Learning how to float

On resisting the temptation to stay sad forever

Wow, hello! You’re all still here. That’s so great. I would like to say first and foremost that the more I try to stick to any sort of predictable cadence for this newsletter, the less I want to write it. Cool!

I truly wish I could reliably pump one of these out every two weeks; I imagine it would feel very satisfying. I also think there’s a great case to be made for holding oneself to a schedule with creative pursuits like this rather than **waiting for inspiration to strike** which, as all former Artist’s Way devotees know, is a fake thing we tell ourselves is real to keep us miserable and artistically constipated (I’m paraphrasing, probably).

So the fact that I’ve been dragging my feet on publishing another one of these is certainly due in part to the fact that I simply love to disappoint myself and starve my inner artist for no reason at all, but I’ve also just been finding it very difficult to hold onto one single thought for long enough to tease it out into something interesting or cogent. This is not news, of course! I feel like most of the newsletters I send out are about how I can’t get my mind to settle for long enough to write one goddamned newsletter. Is that meta? Is that one of the Universe’s great paradoxes? Do sound off in the comments!

This week feels a little different, though. You might remember that the last full-fledged newsletter I sent out was about being Very Sad. In the month-ish that’s passed, I’ve gotten a lot less sad. And if I’m being super honest, I hate it.

It took me a while to admit this to myself, because who likes being sad, right? Happiness is the goal! Happiness is what we’re all striving for! But something has crystallized for me in the last few weeks: I am very, very comfortable with sadness. Not to be a complete and total downer, but it’s kind of my wheelhouse. I’ve spent so much of my life in a state of discomfort and longing and lowkey depression that it’s hard for me to even recognize it for what it is or see the edges of it so that I might start peeling it back to see what’s underneath. It’s just me! Sadness is an old, comfortable sweater that I’ve held onto for years and reach for when I need something cozy and familiar, even though it looks like shit and the sleeves are frayed and it smells like old closet.

Here’s how I know I prefer to be sad: the last week of my life has been objectively wonderful. It’s been one of those weeks I haven’t had in several years where it felt like everything I needed—had been waiting for, even!—was falling out of the sky and into my lap: opportunities, important conversations, revelations I had been trying to crack to no avail for quite some time, and some truly out-of-left-field, ‘Hey, do you want this amazing opportunity? Here, you can just have it!’ stuff that was so ridiculous it made me cackle in disbelief. And while I was super glad to have these things come my way, it was also impossible to ignore that the arrival of each one increased my anxiety ten-fold. In short, it felt weird, I didn’t like it, and I couldn’t get my thoughts straight to try and process it.

So what gives? I asked myself this question many times while I paced around my apartment, feeling my emotions shuffle rapid-fire through happiness, wonder, misery, overwhelm, sadness (my old pal!) and straight-up fear. I felt ridiculous about it, because if all of this wasn’t going to make me happy, then WHAT WAS, SARAH?! So I sort of sat on it and didn’t say anything to anyone for a few days. 

Yesterday, though, I talked it through with a couple of very patient friends and found that they not only understood, but also completely empathized with how I was feeling because they often have the same reaction when good things happen. One of these friends even made an excellent analogy that I will now co-opt, mangle beyond recognition, and ultimately pass off as my own. 

Ok, here it is: when things aren’t going super well, it can feel like trying to swim against the current. Maybe you’re even in an OCEAN of sadness or heartbreak or frustration, right? It takes a lot of work to exist in that place! You’re struggling, you’re flailing, you’re using all of your energy just to keep your head above water. You’re working so hard that you don’t even feel the wave crest (yes, it’s a current, yes, it’s also a giant wave; why would I ever choose to stick to one straightforward metaphor?).

And then, without warning, everything gets calmer and it feels fucking weird. Were you not just fighting for your life? Were you not just putting everything you had into not getting pulled under? Surely this sense of calm is a trick. Surely there’s another, larger wave on its way that’s going to scoop you up and slam you against the ocean floor and take all your best teeth with it.

For people whose default mode is feeling not-great, this sense of calm and wellbeing just feels wrong. It’s completely unfamiliar, and we don’t know how to exist within it. We only know how to thrash and fight and gasp for air. We don’t know how to float. The thing is, all that thrashing is exhausting and unsustainable. It has to let up sometime. Either the wave breaks or we do. 

Thankfully, this time, it was the wave that broke first. And instead of continuing to scream and try to doggy-paddle and stay convinced that I’m drowning, I am going to try very hard—for once!—to just float. It feels unnatural, but maybe this is what growth feels like, you know? Maybe this is how I learn to start moving beyond my default state: by greeting other, more productive, and certainly more sustainable feelings with curiosity and open arms rather than suspicion and skittishness.

So yes, I’ll try to float while it’s calm, at least for a little while. I don’t know how it will go, but I think I owe it to myself, and I sure am tired.