Alix: Nothing matters but love—and a couple of blocks
About two years ago, I walked out of my therapist's office, and into a rainy New York afternoon, sobbing.
Five years after I had scheduled my first appointment—because sometimes I couldn't feel half my face and the doctors had concluded the trouble was in my mind, not my brain—we were done. I could feel my whole face. I could feel a lot of other things too, including the fact that it was time to wrap up our therapy.
We had given each other a few more weeks, I was going to see him again, but that didn't stop my bittersweet heartbreak, the awareness that we were going to part, that it was my choice as much as his, and the right one.
I was going to miss him, so very much. It felt as if we had grown up together. He was fresh out of school when we started meeting, and though I knew little about him, I witnessed his milestones as I talked about myself, hour after hour, week after week: he got promoted, and again; he got married; he had a child. Me, well, I learned to feel my face.
Still in tears, I reached my office building, on 21st and 6th. Then I looked ahead to the large crossing of 23rd and 6th, and up beyond. So this is me, I thought. Fixed.
Five years of weekly therapy sessions and there I was, as good as I was ever going to be—I was so relieved and so disappointed.
For too long, I had felt like I was waiting at a southern traffic light of 23rd and 6th. And that there was a version of myself—a better one, no, a perfect one—just two blocks ahead, at 25th. And if I could just push myself enough to get there, and become who I wanted, I would be worthy, I'd be enough. It was only two blocks, it was within reach.
It had taken me five years to figure out I would never make it there. There is no 25th street me, was my therapy line for it. No matter how hard I wished so, I wasn't just the temporarily unaccomplished version of someone more talented, more lovable, or with better legs. No matter the amount of self-effacement, I couldn't be perfect. I couldn't make people love me if they didn't. I couldn't stop my dad from dying, or anyone else from leaving. I could only be myself, on the southern side of 23rd street.
I knew it was enough—it had to be—but feeling it was harder. After all, trying to get to 25th street had been the work of a lifetime, and letting go of that lovely whole creature who was counting on me to start enjoying her days felt like a betrayal of my ill-advised dreams, if one that might just save my life.
I still try every day, but it remains so hard not to weigh my worth in sizable improvements. To accept there is more to life, and myself, than a list of my accomplishments—or lack of thereof. To separate who I am from what I do, what I have, how I look. To be OK with the fact that 23rd and 6th is where it's at, and Essen isn't an especially cute deli but by god, it truly sells everything.
I think of this today, as I end this year from hell—talk about a lesson in how life cares not one bit about our ideas of how things should go.
I am pretty much where I was twelve months ago, having achieved none of the things I hoped I might in the meantime. I did not find a life partner, or, like, a couple of months' partner. I didn't get a promotion or a fancy new job. I didn't travel to new countries, ran another marathon. I didn't write a book—in fact, I didn't even start.
What I did is watch my hometown become the symbol of Covid-19 deaths. I listened to the neverending sirenes of ambulances in New York. I saw my newsroom go through layoffs and emerge halved and brokenhearted. I learned that America, when there are no flights to get back home, truly feels on the other side of the moon. I witnessed the rage, pride, and courage of anti-racist fights, and came to terms with the fact that so many would rather die, and risk the lives of others, than let go of a privilege they believe they deserve. I mourned two people I held dear and admired profoundly, and feared, daily, for the lives of those I love.
But the darker it is, the more you have to cherish every little light. The clarity with which some relationships emerged as essential, growing stronger when there was no news or activity to share, just ourselves. The dear ones who were brave enough to marry, write books, follow dreams, have babies. The phonecalls with old childhood friends from Bergamo, our checking in on each other, sometimes after years. The strength of knowing where I am from. The plants that listened to me patiently and in exchange got to take over my apartment. The little Italian community I didn't know I had in New York, and became my home. The dogs I cuddled with—none of them caring, not even remotely, about any of my failures. The friend of my life, who found the strength to laugh with me even in the darkest hour. The urge to come back home, where I write this from, even if for a spell.
The glorious day my sister, my very heart, had her first baby—and every day since.
I made it through this year healthy, and so did my family—plus one. I still have my job. I write every day. And it might be that I can blame the end of the world as we knew it for all that I didn't get to do, but it feels more than enough. This was a terrible year, I am the furthest I have been from 25th street in a long while, and I am fine.
I hold my one-month-old nephew and wish I could bottle the love I feel for him. It is so whole, it knows no demands, no disappointments. It is new and familiar at once. You came from our future, I whisper to him. I hope the next year looks like you.
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🎨 : Paolo Ventura, Star Keeper
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🖊: Ada Limón, The End of Poetry
enough of the will to go on and not go on or how
a certain light does a certain thing, enough
of the kneeling and the rising and the looking ★
🐦: Some perfect birds, from the internet:
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📖: Ann Patchett, These Precious Days
"People are not characters, no matter how often we tell them they are; conversations are not dialogue; and the actions of our days don’t add up to a plot. In life, time runs together in its sameness, but in fiction time is condensed—one action springboards into another, greater action. Cause and effect are so much clearer in novels than they are in life."
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👗: Noir Kei Ninomiya, Comme des Garçons. Headpiece by Makoto Azuma.
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🙏: Joanna Gilbertson has been the patient reader and critic of this and other writing this year, which makes me one lucky writer. I am also so grateful to you all for reading Alix (especially the ones who got this far).
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🐰: No featured bunny in this issue (laptop limitations), but I did meet two wild rabbits on a walk by the lake a couple of weeks ago. One took a couple of bounces toward me, stopped to give me a good look, and bounced away. (I know you see me, Lauren Alix Brown, I know you do.)
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💖: If you enjoyed Alix, please share it with someone you love. You can find all the previous issues here. tinyletter