How Super 8 Sort of Saved My Life

This post is the epitome of a "first world problems" post. There are people who have actual problems, whose 2020s were actually tragic and terrible, and I am not one of them. You are free to roll your eyes at this, and you are probably right. But this was my experience, and I've been meaning to talk about it for a while.

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Here's an obvious statement: twenty-twenty was hard—and I had it really, really good. I didn't lose my job or get sick, and neither did the people closest to me. I had it really, really good.

But it was still hard.

The difficulty peaked in July of 2020.

Due to gym shutdowns, I hadn't been working out in about five months. I didn't like the way I looked or felt, inside or out.

I have trouble breathing on good days, so masks give me a lot of anxiety and make it extra hard to get a deep breath.

Places that used to be productive or fun to me—like the grocery store or library—were shrouded in an insidious fog of fear and condemnation. Without the ability to smile at each other, we all somehow decided not to make eye contact either. Everywhere felt like a prison. Every person felt like an inmate. There were "sides" everywhere. You either wore your mask properly like a virtue signaling sheep or you wore it below your nose like a white supremacist asshole.

There are more than two sides—everyone agrees to that—but that's still how it felt in 2020. How everything felt.

I was angry, all the time. I was angry at how irrational I thought some people were being, and I was angry at how irrational I assumed they thought I was being. All the things I'm passionate about—freedom, the government, health, fitness, church, holidays, travel, Disney World—were being tainted.

It felt like there was nothing good left.

And I had it really, really good.

Wake up, don't go to the gym, think about how mad you are, eat breakfast, work, don't see friends, think about how mad you are, don't make plans, put on a mask, think about how mad you are, go to the grocery store, see some new shortage, read some sign about the vaccine, think about how mad you are, accidentally make eye contact with someone, don't see friends, cook dinner, watch TV, see something on Facebook, think about how mad you are.

In July of 2020, Gabe and I celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary. He was new at his job, so he didn't have time off for us to take a trip or anything. We went to a friend's wedding in Asheville the weekend after our anniversary and decided to stay the weekend, make it a mini trip.

It rained.

Every store we wanted to go into required masks, which triggered anxiety, anger, and acne the following week.

None of the little local restaurants would let people eat inside, so we couldn't try anything new.

Nothing felt good. Nothing. Felt. Good. Nothing sounded good, present or future.

The world felt bad. It felt like it had been bad for months, and it didn't feel like it was likely to get any better. All the people making decisions were making decisions that made my blood boil. Being alive was exhausting and infuriating and I hated it.

Absolutely nothing that had ever, ever brought me joy was of any interest to me at all. Dancing? Emptiness, apathy, like we'll ever be able to dance without masks again. Reading? Emptiness, apathy, nothing sounds interesting. Writing? Emptiness, apathy, don't feel like saying anything. Eating? Emptiness, apathy, why bother. Working out? Emptiness apathy, can't do it anyway. Seeing friends? Emptiness, apathy, I don't enjoy anyone.

Gabe and I were on our way home from our utterly failed "anniversary trip" when I told him that I didn't feel like living any more.

I know it scared him. I couldn't care at the time. I just let silent tears happen. I just wanted to stop living. There aren't words for how it felt to have a black hole inside me. It wasn't intense, at all. It was like deadness, like nothing, and that's not something I feel often.

I don't remember what Gabe said. Probably things that were very comforting and very rational. I don't think I heard them.

When we got home, we decided to watch Super 8. Neither of us had seen it since it came out, and we both remembered liking it.

We watched it. It was good. And then a line drove a spear straight through my soul.

"I know bad things happen," one character says to another. "But you can still live."

The line hit home.

It didn't promise that things would get better—I wouldn't have been able to hear that anyway—it just said that life was still possible. Life. Living. That was all.

Bad things happen. Fact. But that shouldn't cripple our ability to live. It doesn't.

"I know bad things happen, but you can still live."

In a way I can't describe, I felt Heard by that movie. Or maybe the movie was Heard by me, I'm not sure.

But that was a turning point for me. God used a line from a J.J. Abrams movie to snap his fingers in my face and anchor me back to reality.

"I know bad things happen, but you can still live."

No promises. Just facts.

No anger, just truth.

I don't think I'm saying this right, but I never will if I don't starting trying.

~Stephanie

Do You Want to Be Comfortable or Do You Want to Be Happy?

It occurred to me the other day that I've gotten out of practice doing things I don't want to do.

{Aaaaaaand from here, this post went in a direction I didn't see coming, which happens to me a lot. I really thought this would be a short post, and yet here I am, adding this note thirty minutes into writing it. I think some of the post is going to seem anti-mental health. I don't think I am. If you want to talk about it, I'd love for you to message me.}

As a kid you often have to do things you don't want to do. Your parents make you do chores before you can hang out with your friends or watch TV. Then, if you go to college, you have more things to do that you don't want to do—even if you like your major. Your professors make you turn in papers and drafts, show up to classes, read books and plays and articles, and books and articles about books and plays.

In today's society (all of my English professors just died inside), we seem to be glorifying comfort more and more. "Glorifying" might not even be strong enough; "idolizing" might be more accurate.

If someone is "stealing your peace," cut her out of your life. You don't need that kind of negativity.

If you suddenly don't feel like doing something you RSVP'd to, don't go. You don't owe anybody anything.

If you've had a rough week, you should just watch Netflix and scroll on your phone for hours. You deserve a break.

There are all these movements to "normalize" things too—AKA force people to accept things because the idea of their not accepting them makes you uncomfortable.

Normalize women having body hair. Or how about if you're a woman, you do what you want with your body hair and don't care what other people think?

Normalize men showing emotions. Or maybe if you're a man, show emotion as much as you want and don't care what other people think?

Normalize eating at restaurants alone. Or maybe if you want to eat at a restaurant alone, just do it.

Things don't have to be "normalized" for you to do them. It isn't as though these things aren't allowed; people are just too chicken and uncomfortable to do things until society accepts them. It isn't everyone else's job to make sure you feel "normal."

(Do people even want to be "normal"? Isn't it more fun to stand out?)

If you don't feel like cooking, you can have food delivered to your door.

If you don't feel like shopping, you can buy anything online and have it shipped to you.

If you don't like cleaning, maybe you hire some help.

Now, on one hand, I get all of these things. Mental health and boundaries are important.

If someone is stealing your peace, it may be a healthy thing to get some distance. But it might also be healthy to have an uncomfortable conversation with the person.

If you are running yourself ragged and need a break, you might be right to sit out a social event that you RSVP'd do. However, my gut says that commitments to other people are important. It's not all about you. You don't get to let people down just because you're feeling tired. You should've thought of that before you RSVP'd, or planned your week better since you knew this event was coming up.

Sometimes turning your brain off to watch TV or scroll social media might work, but maybe spending time in prayer, taking a walk, or journaling—things that are less comfortable, but may do more to heal you—are a better option.

I get it: no one wants to be labeled rudely for their body hair, being emotional, or eating alone. Yes, if all these things were "normalized" you'd be more comfortable with yourself.

But you might also be lazier and less brave.

I've been living as an adult for a few years now. It has been a really long time since someone has made me do something. I spend a good amount of time on Facebook and Instagram, where trends and Society run rampant. I think the message of King (or Queen, if you'd like) Comfort have slowly sunk into my subconscious.

Why should I clean my apartment? I don't want to.

Why should I grade these papers? I don't want to.

Why should I read this book for work? I don't want to.

Why should I go to the grocery store? I don't want to.

Gradually, it has gotten harder and harder to make myself do these things.

I just won't clean. We rarely have guests. Who cares? No one is going to make me.

I just won't grade these papers. I'll do it next week. Maybe.

I just won't read this book. I'll read it tomorrow. Or the SparkNotes. Or watch the movie.

I just won't go to the grocery store. I'll get things delivered or ask Gabe to stop on the way home from work.

All these are viable options, and what's more, I've allowed myself to be conditioned by Society into thinking I deserve to take these shortcuts. I deserve to be comfortable. I deserve to be happy.

Ooh, that's it. Society has decided that comfort equals happiness, and we all deserve to be happy.

Well, I don't think I'm happy. I think this has been a huge bait-and-switch. I took a bite of happiness and it turned to discontentment inside my mouth.

I don't like the "comfortable" person I've become.

At Classical Conversations, one of the things we want students to learn is "how to do hard things." You don't like Latin? It's hard for you? Good. You're going to have to do difficult things you don't like your whole life. This isn't about a subject, it's about your character. Learn to do hard things.

I've gotten out of the habit doing hard things. I've begun to believe the lie that comfort will make me happy. I don't think comfort will make me happy. I think doing hard things will make me happy. I think cleaning my apartment even when I don't want to will make me a better person. The goal is not even to get to a place where I want clean my apartment. I should clean my apartment in the midst of the not wanting to.

No one makes me do things I don't want to do anymore. Not my parents, not my professors, not my boss(es), not my husband. I am the only one who will make myself do hard things, and for a while now, I often haven't.

Yesterday, when these thoughts began forming in my mind, I decided that I would do one thing a day that I didn't want to do. Yesterday it was cleaning the apartment.

It was weird, because I really didn't want to. It was like I thought if I made it a game, a challenge—"Today cleaning the apartment will be the thing I do even though I don't want to"—it wouldn't suck as much. But I found that it still did. I almost didn't do it, because I REALLY still didn't want to. But I did do it. I was really glad that I had. (And I was REALLY glad today that I had.)

Today I didn't want to assess some formal logic midterms that students took last week. I didn't have to. I have time to do it other days. But I did. I really didn't want to, but I did. It was easier than cleaning the apartment. I feel really good having done some of them.

I know a lot of things I don't want to do tomorrow, but I'm going to pick one—one I really don't want to do—and I'm going to do it.

Mental health is important. But that's not why I wasn't cleaning the apartment. I wasn't cleaning the apartment because the sacrificial part of my character was growing weak.

And I don't want to live like that. It doesn't make me happy.

~Stephanie

On My Third First Reading

I may have read The Great Gatsby more than three times, but I remember three times distinctly. Each time, it felt like I was reading a slightly different book, when the truth is that it was just a slightly different person reading it.

The first time I read The Great Gatsby was in ninth grade when I was fourteen. It was the most breathtakingly beautiful book I had ever read. Gatsby himself was like something from a heavenly dream. The fact that there was adultery didn't stand out in my memory.

The second time I read The Great Gatsby was the fall of 2013. I was nineteen and doing very badly. I read a lot of the book on a good friend's suspicious couch (I think it had been taken from the road side) next to someone I'm glad I'm not close to anymore. I remember feeling, as Daisy describes herself, "pretty cynical about everything." What stuck out to me was how both beautiful and tainted everything about the book was, and how much that felt like life. (I hadn't even read The Beautiful and the Damned yet.)

I'm reading The Great Gatsby for at least the third time now. I'm twenty-seven. The book feels very, very different this time. It is still breathtakingly beautiful—I have to read some sentences two or three times just to enjoy them—but it's also...disappointing. It feels like disappointment. This is not a criticism of Fitzgerald; it's a praise.

This time, Jay Gatsby doesn't feel invincible and perfect the way I remember him from my two earlier readings. He feels insecure. He feels like a man who could be great—and isn't quite. For the first time I'm seeing that the title might be tongue in cheek, sarcastic.

Nick hits different in general too. I'm noticing more of his sarcasm and disapproval, even though he says he's "inclined to reserve all judgements." Is he? Should he be? Should we be? Should we be inclined to reserve ALL judgements, or are some things unwise, unkind, unacceptable, regardless of the advantages an actor might be lacking?

I'm not sure what I thought the message of The Great Gatsby was before. I think I understood that it was about being versus seeming, the hollowness of wealth, the carelessness of some people, but I don't know that I felt the message before. The book felt magical and full. This time, I can sense the ominous hollowness that Fitzgerald so artfully inserted between every letter.

I can't wait for my thirty-five-year-old self to read this book.

~Stephanie

P.S. I can't recommend this book more. The 2013 movie version is also one of my favorite movie adaptations of a book ever.

Today I Woke Up Fifteen

Do you ever wake up feeling like a different version of yourself? This might just be me. I'm not sure.

I don't mean waking up and "not feeling your best self," or feeling sick. I mean that this morning, I woke up and I was fifteen. I can't explain it better. The story ideas I was working on at age fifteen, the music I was listening to at age fifteen. The inside of my mind was from twelve years ago. It was simple and comfortable and happy. It was darker in several ways, lighter in others. I felt younger. I felt...freer. I needed to write.

I think it has something to do with the weather or time of year. The cusp of autumn. That "back to school" feeling. That "new season" feeling. The Fire Fairy Story historically has a lot to do with autumn and back to school.

It made me want to wear long sleeves and write stories again. It made me want to write in a way that I couldn't ignore. In fact, my breakfast is burning as I type this. Let me go grab that.

There is no point to this post; I just had to write.

You know what I wrote a little bit of last week? The Mirror*. It came out of nowhere, just like this feeling.

I think it's going away. That's okay. It was interesting while it lasted.

~Stephanie

*The Mirror is one of the three stories I know I plan to write. It'll probably have to be renamed since The Fire Fairy Story is looking like it'll be called Mirrors and Smoke.

Future Us: Responding to the Letter I Wrote One Year Ago

A year ago today, I wrote a letter to myself to be read today.

The only reason I even remembered this is because of a Facebook memory that popped up. It was a blog post from last year called "The Power of 'Dear Future Self,'" and it inspired me to write a letter to my future self. My today self.

I just read the letter.

It was really, really, really depressing to me. I reverted it to draft. Maybe I'll share parts of it, sometime.

I remember now that it felt depressing even when I wrote it, although I did like something toward the end:

Honestly, you're only a year away. I will probably remember most of what's in this post in a year from now. You probably haven't changed all that much. You're still an Eight. You still sleep with your bed friends and cry at Christopher Robin. You still love underwear and the color green.

You're you. You're me. We'll always be...this. Just later.

There's something to that, I think. I wrote a post years ago on another blog called "There is No Brunette Superwoman," and it talks about how I never feel personally connected to Future Me. I always picture her and she's amazing—a Brunette Superwoman—but she's almost nothing like me. It doesn't click for me that I will always be ME. A switch is not going to turn off This Me and turn on Brunette Superwoman. I—me, Stephanie, this person here—am the only Me there will ever be, and if I—me, Stephanie, this person here—don't figure out how to BECOME Brunette Superwoman, she's never going to exist. She isn't going to come and possess me like a well-meaning demon and finish my life for me. It's just me. There's just me.

There's just you.

The 2020 Me who wrote 2021 Me a letter still didn't quite seem to get that. She thought a lot of me, especially during the first three-quarters of the letter. Her hopes for me make me feel guilty and defeated. At least towards the end of the letter, she started to come back to that No Brunette Superwoman realization.

How many times am I going to have to realize that? This time it felt like it hit home. For the first time, I think I'm starting to let go of Brunette Superwoman. Even though I realized the disconnect years ago, clearly as of 2020 I still hadn't "gotten it." Maybe I do now?

A couple of things in the letter were encouraging. I asked about the Fire Fairy Story, of course, and I feel good about where I am there. Twenty-twenty Me can be proud of that. I've done her right as far as the book goes.

Twenty-twenty Me asked if there had been any more weddings or engagements, and asked specifically about Kirsten and Matt, who are getting married in less than a month :) She said in all-caps, "CASSIDY AND STEPHEN, OBVIOUSLY." She asked about Matt, Victoria, and Anthony, who are doing well.

Overall the letter was just really sobering. I don't think I'm ready to write another letter to my future self. In fact, I wonder if I'm changing my whole philosophy on that. As I sit here, the tectonic plates of my mind are shifting, grinding, grating against each other. They're settling differently.

I think...I think I don't like the idea of writing letters to my future self anymore, at least not the way I've been doing it. When I was little, there were only fun questions to ask. I asked about the Fire Fairy Story and about boys and about the length of my hair. Now the questions are bigger and deeper.

Kids?

House?

Job?

Freedom in the United States?

I know the "right" answers to these questions now. Now, when I write questions to my future self, I subconsciously write the answer key too. If the answer isn't A in the future, it will just remind me of how much I wanted A.

At the same time, Present Me cannot really know the "right answers." Only God knows the right answers. His answers may be different from mine. They won't be wrong, but they may not match my answer key.

Planning for the future is fine, it's good. But I don't think I should be trying to write the future, now. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, you can never write the future; you can only write now.

Not only is there no Brunette Superwoman, there's not even a Future Me. There's only Now Me. Ever.

I don't know where I'm landing here, or how this will land with you. I guess I hope it inspires both of us to be who we want to be now, instead of hoping Future Us has somehow figured it out for us.

~Stephanie