How Covid flushed my creativity down the drain.
Life during bored times while juggling a job, two kids, and rising anxiety made writing damn near impossible. I wrote this to process a year and a half of zero output.
About a month before my wife gave birth to our daughter in the middle of a global pandemic, she called 911 because I was having extreme chest pains. Really, it was in my upper abdomen, but when you have unexplainable pain in your torso, you call the doctor. And when they tell you to get EMTs over right away because any chest pain could indicate a heart attack or stroke, you do it.
Over the course of three EKGs and hours spent in two different emergency waiting rooms, the medical professionals told me 1.) they had no idea what had happened, but 2.) that my heart was very healthy.
It was an incredibly stressful evening during a wildly stressful year. After being careful to stay home and mask-up to protect my then three-year-old-son and two high-risk adults (my pregnant wife and me, an asthmatic), the last place we wanted to set foot was the ER, especially after reading all the stories of how Covid spread in hospitals.
Here’s the punchline, though:
Six months later, I put some pieces together in relation to my personal health and ongoing side pain — which never got as bad as that night, but continued regularly after that. I started taking an antidepressant for the first time during the pandemic. I needed something to help me deal with the stress and anxiety of everything — especially with one small kiddo at home and another on the way. The timeline of starting the antidepressant corresponded to when certain symptoms related to the pain began.
The medication I got on to help my stress levels during a pandemic gave me IBS (irritable bowel syndrome). And that IBS caused the pain that sent me to the ER. So, naturally, now I have anxiety about gut-related issues.
Perhaps swapping the existential dread of global pandemic for wondering whether beer and onion rings will give me horrible gastrointestinal pain is a good trade off. The solution is to eat less and eat healthier, but that’s easier said than done when comfort food is your coping mechanism. My former solution to stress is now the cause of my gut-related anxiety. First world poop problems, amirite?
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Back in the day, my family got Comedy Central on cable when the channel was just stand-up comedy and Mystery Science Theater 3000. As a kid who loved to make people laugh, I gobbled it up. I was always getting in trouble for shouting jokes during class. Getting laughs made me feel like I fit in at a time when I felt like a weirdo at school (I was about a foot taller than every kid in my class till about seventh grade and a massive nerd to boot.), performers bound by the need to make people chuckle felt like my people. I watched stand-up sets and all these comedy-related documentaries, and I began to idolize comedians. Comedy felt like it could be a path for me, even before I was thinking about college, careers, or anything like that.
Then I watched some documentary special where all these famous comedians told horror stories about how they lived when they were trying to make a living at comedy. I remember Billy Crystal talking about a roach-filled, closet-sized apartment he lived in. Even as a young teen, I was like, “Damn. Billy Crystal is legendary. And he had to do that?! Wooof!”
So, before I ever started, I decided not to pursue comedy. I quit before I ever told a single joke on stage. And I think about that a lot.
Do I lament my old dreams of being an Olympic swimmer or pro basketball player? Or about going to space? Nope! So why do I stew on this path I wrote off for myself by age fourteen? Maybe because it’s a more plausible alternate reality than Olympic gold?
Regardless, the strife involved in making it in comedy seemed so high. Could I have done comedy and been less successful than Billy Crystal? Absolutely. But if I couldn’t reach the height I wanted without a bunch of bullshit — though I am only now admitting to myself that the goal of “legendary status or bust” is extremely pompous and self-aggrandizing — I cut it off before I began.
That messes with me to this day, and has followed me into my life as a writer.
It feels like an American obsession to risk or sacrifice it all on the path to fame and fortune — to go all in and fucking SUFFER as part of this Hero’s Journey-style descent into hell. If I had suffered more, would I have succeeded more? If I had put every ounce of effort into the thing at the sake of everything else, would I be the guy in the testimonial chair in all the documentaries? Admitting that, it sounds insane. And yet, I struggle with it. When I feel like a failure is it because I didn’t put in the work and see if I could do it? Or is it because I don’t get to be the guy interviewed for the documentary? The screwed up thing is, I think it’s the latter.
As I put comedy and Olympic success behind me, I started thinking that writing would be how I achieved longevity beyond my time. If I could just write something that people read, discuss, and ponder after I’m gone, I could accomplish some form of eternal life.
As I sit here a relative unknown in the world of writing at the age of 36 I wonder, have I failed? Have I not suffered enough to write something great? Have I not worked hard enough to make a lasting impression?
I resigned on every freelance comics project I had going because I couldn’t juggle additional creative output on top of a full-time job and full-time parenting in the midst of — as we hear so often — unprecedented times. Doing that was essential for survival, and yet, I got really down on myself. As I struggled to write anything at all beyond marketing copy for my day job, I lay awake at night angry that I hadn’t pursued my writing dreams that day. Like somehow not working myself to death as we all avoided actual viral death was a massive shortcoming — an indication that, whatever it is, I didn’t have it.
Thing is, I have worked hard. A lot. I’ve poured my heart and soul into projects, jobs, and relationships. I’ve gotten promotions, won awards, and I’ve got an amazing wife, two incredible children, and even own a dang house. My life has been pretty damn good. So, why beat myself up over the goals I never achieved or, in some cases, never even pursued? If a person works hard and does a good job and is a good friend and a good dad and people love him, but he doesn’t get to feel fucking important in the interview chair of a documentary, did he even really live at all? The eternal struggle of the mediocre white man.
In fiction, I love that trope where a character attends their own funeral. They see all the people that loved them react to their death. The tears, the speeches, the sadness — the sense that, without you, their life is worse. And then, whether it was time travel or some other storytelling device, the character goes on living knowing what everyone thought about them. Knowing that, in the way it really matters — to the people you love — they mattered.
Maybe my fascination with that idea is why I am so obsessed with things I equate to respect and success happening to me in my lifetime. Sitting in that testimonial chair, getting asked questions about what I know, how it was, and what it was like. People holding me on high in some capacity, wanting to know what I have to say, wanting to hear about my experience because (to them) it matters.
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“Heroes get remembered, but legends never die,” -Babe Ruth, The Sandlot
The idea that your myth can make you immortal was a concept tailor made for a guy who’d end up with a degree in classical humanities. I was studying Homeric epic in college thousands of years after the story was originally told. If anyone is immortal, it’s Achilles, Odysseus, Helen, and Penelope. They live on today in films, novels, and classrooms.
Having a first kid, and then a second, I’ve thought a lot about my own mortality over the past five years. Seeing life come into this world does that to you. It reminds you of the circle. It reminds you that the road you’re walking down has one destination. Having kids changes your priorities too. But that change is hard. I’m not pursuing every job or project or opportunity that might raise me up because it’s not just about me anymore. I have a family to consider. I have a family I need to, in many instances, place above my individual needs and wants. That’s hard to reconcile after years of trying your damnedest to make a lasting mark.
Madeline Miller’s Circe is a great book for a number of reasons, but one that struck me while listening to the audiobook (while my wife was pregnant with my daughter): Odysseus is a legend, but he was not a good father. The book delves into how Odysseus’ journey kept him away from his son for twenty years and, when he returned, he’d been surviving on his wits and cunning for so long that he wasn’t a good father, a good husband, or even a good man. He was a good story, but he was a bad person.
The problem is I love stories. Maybe it’s my Midwestern upbringing, tall tale telling at summer camp, or years of relaying funny situations and telling jokes over beers, but I love to have stories to tell. As a comic book editor, I worked with incredible creators and celebrities, spent crazy late nights at conventions, and got to do a lot of objectively cool shit. That cool shit made for good stories. As a parent, you still have stories, but the best ones often involve your kids’ bodily functions. Or your own, if you get antidepressant-induced IBS.
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Speaking of parenting stories and comedy, here’s my current joke list for my parody comedian alter ego Geoff Dadworthy:
If you haven’t had an uninterrupted night of sleep in so long your brain has forgotten what REM sleep is…
…you might be a parent.
If you don’t need to set an alarm because a small human is gonna wake you up at 6am…
…you might be a parent.
If the morning pick-me-up that really wakes you up is stepping on a jagged Lego piece someone left by the bed…
…you might be a parent.
If you still need 7 cups of coffee after that to get through your day…
…you might be a parent.
If you wipe someone else’s butt MORE than you wipe your own…
…you might be a parent.
If you pay for daycare just so you have time to earn a living but the germs from daycare frequently force you to call in sick and miss work…
…you might be a parent.
If you’re more familiar with PBS than HBO…
…you might be a parent.
If you indulge in half-eaten chicken strips for dinner 4 nights a week…
…you might be a parent.
If you’re out past 10pm at night, hanging out at a comedy club with your friends, having drinks, having a good time…
…you’re probably not a parent.
Yeah, my stories around campfires or at bars are different now.
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While I love a good epic or space opera as much as the next nerd, the things I really love to talk about and hear about are the little details, the random facts, and the funny anecdotes. I enjoy the small tales that tell you how the subject of the story or the person telling it is unique. So why am I chasing some Homeric epic to immortalize myself? I don’t want to be a tragic hero, no matter how legendary it can make you.
Maybe growing up and getting older is all about trying to put struggles like this into context. Understanding — or trying to — your own evolution in the search of elusive happiness. Like poor old granddad said, “I wish that I knew what I know now when I was younger… Poor young grandson, there’s nothing I can say. You’ll have to learn, just like me, and that’s the hardest way.”
Growth isn’t easy, and maybe it’s that process that throws the beauty into stark relief against the struggle to try and get it. Whatever it is.
Recently, I woke up hungover (a rarity as a parent) and the only vomit I needed to clean up belonged to my cat. Same story, new narrative. I don’t know what it means, but I’m trying to learn not to stress about the details and enjoy the ride more.
Odysseus gained immortality at the cost of everyone around him. That’s too high a price for me.
I’ve spent the past 18 months of a global pandemic crippled in my writing efforts by anxiety, depression, and the corresponding gastrointestinal pain of treating those issues. I’ve spent too much damn time at my computer working, I certainly don’t want to spend my free time jabbing at a keyboard when I can try to bring more sanity into my life. If the finish line used to be publication, book deals, notoriety, and success, and the route to that goal is spending time away from family, fun, and peace with shoulders hunched over the keys, maybe that’s too high a price for me too.
And sitting alongside Homer in the annals of history isn’t a viable goal. How many authors transcend decades let alone centuries? Do you know the bestselling author of 1938? 1888? Even 1988? And what about the authors who did great work and never cracked that New York Times’ Bestsellers list? Or were even the second-most awarded author of that year? Putting words on the page ensures that something you thought or felt goes on beyond your time, but there’s no guarantee anyone will remember your work within your lifetime let alone after it. Ain’t no guarantees anyone will ever give a shit.
Maybe the next evolution is to let go of the idea that writing is the key to any immortality. Maybe I’ll write something amazing that’s never forgotten, but if toiling toward that impossible goal makes me a bad dad, a bad partner, and a miserable person, it’s not for me. I’ll never regret prioritizing being a good dad. I will regret slipping on parenthood in the pursuit of the rise-and-grind hustle culture.
If the only guaranteed destination is death, whatever I write won’t change that. But what I do now can change how my journey goes. I can’t write enough to defeat the reaper, no one can. But I can write when I need to for my sanity. I can write to process complex thoughts, to share experiences, to tell funny stories, to spread ideas, and to just enjoy it. I can write for me, not for success.
It’s a wild new concept for me, but I’m going to try it… after I poop. Again.
