make it to a memorial service for a peer. That night I shaved, planned my outfit, set my alarm clock for that morning, and day of, I physically could not show up. I kept thinking about who would be there, who would see me, how they would see me, how long I would be away from the house, where I should sit if I had a panic attack and needed to get outside inconspicuously, how quickly I could get home. Escape routes needed to be planned, mapped out like internal satellite. 

Anxiety—termites leaving little pathways inside my brain and in my nerves, in my physical body. They leave maps of panic, how to leave, when to leave, signals of when you have to leave. 

It is never quiet. 


In October 2019, my body shut down. Termites had completely eaten away at my insides. They had been in the process of hollowing me out since that March, when I had the incredible opportunity to start working at a company that I really enjoyed working at. I had my period the week I started. Immediately after starting the job, I did not have a period for ten months. My hair frayed out like burnt wool. I couldn’t remember texts, emails, conversations, names, dates. 

When you’re in a state of constant fight or flight, your brain’s last priority is reproduction, keeping your hair and skin nice, or remembering shit. It’s about survival. 

My doctor put me on medical leave that October.  

Currently, I am on disability through the state of California because of my panic disorder with agoraphobia. When my doctor (psychiatrist) put me on medical leave, I was ashamed to be considered “disabled.” I had internalized the stigma of being an agoraphobe, the stigma of not being considered a “productive” member of capitalist society. I can’t sleep, leave the house, or eat like a functional human being. What do I have to offer? 

Agoraphobia is simply a disorder I just happen to have. 

Does it mean leaving my porch is scary? Yes. Does it mean that sometimes when I go for a neighborhood walk, I can only make it two blocks and then I have to turn around? Yes. Does it mean that literally any Trader Joe’s parking lot has the ability to instigate an immediate panic attack? Yes. Absolutely yes. 

But does it mean that I don’t have anything to give? No. Absolutely not. 

Regardless of my mental and physical afflictions, I am an invaluable individual. I am Boo Radley Bitch. I am a good person, who happens to have agoraphobia. Agoraphobia is not dirty, gross, ugly, or evil—it just is a phobia of being outside of a perceived “safe space.” And as an individual, I have a fuck ton to give. Granted, it has to be given from my safe space. But I do have a fuck ton to give. 

I’m a Boo Radley Bitch, and I’m here to talk about mental illnesses, to educate, to uplift, and to connect. I have a lot to give, even if it’s from the confines of my mental illness and the perimeter of my home. I’m here to spread some Boo Radley goodness! 

23 Things I Learned Before Turning 23

  1. Enjoy the things you like loudly, proudly, and unapologetically. 

    Yes, for my college graduation gift, my mom took me to a Taylor Swift concert, and yes, I cried. I don’t care if this isn’t “cool.” I had an incredible time, and so did my mom. 


  2. Don’t buy underwear with someone in mind. 


  3. You can’t go wrong with splurging on a nice lipstick or blush.
    
Blush is crucial to looking like a real human being after applying liquid foundation. It replaces bronzer entirely, especially if you are as dedicated to the 80s aesthetic as I am. The product itself lasts a weirdly long time because how much blush can a singular human being go through if they’re not Boy George? In addition, I recently purchased a $30 Marc Jacobs lipstick after savoring a Sephora free sample of it for a full year. It doesn’t dry my lips out. It was worth every penny. 


  4. Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. 

    Dating is weird. Millennials have a hard time with the “exclusivity” thing (Clarification: I don’t, but apparently that’s weird to the people I date) and that creates a bizarre dynamic in which you are required to put your metaphoric eggs in more than one basket or else you’ll end up with a disappointing omelette. Unless you’re cool with getting your feelings hurt, take your time and keep your options open until intentions have been honestly communicated. This isn’t cynicism; this is practicality. 


  5. Invest in a good pair of leather (or vegan leather) boots.
    It may cost you a good $300-$400 now, but you’ll never have to do it again. 


  6. Personalizing your space is crucial in enjoying yourself in that space.
    
Your headspace is inherently connected to your physical space. Cultivating a beautiful area in your home, in your cube, and even in your car makes life a little more comfortable. 


  7. Life is hard; stop beating yourself up. 

    On @manicpixiememequeen, a lot of my followers reach out to me asking about how to forgive themselves and moving on from the past. Life can be so trying, and you’re inevitably going to have some mistakes and rough times. Personally, I’ve never let a single thing go in my entire life, but I’d be a lot healthier if I did.

  8. What you initially may consider “mistakes” are probably crucial parts of your life-path.
    
In late May of 2018, I moved to New Jersey without a job or a plan. Feeling defeated and demoralized, I moved back to California in early October 2018. Were those four months a loss to me? No. They taught me infinite lessons I would never have learned if I had stayed in California. See “Dreams Deferred.” 


  9. Make your bed daily, and please, for the love of God, floss. 


  10. Keep your friends close and your enemies blocked.
    
Block your enemies/exes/ex-friends! Banish that negativity! In the world of social media, it’s so easy to stalk your ex-lovers or ex-friends, and it’s so tempting to do so! However, knowing what those shitty people are up to does nothing for you but create anger and anxiety. Even though it’s hard to block those people and even easier to stalk them, please try to block them. Honestly, they could give you the evil eye. Compromise: muting their profile. (Which, in fact, I do frequently. Unfollowing is another option but for some reason just feels petty. Either continue to follow and mute, or block entirely. I’m not an unfollow kind of person). 


  11. Find a signature haircut and a signature nail color and rock it.
    
For me, it’s a Stevie Nicks-esque long shag cut with curtain bangs and an obnoxious yellow nail polish. At least no one else can say it’s theirs. 


  12. Sometimes, things change that you never think will change. 

    Since my birth, I had a bizarre and inexplicable fear of dogs. All dogs. Even an adorable golden retriever puppy or something as small as a teacup Yorkshire terrier. I would immediately break out in a panic attack. I couldn’t go to friends’ houses if they had a dog or even go to public parks. Sophomore year of high school, I quit my soccer team because seeing dogs in distant fields was unbearable with my phobia. In 2016, I went on Zoloft for generalized anxiety, and it did not work. However, when I stopped taking Zoloft, I somehow did not have a dog phobia. Recently, a coworker brought his dog into the office and I was 100% fine; I looked back on my dog-phobic past, realizing that you never quite can predict what is possible, what will change, and why, but things do change, and sometimes that’s pretty rad. 


  13. Crying is cool.

    …pretending that you don’t have feelings is not! Our experiences are amazing because we feel horrible things and happy things, sometimes all at once. If we didn’t cry, there would be no recognition of the pain or the wonder of life. Owning when you are feeling shitty through a good old-fashioned Kim Kardashian ugly cry feels good, and so does owning a good ass happy cry. So, crying rocks. 


  14. When you’re intimidated by someone, just remember that they have had diarrhea before. 


  15. It’s okay to ask for help.
    You’re really not supposed to do it on your own. You’re a human, not some sort of weird lone wolf or Eric Carmen. During my most difficult time with anorexia, I told my mom and dad that I needed help, and they helped me find treatment (actually, many different treatment centers—massive shoutout to my thorough and incredible parents). Even though a lot of those options were not a fit, they eventually led me to a program that did not cure me, but did save my life, and for that, I’m eternally grateful. 


  16. You never know the full story.
    Your friends, siblings, parents, grandparents, coworkers—literally everyone—will never have time to fully give you their life-story. There are always stories and facts left out, sometimes incredibly crucial ones that give context for actions and behaviors. Take everything with a grain of salt, and give everyone an ounce of empathy, even if you think they don’t fully deserve it. 


  17. Seriously, drink more water. 


  18. I am privileged, and I have a responsibility to recognize it and use it for good.
    
As a white, middle/upper class, cis-gendered female, I have a responsibility to use my voice for my brothers, sisters, and siblings who face discrimination and systematic oppression. You’ll see me at the women’s march, transgender rights protests, LGBTQ+ pride, Black Lives Matter protests, and promoting universal comprehensive healthcare reform that includes mental healthcare. Not recognizing and using my privilege for good would just be an irresponsible abuse of it.


  19. You can love the Top 40 hits while jamming to a weird mix of grunge, indie, classic rock, country, jazz, and rap.
    My dad taught me this lesson early in life—his playlists are neurotic and amazing. They jump from Jim Croce to Milli Vanilli to U2 to Johnny Cash to Rihanna to Paul McCartney. My playlists are similar, ranging from Fleetwood Mac to Hole to Dolly Parton to Post Malone to Led Zeppelin to Lady Gaga to specifically “Stir Fry” by Migos, and I carry no shame about it. Life offers us so much variety; the things you enjoy shouldn’t be mutually exclusive or shameful. Guilty pleasures are a myth. See #1. 


  20. Staying in a hotel room entirely by yourself is liberating.

  21. Knowing lesser-known varietals of wine is beneficial to both the wallet and the palette.
    See: Lambrusco, Falanghina, Suave, Garganega. In addition, you can get a decent Chianti or Pinot Grigio at Trader Joe’s for under $10. The quality of a wine isn’t always about a price point.

  22. Bringing homemade bread to a potluck or dinner party will impress any person there.

    You may even make a friend or a significant other. Personally, I make these herbed rolls, which are easy AF to make and a crowd favorite. (This is not sponsored; I genuinely just love these rolls).

  23. Don’t compromise yourself for anyone.
    
I’ve been in too many relationships in which I compromised myself and my goals for another person. In one particular relationship, I adjusted my entire life-plan (at the time, it was to be in publishing in NYC—note: life-plans can change) in order to stay with him. I decided that I wouldn’t do the things that I had dreamt of doing for years, and all of my loved ones looked on saying, “Cori, is that you?” and I was like, “Well, yes, but I’m not entirely sure—I just need to stay with said person!” When we broke up, I realized my dreams had the ability to be resurrected, and I moved to the East Coast to pursue them. As Janis Joplin said, “Don’t compromise yourself. You’re all you’ve got.” All relationships are difficult, so compromise healthily, but you genuinely are all you have to count on, so never compromise yourself or your values.

This listicle was inspired by Taylor Swift’s article in Elle’s Magazine, “30 Things I Learned Before Turning 30.”

I turn 23 on June 4!

In Memory of Keith Hartwig

January 8, 2018, 8:55am: “Oh no! I hope this is the right phone number. I think it is you, Co. Anyway, listen, I wanted to see how you’re doing, and yeah…life is fun, ain’t it, at times? But you are too talented, you have so much going for you, and c’mon. You gotta kick ass. You, out of anyone, could kick ass. That’d be you. You’re a smart, talented, pretty lady. Anyway, I just want to tell you that I love you, and you’re always my biggest fan. I think you’re just so gifted, and I’m not just saying this, you have so much talent, you do, and um—I might have a little more. I’m Keith. *laughs* It don’t get better than that. Anyway, I love you, kid, and I’ll talk to you soon, and I just hope you’re doing well. And I love the fact that you’re, you know, doing what you gotta to do and all that. Alright? I love you, kid, hang in there, be tough, be strong—well, that’s what they told me too, but I’m there, and I ain’t being strong. So you gotta hang in there with me, kid, alright? I love you to death, Co. Hang in there. Love you. Bye.”

—Keith’s voicemail to me, the first of three.

***

Content warning: anorexia, suicide.

I am six years old. I don’t need glasses yet. It’s Thanksgiving. I still like holidays, not because they are vacations but because of the natural novelty of them. I sit on my twin bed and wait for my family to arrive, peering out of my window that looks down on the street. Earlier than called for, I see my uncle’s pickup truck roll by and park by the mailbox. I run outside barefoot.

“Hey, kid!” my uncle Keith says with a toothy grin. He has a styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand and greets me with the other. He has Timberland boots on (before they were considered fashionable) and cargo pants. He is the coolest person in the world. He lights a Marlboro and tells me to sit on the small retaining wall off of the side of the porch to shield me from the smoke. He tells me funny stories about nothing. Every time he goes out to smoke, I follow him. He tells me that I don’t have to follow him out. I tell him that I want to follow him out. He lets me.

I am fourteen years old. I have short hair, braces, glasses, and a horrendous level of insecurity corresponding to my awkward adolescence. Dad tells me Uncle Keith is coming to live with us for a while. I do not know why this is, but I do not ask questions. He sleeps in the loft upstairs. I like having him around.

“What did you do today?” my mom asks me and my younger brother at dinner.

“Not much. I just did some homework, then I wrote a song,” I reply.

“You wrote a song?!” Keith says. “Can we hear it?”

My insecurity flashes across my entire being, but somehow I end up bringing out my guitar and singing a tune called “Breathless” in the living room to my family. Keith cries. It is then that I realize that I can actually sing, after years of people telling me that I was tone-deaf.

Keith goes back to live in New Jersey on June 3, the day before my fifteenth birthday. It isn’t a memorable birthday at all.

I am twenty years old. It is a Tuesday that happens to be Valentine’s Day. It is my brother’s birthday. Two days pass. During a lecture, I receive a text, “I’m so sorry about your uncle” without knowing which uncle or what happened, but I know it is Keith and I know it is self-inflicted, now aware that the reason that he lived with us when I was fourteen was because of a suicide attempt. I am old enough to know that history repeats itself. I exit the classroom and go home. Keith is in the hospital. I cannot process this loss until he comes home to us in May. He is on crutches and has a scar across the top of his head like headphones. I give him my room at my parents’ house. I spend more time at my apartment near the university. He still wears Timberlands. He is still cool as hell. We sit outside in the backyard. We watch the birds and the sky’s gradient fade into different versions of itself. I tell him about school, friends, music, dates.

“Do you love him?” Keith asks me after I’ve told him about a date with someone I have been seeing for a while.

“I think so.”

Keith smiles. He has a preoccupation with love. He especially likes the songs I write during this time.

I am twenty-one years old. After six months and their challenges, fights, and outbursts, my parents and Keith have decided that it is time for him to move back to New Jersey. My dad says goodbye at the airport. It is Thanksgiving, but I do not run outside barefoot. We are a family of four again, but almost three. I do not eat Thanksgiving dinner beyond vegetables. By the beginning of January, I begin an outpatient treatment program at a hospital in Berkeley. Keith calls me the morning of orientation and leaves a voicemail to tell me that he is happy that I am going. I do not return the call. He calls again on January 10, twice. By then, I have already quit the program. I don’t return those calls either.

Three weeks later, I am Keith’s profile picture on Facebook. In that moment, I know. The photo is a close crop of me at a healthy weight, posted while I am going through intervention-esque treatment for anorexia. He captions it, “My gorgeous niece Cori Hartwig!” I comment and tell him that I love him. He replies, “You’re The Best Co! I Love You! Hope Everything’s going Great over there!” This is our last exchange.

Consumed with my own disappearance, I forget that other people have the ability to disappear as well. By the time I overcome my state of being snow-blind from the flurry of doctors and hospitals and skin and bones, he is lost to me.

I am twenty-one years old. History repeats itself. It is immortalized in police reports, filled and unused prescriptions, receipt paper, license plate numbers, anonymous news headlines, security footage in retail stores. We piece together timelines and stories. There is no note.

Hang in there, be tough, be strong—well, that’s what they told me too, but I’m there, and I ain’t being strong.

There is no note, but there are voicemails and calls left unreturned.

I am twenty-two years old. There is a spider on my wall. I watch it crawl like I watch the memories from the Pennsylvania split-level, from downtown Pleasanton at the coffeehouse (now closed), from our walk to the middle school, from the backyard, from the Pacifica shore, from the boat on Lake Del Valle two birthdays ago. I watch it crawl. It is two in the morning and my eyes grow heavy with sleep, my vision cloudy like cigarette smoke on the porch. I wish there was an easy way to tie everything up, to package it gracefully, to set it aside, and to indulge in these memories without feeling the grit and friction of grief against my consciousness. I wish there was an easy way to know that a soul is okay, an easy way to show a spirit a new song you’ve written, an easy way to share one last conversation, an easy way to return one last phone call, an easy way to turn back time and take away their pain before it could cause collateral suffering to those in their wake, an easy way to bring their presence back to you—even for a split second. Until then, I pray. I pray, I pray, I pray, and I remember.

keithsquirrel.JPG

Rest in peace Keith Hartwig

07/02/1968—02/28/2018

Redefining Recovery

Content warning: eating disorders (anorexia, bulimia, EDNOS).

Last Valentine’s Day, I sat alone in the waiting room of the eating disorder wing in UCSF’s children’s hospital—crying mid-morning on a Wednesday. It was about three weeks since my anorexia-induced heart scare. The sense of my own inescapable mortality hovered like fruit flies over browning bananas forgotten on a kitchen counter.

“Cori?” a nurse called me back down a fluorescent white corridor. I followed her into a sterile room decorated for someone at least a decade to a decade and a half younger than me—Curious George stickers on the walls. The nurse instructed for me to take off my shoes and leave them with my bag in the room while we went into the hall to measure my height for the third week in a row as if they expected it to change. She noted it onto a clipboard and motioned for me to come into another horribly lit room.

I took off my clothes (down to my bare ass) behind a curtain, as she instructed, and put on the hospital gown. Knowing the routine, I stepped backwards onto the scale and the nurse scribbled down my weight without informing me of my progress towards weight restoration. I redressed and made my way back to the room with my belongings.

“The doctor will be right with you,” the nurse said, after taking further vitals. She shut the door.

I laid on the lined table, thin paper crinkling beneath my still thinning hair—the long, lean light bulbs stinging my eyes. My skin still didn’t feel like mine. My clothes were beginning to fit differently. Under the instruction of professionals, my parents removed the scale from my apartment. All of my control was surrendered to further my life.

Curious George, that sick, happy creature, mocked me with balloons and joy and livelihood as I laid on the table, seemingly ready for dissection. Over the past few weeks, I had been struggling with the aggressive recovery meal-plan that forced me to eat essentially six meals a day (three regularly portioned meals, three Cheesecake Factory portioned meals) even though I had been starving myself for the past five months. My psychotherapist and I asked the doctors to adjust the meal-plan so I would gain approximately half a pound to a pound a week (instead of UCSF’s intended one to two pounds a week) because of the psychological implications of my body dysmorphia. The doctors did not listen, despite my requests backed by another mental healthcare professional. Over the course of my pseudo-recovery, I gained on average four pounds a week without any adjustment in my meal-plan, and I even received criticism from a doctor telling me that the rate in which my recovery was happening was “not fast enough” and that I “really needed to adhere to the meal-plan as directed.” This encouraged behaviors that led to me developing bulimia, which I had never struggled with before my weight restoration. Every night I curled up to a heating pad over a bloated belly, struggling with a compulsion to rid my body of the pain of its own nourishment. A lump in my throat. Crying into a damp pillow. Food up to the vocal cords. And there those sick stickers were, plastered on the walls with their monkeyish pleasantry despite the fact that I had been crying the night before, and the night before that, and the night before that, and even in the waiting room fifteen minutes prior. How dare they remind me of living when I had been in the process of dying!

Later, I asked my therapist what recovery looked like. She spoke of intuitive eating, body acceptance, self-love, eating without guilt, yada yada yada. I knew that.

“I’m sick, but I’m not an idiot,” I wanted to say. I didn’t.

Beyond weight restoration, I had no concept of what recovery looked like in reality, but I knew that this was not it. With the newfound bulimia (which felt like anorexia’s long-lost uglier sister), I knew that on the surface I looked healthier, but I was actually unhealthier, or maybe equally just as unhealthy. Every time I skipped a meal or purged or had a low-calorie food and passed it off as the regular calorie version I plunged into a senseless pit of guilt that overwhelmed every ounce of my being. I wanted to be better in the depths of my soul, but I did not know how, and I was tallying every mistake I made like a prisoner counting the days on the wall of his cell.

It was then that I realized that everyone around me had it completely wrong.

It was not about my weight, the numbers that corresponded to my body or medications, it was not about charts, putting labels to moods and feelings—it wasn’t about any of that at all.

In the urgency of treatment, everyone had forgotten that I was a human. Instead, anorexic had been scribed on my forehead, and I had been treated with the most prescribed, unpersonalized care that fit that brand of illness. They had sent me off with a healthier number but not a healthier mindset and pushed me off assuming I’d go floating away into the sunset like the end of Grease, when in reality, I felt like they had tied me down to a coal mining cart, pushed me down a darkened railway, and called the depths “recovery.”

With the distance between the present me and the me crying in the waiting room of the hospital, I’ve found that the failures of my so-called recovery are not on me as much as they are on the “perfect recovery” narrative. As much as I would love intuitive eating, self-love, eating without guilt, and body acceptance, I have been struggling with these issues since I was six years old—compulsively riding my bike around the block trying to burn off the one-hundred calories of the Oreo Thins or Cheez-Its in my lunchbox at school, packaged in conveniently marketed “100-Calorie-Packs.” How do you unlearn behaviors that grew with you like an identical twin?

Currently, our recovery narrative sets us up for failure. Instead of openly discussing relapses, comorbidity, concurrent treatment options, alternative treatment options, we focus on why we are not adhering to the linear, upward, positive recovery path. The narrative intoxicates us, creating imaginary sharp lines between wins and losses, and magnifying every blip in the process to leave us discouraged and ultimately more prone to give up completely.

The mental health professionals I have worked with have been trained to insist that full, long-term recovery is so possible and so accessible that my natural ups-and-downs in the process feel like personal failures. If they insist that it is so possible, then why can’t I achieve it?

Mental illnesses are chronic illnesses. Inherently, you do not recover from a chronic illness. If you told someone with diabetes or Hashimoto’s disease or epilepsy to do one phase of treatment and then recover fully, you’d be seen as a complete ignoramus. So why aren’t our mental healthcare professionals treating mental illnesses as chronic illnesses that need continual monitoring, management, and attention?

A year later, I am still struggling with eating disorders, body dysmorphia, and other mental illnesses. While I am grateful for the treatment that saved my life, I recognize its shortcomings in its perpetuation of the perfect recovery narrative that is completely incompatible with any chronic illness narrative. At a professional level, we have to make changes in treating mental illnesses by not portraying mental illness recovery, but by portraying sustainable mental health management. Management is not linear, clean, or perfect, but a process that you must go through with honesty, vulnerability, and strength, and professionals must respect patients’ humanity and dignity beyond the pathology of diagnoses. Without an empathetic, personalized, and realistic model, we continue to set ourselves up for so-called failure, when in reality, we need to be set up to forgive ourselves and better ourselves for an overall healthier future.

Dreams Deferred

Yesterday would have been my move-in day into the second floor of a two-family house in Hackensack that bent my dreams a bit. It wasn’t that the apartment wasn’t livable or even beautiful. I had no tangible complaints. It had French doors! Wall to wall windows with limitless natural light! Hardwood floors! Cute old-school crystal doorknobs! An updated kitchen with granite countertops! Antiquity meets functionality and cleanliness! Character!

But as we went through the motions to get the lease signed, something felt off. An inexplicable unease that spoiled the process of moving into my first independent living space. I was a few signatures away from a move that would defer my dreams of living in New York City for the foreseeable future—at least a year.

Sleepless for a few days, I sat up in my bed wondering what was wrong with me. Here I was, privileged to have an opportunity to live on my own in a quaint house (it even had a little garden in the front yard with colorful and well-maintained landscaping) in a nice part of town, and yet I was having an unnamed crisis. I called the realtor and backed out of the lease, fearing the commitment of the move to the suburbs while my dreams lived across the river.

Thinking back to three months prior, I remembered graduation, packing my bags, and immediately ditching California to move in with my grandparents in Jersey in hopes of finding a job in New York and then moving to the city. Since moving to California in 2008, I always knew I’d come back to the East Coast—I just needed an opportunity. What better an opportunity than right after college? A fresh start, a new life, a chance to leave some things behind. Honestly, a change of scenery could be prescribed like a medication.

I moved to the East Coast like I was going into the witness protection program. Anorexia who? Bipolar who? What’s a depressive episode? Anxiety attacks? Never heard of her. I thought that maybe if I pretended enough, I’d actually convince myself that my physical location was the root of my problems.

A change in physical place would undoubtedly make for a change in headspace, right?

After telling myself this over and over, I halfheartedly began to believe it. So when I started feeling horrible, I started feeling guilty for it. C’mon! You moved three-thousand miles away from all of this! You made the change, now feel like you changed. Why are you feeling like this?

When you run from your problems, your problems follow you. Having dreams of moving to New York City and having a job that I actually liked that paid a livable wage did not negate the necessity of all of the steps in between—all of which I had skipped. I didn’t know how to recover from anorexia and I still don’t. I still have anxiety that leaves me debilitated. When my mood is bad, it’s bad. And when it’s good, I just think it’s good, but it’s actually still bad. Plus, the memories that marred the state of California actually just marred my brain. Trauma doesn’t latch itself onto a space; it attaches to your psyche in a way that requires for it to be addressed.

Clanking together glasses of prosecco with my friends toasting to my new beginnings a few days before my move, I took the first sip and uttered something about how glad I was to leave everything behind, but then I ended the comment with, “I hope United doesn’t charge me for the baggage!” referring to the emotional baggage that I was one-hundred-percent conscious of bringing to the East Coast with me.

So if I knew that I wasn’t ready to take on New York, why did I make the move?

Because at the time, it was easier to run three-thousand miles away from my problems than to confront them head-on.

Recently, I started having these dreams about holes the size of pencils in my palms, falling into sink-holes, refusing to get into hot air balloons. I started freaking out over eating a singular piece of dry toast, exactly like the panic I felt on the kitchen floor in San Francisco. Anxiety attacks in the aisles of Shop-Rite. Sleeping for two hours or fourteen hours and nothing in between. Trying to not cry at church. Crying on the subway. Crying on the bus. Panic attacks at dinner over pasta and a comment about plate sizes. Stepping on the scale and hitting the lowest weight since quitting the anorexia recovery program in March.

Sensing my unspoken turmoil, my incredibly intuitive mother urged me to book a one-way ticket again, this time back to California. Initially, booking that ticket back felt like a personal failure—a dream too big for the mouth, spit out like chewed food into a napkin.

Announcing the move with little explanation, sinking into my self-prescribed defeat, I considered how close I got to my dreams, but the distance I still maintained from them. Moving back to California inserted infinitely more space between me and my goals. Drunk on my own impatience, I declared New York City an impossible goal, a playground for the rich, an unattainable and emotionally unavailable love interest. The four months I spent here were a miserable waste of time, and I did it to myself.

But then I realized that these past four months taught me more about life and about myself than any therapy session, sermon, or self-help book could have.

Over the past four months, I had the privilege to sit down at nightly dinners with my eighty-year-old grandparents and tell my grandmother that the eggplant was perfect and the tomatoes were sweet and the gravy hearty but light, and she glowed with the pride of providing sustenance in more ways than one. I attended church with my grandfather every Sunday and held his hand during the Lord’s Prayer. I sang hymns I have never heard before. Together we patiently sat in the waiting room until my grandmother’s hip replacement was complete and I visited her in the recovery room. Poppi and I sat for a total of ten hours (including a lunch break at a local pub serving corned beef and beer) until she was moved to a non-ICU room, which had a view of the Harlem River. I had the opportunity to work at a bizarrely upscale event company and sneak into a world that did not belong to me. I dressed in head-to-toe black and lounged on rooftops in Lower Manhattan, dreaming of the Hudson and towers that no longer exist. A trip up to the Catskills enchanted me when I met a dying artist named Erin in a dark hospital room, smelling of medical-grade cleanliness and month-old bouquets given out of premature grief. While eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and drinking wine from a mug as the motel TV droned, I pieced together pieces of Erin’s life through her art with Carol, Erin’s good friend—now a source of infinite wisdom, empathy, and friendship for me. I watched as workers from a hospice care company moved Erin from the hospital into her artist’s studio—a transition from black-and-white to Technicolor only rivaled by Dorothy. July 31 marked Erin’s passing and she signaled her departure with two cardinals on the porch of her studio. After twelve years and two suicides in the family, I visited the campgrounds in Pennsylvania that I had first slept on at one month old—a place that my late uncle visited me in a dream after his passing. We sat around campfires detailing stories that built us and broke us and scarred us and rebuilt us. We spoke of Todd and Keith in ways that resurrected memories from graves and placed them in the blue of the fire to dance and glow. Removing all physical distance between me and my older cousin (a role model throughout my life), we were able to remove the previous emotional distance. We sat at coffeeshops and sang pop songs at midnight and laughed in the aisles of markets and called each other sisters and meant it. When she picked out her wedding dress, I sucked down a celebratory glass of champagne to avoid crying in public. It worked. I walked the streets of New York City with the benefit of not paying its rent. I drank wine in Central Park. I went to museums by myself and never once felt rushed. I learned that I am a person afflicted by an illness and not an illness afflicted by a person. I learned that two steps forward and three steps back is actually still forward because math doesn’t always apply. I learned that a dream deferred is not a dream dead and a trial is never an error—it is simply a trial.

And if I all I gained from this failure of a move is all of that, then I never failed at all.

When the plane lands on the SFO runway on October 3, I will still be midair—suspended in the grace of memory and lessons that come with it.

On Life-Path Reevaluation: Flowers Grow in Shit and Dirt

On Valentine’s Day of 2018, I had a doctor’s appointment with the eating disorder specialists at UCSF. It wasn’t my first visit to these doctors; it was my third week of an intensive, ultra-monitored recovery program. I had been forced to start it in late January, after I went for a routine physical, and my primary care doctor found that I was at risk for cardiac arrest due to a relapse of my anorexia. 

I took a Lyft to UCSF from my South San Francisco apartment, somewhat embarrassed to tell the driver that my drop-off was the hospital. I stepped out of the car, walked into the lobby, and took the elevator up to the second floor. Looking up into the mirrored ceiling of the elevator, I saw my drawn face, the circles under my sinking eyes, and I remembered when I was allowed to take the stairs up to the second floor of buildings, instead of being forced by a group of doctors to take the elevator because my heart had grown so weak. A short elevator ride, but by the time the doors opened and spat me out, I started crying, thinking to myself: How did I get here? 

A brief moment of clarity—crying in an elevator of a hospital. 

I thought about the progression from the previous July to that February: how many times a day I’d weigh myself; how many times I’d debate eating a piece of dry toast; how many times I’d measure out carrots by the gram; how many times I’d pinched my arms, legs, and stomach during a lecture, eventually tuning out the professor because I had been thinking about how much I regretted that half-portion of low-fat vegetable soup three nights before. 

Who am I, when did I lose sight of who am I, and how did this happen?

During recovery, I dove into my art to attempt to rid myself of the deep-seated pain in my gut (both emotional and physical pain)—writing songs, personal essays, fiction, prose poems—and I remembered that this is what I live for. I do not live to look beautiful. (And I do not live to look sick). I do not live to count calories. I do not live to obsess over being in control. I do not live to stand and shrink until I disappear while everyone watches. 

I do not live to stand and shrink until I disappear while everyone watches. 

Silence, shrinking, fragility, conformity, fear—these are things I openly reject. And as I created my art and shared with my peers, regaining that sense of intrinsic purpose, I realized that the life I was living was a life that was inherently intertwined with values that I reject. In turn, my very actions were contradictory to everything about my identity. Then, over the course of the past six months, came an equally difficult and equally easy reevaluation that inspired me to begin writing a memoir, share my mental health journey with others, get in touch with my spiritual side, and move back to the east coast to pursue my passions and be with my family. 

Growth often comes from pain. Flowers grow in shit and dirt. Reevaluation of your actions and the life that you are living is necessary for growth. 

Remember your passions. Keep a list of them. What grounds you? What makes you feel intrinsically motivated (try not to consider money, fame, recognition, etc.)? What makes you feel like you put meaning into your life and into others’ lives? These passions can be as “small” as writing letters to your loved ones, or as big as fighting for universal accessibility for people with disabilities. 

From that list, look at what you value. Is it justice, family, spirituality, honesty, communication? Values are completely based on the individual and nearly limitless. Write this list below the list of your passions. 

Now, take a look at these lists collectively. Why are you passionate about painting? Why are you passionate about gardening? Why are you passionate about education? Why do you value family? Why do you value authenticity? These answers are your intentions. 

This next step is often the hardest and the most painful, but remember the physical growing pains you felt in your shins during middle school. The same thing happens mentally and emotionally when you reevaluate. Think about the life you are currently living. Where are you passions and values in your life right now? Are they fully apparent, sort of hinted at, or have they shrunken down and disappeared completely? Are you intentionally living your life? 

Upon those answers, you can make informed decisions to make changes that you need in order to feel fulfilled and avoid mental/emotional/physical/spiritual exhaustion. With this exercise, you can restore your sense of agency and can feel grounded and validated in any further actions you make to keep you on your true, meaningful life-path. 


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