a year later...

dispatch 21

hey all,

I hope you’re all hanging in there. Before I get into it: A quick announcement! I’ll be taking the month of June off from sending snoozeletter to give myself some space to rest, vision, and get inspired. I’ll be back in July in time to celebrate this little publication turning ONE. I can’t believe a year has passed already. I feel proud of myself for keeping to it and grateful to all of you for showing up to read.

With that, a small ask: What would you like to see me write about? Is there anything that has particularly resonated for you that could be further explored? Any questions you’re pondering? Reply and let me know!

The moment the healing started

a year later…

Next week will mark one year since I was laid off. Max and I spent a Thursday out of office to recover from a COVID vaccination, and when we saw the invitations for twin early morning Friday meetings with our manager, we joked about getting fired. We had been unhappy at work for so long that the joke was not uncommon in our home. I didn’t think we meant it but still, we said it. Maybe in a way, we wanted the decision to be made for us. By 10:30 am Eastern Time on Friday, May 28th, neither of us had jobs.

It’s hard to know what to do in your first weekend of unemployment. The options are everything and nothing. We decided on a small, symbolic bonfire. Both of us wrote letters for what we had lost, read them aloud, cried, fed them to the fire. Max’s, a list of things they were glad to be free of that covered multiple pages. Mine, a list of what could not be taken from me. It was a small reclaiming, an act of agency that marked our new independence from something that had defined most of our sober lives.

A year later, I can say that like many major endings I’ve experienced, this one was right. It may not have been my choice, but it was right. I am grateful to have lost something central so that I could realize I did not miss it. Grateful to have allowed the grief and feelings to be expansive, to shift and queer time in the way that only grief can. The thought of losing the sweet, weird, wonderful folks I got to interact with every day for years was devastating. Being discarded by people I thought cared for me was painful. But immediately, in the true, quiet center of my body there was a small flicker of relief.

In that job, I built a sober life. I got divorced and moved across the country. It granted me the financial stability to buy my first car, and sign my first solo lease. I made the best friends I have ever had, and together we built a family. I fell in love. I learned how to stand up for my values, even when they are being ignored. I made mistakes, I said and did the wrong thing, and sometimes I realized it early enough to apologize. I got to share in the beauty of so many incredible people getting sober (whether they use that term or not, and however they define it), finding each other, finding themselves. It was, and always will be, one of the most stunningly and affirmingly human experiences of my life. And that part, the important part, is not something that can ever be lost or taken. 

I am writing this as a marker of time. One year after a loss. I sometimes feel that I should have gotten over this by now, moved on, and forgotten. But I am learning from it still, growing, and being tender with the process of letting go, which often takes so much longer than I’d like. 

I feel less angry. A corporation isn’t personal, even if I take it personally. The people I knew and loved acting in the stead of a corporation are not acting as themselves. I have set the boundaries that I need to move on. The painful places have turned to tender scars, different from what surrounds them but not open wounds. I no longer give my heart to things that can’t love me back. And I am not responsible for how people rewrite the narrative for themselves. People tell themselves the stories they need to, I guess. Even me.

As with so many things, I feel the gift of time. Of looking back from a particular vantage point and realizing that the thing you desperately wanted to hold onto was not the best thing for you at all. In the space that was left there as that one gorgeous unemployed summer with the person I love most, revelling in the city we call home. There was deep solidarity and support from my community, and the awe of watching them plant the seeds of something even more beautiful in the wreckage. The humility of learning to accept help. A rediscovered joy in the smallest and most unexpected places. There was making things, and writing, and learning who I am when I get to define myself. And perhaps the greatest gift of all…the people I was so scared I had lost in those first hours of fear are mostly still right here. You can only lose what was never yours in the first place.

In a way, that chapter of my life, and all of the people within it, shaped me into a person capable of imagining something new for herseslf. In that moment, the most elegant next step was loss. The future can look like absolutely anything now, and the thrill of that is with me everyday. How lucky am I to have lost something before I fully stopped loving it?

Assorted, rad things: 

• Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong: I knew this book of poems would wreck me but I didn’t know quite how much. Maybe because I read it while at my mother’s house, it hit me especially hard. It’s a gorgeous book worth reading over and over again.

• Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake: Learning about mycelium is one of my favorite and dorkiest hobbies. I’m still reading this one, but heck are fungi cool. It’s fairly sciencey but still fascinating and every 4 seconds I’m turning to Max to say “Did you know…X fungi fact?”. The chapter on lichens queering the line between individual and collective just about blew my mind.

• Emiko Davies Newsletter: A just subscribed to this newsletter and let me tell you, I full-on ugly cried at the pure joy on the face of her kiddos in her most recent send. Seeing a parent celebrate their kids’ enjoyment of food was unexpectedly healing for me. Plus, yummy recipes, sweet stories, and beautiful photos. It makes me happy every time I find it in my inbox.

Thank you for spending this moment with me. If you feel moved by today’s essay, hitting the like button or leaving a comment really lets me know. Take care of yourself and remember to take breaks and drink water.

see you in July,

Lisa