When Life is Difficult
When I was 14 years old, I dreamed of writing a fantasy novel. The summer I was 16, I did it. Every day for two months, I sat down at my computer in the morning and wrote for two hours. By the time the next school year started, I had written an entire 120-page young adult fantasy novel. I slapped a foreword on it and sent it to all my friends.
And then my computer crashed and I lost all my files, including the most recent version of the novel. This was before the cloud, and I had backed up nothing. I didn’t just lose the novel; I lost everything I’d written over the past five years. I lost short stories and diary entries and half-finished poems and notes for future books. I lost school assignments and sheet music I’d scanned and saved.
I begged my Dad to send the remains of our hard drive to a shop out in Texas (I think it was Texas, anyway) that specialized in computer repair. His eyes bugged out at the price — $100! — but I moped until he gave in.
I still remember the day they sent back a CD with my recovered files. They hadn’t saved everything, but they’d saved 90% of it. I ran up to my study, clutching the CD to my chest. I thought, I will never be this purely happy again.
And for a long time, I wasn’t. The next time I felt such a pure and unalloyed joy again, it was 10 years later and I was in love (or I thought I was, anyway).
But this post isn’t really about happiness, it’s about the opposite. Because, friends, my first year out of grad school has been profoundly hard, and in ways I never expected. I remember a quote I heard years ago: we are right to worry, but we worry about the wrong things. I thought my first year out of MIT would be a blaze of glory; it’s been more of a fizzle of despair. Imagine trying to light a can of fireworks after it’s been sitting in the rain all day, and you’ll have a good visual metaphor. Fits, starts and finishes.
Buying a home was lovely, I’ll grant. The sense of satisfaction I feel in my condo has only grown over time. Not because it’s perfect, but because it — and the life it enables — are wholly mine. But I remember the wracking anxiety of the purchase process. I remember coming up to my office after a happy hour and poring over loan documents alone until 9 pm. I remember it got dark outside as I sat my desk, looking up terms I didn’t understand. I remember a looming sense that I would get it all wrong, and saddle myself with a debt I could never escape. I remember friends telling me — not unkindly — stories of foreclosure. I remember anxiety that dogged my every move.
I remember the strange year I’ve had when it comes to dating. I dislike people who get too confessional in public fora, but here are a few of mine. I dated a man I didn’t love, but who offered me his time and who tried to know me. I remember turning off the lights to tell him a story about myself I never share, and I remember his kindness when he heard it. I loved a man I didn’t date. I remember the letters I wrote him that I’ll never send, and I remember being wrong about the things I thought I wanted. I remember how hard and how awful it feels to want someone you can’t or won’t have, and to come to that realization time and again. I remember other experiences — that I can’t describe here — that challenged my belief in who I am and what I’m willing to explore. Above all, though, I remember realizing — with an intensity I’ve not recognized before — that my life is mine, and no one else’s. I feel as if this year has brought me in touch with emotions I have not experienced in years. I have tried to love other people more fully, even when it hasn’t been easy. I can’t say it’s worked out entirely, or at all.
Some of the difficulties have arrived in my life secondhand, as I’ve tried to figure out what it means to be a good person, a good daughter, a good sister, a good friend. People I love deeply have lost jobs, been hospitalized, ended marriages, said goodbye to parents. Each of these sorrows felt enormous and novel; each of them felt like my own. Even when my role was that of a friend or an adviser, I learned from my friends’ grief the enormous potential life has to devastate us in ways we never expected. Maybe this is the result of getting older; we outgrow our charmed years.
I started a job with great hopes. In 2006, I spent four months at National Geographic Adventure. I lived in Chelsea and walked to work, and the sense of passion and enthusiasm I found in the city and in my co-workers opened my eyes. Ten years later I returned to the brand. As that comes to an end, I have to accept that despite my best efforts, this job has not been the parade of successes I might have hoped. That has been a hard realization, as well. The world unmoors us. Life is an ocean, and we are never prepared.
Today, we celebrated my mother’s 60th birthday. We spent the day watching a play, and then came home to have a few drinks. I asked her what advice she’d give her younger self. As I was preparing to leave, I let slip that this has been, for me, a profoundly difficult year. She knew that I was distracted and unhappy, the way that people who love you always know: she read my silences and knew my fears. But in telling her some of this story, I realized a larger truth: I wouldn’t trade a minute of what I’ve experienced. Each of these moments of difficulty has been precious; each has taught me something I didn’t know. Alongside failure, I’ve experienced growth. I am different today. I am fragile and I know it, but I hope I am stronger as well.
