I recently realized that somebody I briefly dated was trying to be better than me at my gig. For example, as a color specialist, he used to say that he saw color better than me, which I accepted, not because I believed him, but because I know that's not true. I know that men don't see color as well as women. Biologically, women see color better and most men have a blue level colorblindness that they aren't even aware of. So many times men will tell me that my hair is blue, and it is expressly not blue.
That same guy, (it is so not blue) that I dated briefly— my other gig is a writer. He told me he was working on a book, that he had a book deal, and I said, okay, because I don't give a fuck about writing books. I never did, because everybody wants to write a book and that's not the kind of stuff I write. Like, obviously, I write personal essays, but really this is more of a way for me to talk about myself a lot and exercise my narcissism in a healthy and artistic manner, but I never wanted to write a book. It wasn't my gig. So when he did that, I was like, okay.
And I only realized recently, that the reason he ever said that he was writing a book, which was quickly dropped from his repertoire, the only reason that he ever said he was writing a book is because he thought that it would make me feel bad that I wasn't.
And this is probably the second or third time in my life that I have been upset that somebody was trying to upset me and they didn't even know how. Like, I actually cried and said, you don't even know me well enough to know what would hurt my feelings. It's like when men try to tell me that I'm fat, I say, I know, and then they don't say anything else because they can't, because it wasn't their plan that I would just say, okay.
One time I cried to a guy who kept calling me fat. And I was like, I feel like you think that's going to hurt me. And that's insulting.
It turns out that it's not true that I don't want to write a book. I actually now think everybody should write a book. Everybody should write the book that they want to write. I think there is a value in everybody writing a book, even if it's not everybody's cup of tea. I think that as the world goes in a new direction, it's kind of imperative of us to all be keeping our own records of the events and our opinions on them. And who knows what kind of effect it will have someday.
But so now I, now I do want to write a book. Well, you know, and then what is, what is your book about? It's about me, of course. All books are, unless they're textbooks. And even then, history is written by the winner.
Every book is about the author. In fact, I would argue that fiction is one of the healthier outlets for getting through a life that you aren't happy with and perhaps manifesting a little bit along the way, which might be why I don't like to read other people's fictions: You're absorbing a lot of energy that somebody is actively putting out there.
I have actually started writing one book essays— a book of essays, because I can't write long form to save my life, which is vignettes about my life in a city that I will soon have no root or relation to, but it literally raised me from the ground up.
Of course, there will be the book about dating. I haven't even gotten started on the stories of my first marriage.
But I told a friend though, that my book would be about grief. That's what underpins all of these stories. Even if I'm making a joke about how I was stood up, or talking shit about a family member, the root emotion is always grief… at the miscommunication, at the purposeful antagonism, at the things that went unsaid that could have changed everything. I still return to grief, which sounds so bad, but grief teaches so many lessons about what's important to you and what you can do next time.
Because it's not as though you can ever avoid grief, it doesn't stop. Grief at strained relationships, grief at inexplicable betrayals. The thing about grief and its accompanying regret, and that hindsight is 2020, is that can teach you what you value in ways you didn't even know.
I've learned, unfortunately, that I need to be more motivated by money.
I have a client who's dying, actively dying. He has been for about six months that I know of, that he felt necessary to tell me about, saying, by the way, I have cancer, and I don't know if you're going to see me again, so it's nothing personal, okay? And I said, oh my god, like, thank you for telling me. And, you know, nice to know you, thank you.
And then I did see him again, and I was so happy. And every time that he returned to me was just another day that he survived. That he still needed a haircut is a good thing, because your body isn't, like, creating new cells when you're dying. It doesn't do that, that's why your hair falls out. Your body's like, I gotta take a break for a minute. He had signs of vitality.
In the short amount of time I had grown close to him and his wife, and I'd even tried to get him to be on my podcast to talk about his cancer, especially when he came back, and he told me they didn't fucking get it all. He's been cut from rib to rib, and they didn't fucking get it all. And he said it was just such an annoyance, like, not even fear, not his own grief. He was just so fucking annoyed that they did this.
He had an appointment, and his wife wanted a makeover; they sent me photos, and I was looking forward to it. I was like, fuck yeah. I thought, you know, he's gonna die in style.
And then they had to push their appointment back by an hour. And I said, no problem! thinking that it really wouldn't be. I think that in that no problem, I sounded too eager.
Then when they had to push back again, by an incremental amount of time, I realized that I was going to run over, and not into another appointment, but into something else that I had to do, and I had to leave.
But it was my stuff to do, and I could have been more flexible. But I always say to myself that I don't value money that much. If an appointment inconveniences me, I can't take it. It's okay. I made the decision for myself that the money was not as important as my time, and I suggested we reschedule.
And when they agreed, I felt immediate regret. I almost wanted to say, no wait, I changed my mind. Come back. I moved all my appointments. Come back.
But I also didn't want them to drive. I didn't want him to have a medicine reaction on the road, which is what had put them behind in the first place. I initially was sad, because I felt like this must happen to them a lot, where he's feeling unwell, and so they have to put things on hold. And this was probably just another thing that they'd had to reschedule, and oh man, they didn't know when they were going to do it again. And I felt that sadness.
I felt that grief for them, for their lives, that you might never see the person again, and there's something unresolved. And I think that that's what that feeling is. That's what grief really is, is the incompletion of your energetic intertwinement. I should have stayed. I should have cut their hair one last time, and I have so much grief and regret about it. At the time, I made a joke to my friends. I said, well, I hope he doesn't die with a hairy neck, because you know, lol, comedy comes from pain. From grief, in fact!
Occasionally, I'd think about them, and I'd just start crying, because I knew that unless I tried, I was never going to see them again. I was leaving this open and incomplete.
It was the same thing when I got into a fight with my family over a misunderstanding during storytelling. And I stormed out of the house, and I cried about how I was never going to see my aunt again. How I felt like this was it. And even though it was my choice, it still hurt so bad.
It's how I feel when trying to save somebody from a situation that they keep choosing to reenter, such as a drug addiction or a toxic friendship. Sometimes it's how I feel knowing that I'm never returning to the house of this dog I just met, so I know this will be the last time I see him. At first I thought I was able to predict death, but really it's not that. It's the disconnect.
In scheduling my week, I reached out to them to see if they wanted to have a redo. And he explained that he had to increase his medication, and they aren't able to travel anymore. And he thanked me for the time we've known each other. And I cried so much.
It seems so insignificant, just a relationship with a client. But the tears are telling me about the things that matter most. And I was prescribing my time away for myself, and I really should have been much more money conscious. It's funny that the universe is telling me that, isn't it? I'm so stupid. Be more money conscious. Don't be lazy. Don't forget to connect with people. You never know what loss is going to make you cry for days.
[~*guitar solo*~]
