how to keep heart while drowning
with gratitude to KC Davis for this inspiration
CW: this newsletter will discuss mental health/illness and sexual violence
hello, lover
I’m struggling. It’s a combination of things, this I recognize:
I mean have you seen the world lately?
I recently signed with a new agent who (whom?) I love but change is hard.
We’re preparing to go on sub soon, something I have done three times in my life but only been successful once (the sale of my debut Hot Copy lead to one-book contracts for all of the rest of my books
But after taking two other books out on sub with no offers with my previous agent, I am feeling nervous about outcomes that aren’t even close to coming true yet
Anyone with a brain reading this will know it’s true and please don’t take this admission to mean that I didn’t think it would apply to me but: self publishing is hard!
I feel like all I do is annoy my followers with book promo
That being said, thank you to each and every one of you who’ve read and shared The Match Faker
Writing books is hard!
I’m writing Most Likely to Match, the next book in The Match Faker universe.
I’ve just come off my anti-depressant/anxiety meds and you’re probably thinking to yourself, Ruby maybe you should get back on them and while I hear you, for reasons that are their own newsletter I am not sure I’m ready to make that commitment yet.
I’ll end this list here though it’s not finished, but you know, parenting, day jobs, existing with care and compassion for others and myself, the environment, this world. All of it is hard.
All of it amounts to struggle.
I desperately want to be the kind of person — wife, mom, author — who can do it the way I see all of you doing it. It looks hard, but it’s possible, the writing, the working, the success. But none of it feels possible to me and sometimes it means I:
am late to picking my child up from school and a corresponding sense of shame when I make eye contact with their teachers or office staff
cry when the Blue Jays lose their home opener and then cry harder when I recognize how absurd it is to cry over baseball, over men, who play baseball. Over MILLIONAIRE MEN WHO PLAY BASEBALL FOR A LIVING.
freeze.
My most common response to ADHD overwhelm is to freeze. It’s also the most common response I’ve had to traumas in my past. I think that connection to trauma is what makes the shame that comes with freezing so painful for me. Freezing (of the fight/flight/freeze triad) feels like the most passive reaction. It’s the one that makes it easy for me to tell myself that I did nothing to stop the trauma. That actually, I let it happen. Actually, it’s my fault. I wanted it. Actually. Once, I froze, and it ripped me apart. Once, I froze and it doesn’t matter that in my recesses of my lizard brain freezing was the only thing I could do to keep myself safe — or as safe as possible — and alive. I was still frozen. I still did nothing. I was nothing. Once I froze and now freezing is associated with pain and shame and the deepest kind of self-hatred I could imagine. So now, when my brain simply cannot do a thing, when there is so much happening inside my mind that I can’t catch a wisp of an idea, when my brain shuts down, a different kind of frozen fear, it feels the same.
It feels like I did nothing. I am nothing. And worse, it’s my fault. I wanted it this way.
I don’t know that I have an answer to any of this, other than putting it here instead of keeping it in a brain who’s chemicals are sometimes self-destructive is a bit of an answer. But I did want to share some of the things I do to keep heart, keep up, keep breathing, keep here when I feel frozen in an already frozen lake of my thoughts.
Tell someone: last week I told Rosie I was struggling and she dropped everything to talk to me because, my loves, our friends love us. Don’t believe whatever horrible things your brain may tell you. Your friends want you to be okay.
Read something: I’m re-reading one of my favourite baseball romances Fire Season by KD Casey, a book that is also about someone who is struggling, but who loves, loves baseball, loves life, who wants to be here.
Make paper cranes: my child got into origami for a hot minute and we still have a package of origami paper and sometimes I make myself something that requires skill and consideration, something that requires my time and effort and concentration for longer than a moment. Something that is delicate and pretty and makes me proud.
Eat a fruit: isn’t there something so lovely about fruit? Every bite invites a splash of juice upon your pallet. Mother Nature’s candy. Even just an apple, cut into slices, help me feel fresh and alive.
Look at photos of my friends’ babies: to remind myself that I want them to grow up in a world with me as their auntie because I want them to always have a person they can call when they’re worried they can’t call their mom.
Take my child out for hot chocolate and a treat: and then I just listen to them talk. About their day, about the things they see on the street out the window. All children are miracles, for the record, but I have the special designation of being the mother of a true and literal miracle. A child who should not be, but is. Being their mom is scary and hard but also the most wonderful honour and blessing and when I drown I think about them and how it couldn’t be nothing that I am their mom. It couldn’t be a mistake that they are my miracle.
Look at art: preferably, in person, but we have the internet for a reason and it’s not porn. Every feeling I have right now, every feeling I’ve ever had has been portrayed in paint and ink, has been carved into marble and etched into wood. Every thing I hate and love about myself has been felt before. I am not special, and that, surprisingly, is kind of lovely. We have all been here before. We will all be here again. We endured, we even made things out of it, the most beautiful things. To feel this, to freeze, to drown, is hard, it is suffering, and I will not glorify it but I won’t deny myself the privilege of being alive to feel it.
Lie on the floor: stretch, roll, just lie there.
Find words to keep my head above water: right before we started a metcon (metabolic conditioning for the uninitiated) at the gym my friend shared a poem, Peanut Butter by Eileen Myles, that is too long for me to share here but that I will link here and that somehow made me want to try harder 10 seconds later when the workout started. These are my favourite parts:
I keep a notebook of my favourite lines from books I’ve read, here are some:
You swallow her with your eyes. I’m surprised there’s any of her left for the rest of us to see — The Scorpio Races, Maggie Stiefvater
Adam smiled cheerily. Ronan would start wars and burn cities for that true smile, elastic and amiable — The Raven King, Maggie Stiefvater
If you can’t be unafraid…be afraid and happy — The Raven King, Maggie Stiefvater
Daughter of my heart. Twice-daughter, my joy. Your dream is my dream, and your name is true. You are all of our hope — Days of Blood and Starlight, Laini Taylor
I choose to drown in hope, than float into nothing — Finnikin of the Rock, Melina Marchetta
If it’s an abomination, Dad, you’re just doing it wrong. Bear down hard, then release. It’ll fit better — The Angel, Tiffany Reisz
It is here that love is to be found - not hidden away in corners but in the midst of occasions of sin — The Saint, Tiffany Reisz
There is the sudden. There is the eventual. And in between, there is the living — Two Boys Kissing, David Levithan
We do not start as dust. We do not end as dust. We make more than dust — Two Boys Kissing, David Levithan
Love is certainly never safe, but it’s absolutely worth it — Get A Life Chloe Brown, Talia Hibbert
And then, here are some from Fire Season, because it’s what I’m reading right now:
I don’t really have a purpose in sharing these other than they make me feel something that doesn’t suffocate. They make me want to tread water, to fight, to flee, or if I must, to freeze. They remind me that that sometimes we do the best with what we have. That freezing isn’t as passive as it looks, that sometimes it’s the thing that keeps us here a little while longer. That struggling is hard but also it’s living.
If you’re struggling in Canada, please consider reaching out to services here.
If you’re struggling in the US, please consider reaching out to services here (I’m sorry if this isn’t the best resource, I tried to stay away from government agencies since I’m aware that the Trump administration has recently gutted many of them).
If you’re struggling anywhere, please know you are loved, by me, at the very least.
xo,
Rubes
I related to a lot of this, your writing is beautiful 💜
just here to say i love you