Notes from a Perpetual Solver Who's Deep in it

Nothing like a vague "it" to build intrigue (tiny joys are coming)

Have you ever been lost? It’s a silly question. Of course you have. It’s a silly entrance into telling you I feel kinda lost. Is it because all of a sudden, a close friend of mine is dead and I’ve internalized how that could be me or anyone else I love at any moment? How it will be, no matter what, in some moment? 

Maybe. 

Is it because I’ve started, recently, to make a decent salary, and as anyone could guess, it hasn’t automatically made me happier? Is it because I haven’t found a way to balance art into my new life of working more than I did before? Is it because I haven’t felt inspired? Is it because I’ve been with Omar for eight years and long-term relationships can’t be exciting forever. Maybe. Am I even an excitement junky that that would matter? Also maybe. Maybe maybe maybe. 

Here’s another one, and I feel like this list of questions whose answers are maybe could go on far into the night. 

I’m 39, and I don’t want to subscribe to society’s brainwashing of pretty being the peak of existence, but I can’t help feeling like an old cow who’s lost her shine (and her way). Is it age that’s getting to me? Are we back to death—the angst in the kingdom of forever? 

Ugh, I’m not even sad. Not really. Nothing’s wrong. Not really. To be fair, part of this is me venting because of the failures of the day— I did everything I could to get my toilet and sink fixed and after a plumber spent hours here, they are still not fixed. Failure is failure, and sometimes, the effort doesn’t feel like it counts at all.

I’m forcing myself to write, you know, right now. What I wanted to do was turn on the TV, a move of exhaustion from all the existential wondering and woe. But instead, I decided for the actual third time today, weariness ignored, to take some action. 

Last night, I bought a book for my Kindle that I’ve been meaning to buy. It’s by a Mexican author, and even though there’s an English translation that I’ve seen people in the states raving about, I got it in Spanish. This morning, I started reading it, my first action of the day. 

Reading in Spanish is less work than my brain construed it to be, so it was feeling like a win. The built-in Spanish-English dictionary is there when I need it, but I thought I would need it so much more. I thought I would be reading so much slower.

Anyway, I started the day so right. I was up at 6am reading a novel in Spanish for the first time in my life!  Then this plumbing shit happened, and when I tried to explain to my landlord that we need a new toilet after the plumber ruled out all the other problems, she didn’t understand (or didn’t want to understand?) and asked me to have the plumber explain. There went all my Spanish confidence. 

Recap of my “taking action” actions for the day:

1. Reading a beautiful novel in Spanish
2. Getting the plumber
3. Writing this

I know I said I wouldn’t treat my Substack like I did my Tinyletters and let them go by the wayside. I had to. It’s been a fight these last few months. I’m fine, but I’m lost, and it doesn’t feel beautiful or romantic in the middle of it. 

The problem is the existential woe keeps on.  There’s another problem too, which I’ll get to in a sec. First, I’m going to recap some other recent ways I’ve taken action, because it feels important. These are my solutions. I’m a solver, guys.

A few weeks ago, I went to the beach, alone. I’d just sit on the shore at night, the hot tropical shore and the swishing palms and waves dropping in, all that.

Omar and I have been navigating a new era of monotony in our relationship (which I will take credit for initiating: action). This is kind of where the age stuff has started to get to me. Where did this monotony come from, if not time? What’s the answer? Who knows. And the thing is, I don’t want things to stay as they had been forever. Change is so good. But these particular shifts, they make me feel like I’m sinking. I don’t like it.

I pre-joined a gym. What I mean by that is, there is a stupidly good deal on this gym that’s under construction a few blocks away for anyone who signs up before their opening in mid-October. So I did. Movement as medicine, in all seriousness. 

And I started taking women’s vitamins (full transparency: gummy vitamins so I actually take them). It could be something unseen in my body causing all this. Hormones are annoying. 

I’m listening to several audiobooks a month again. I stop what I’m doing as much as I can and bury my face in Raava’s neck. I turn on the strong lights and get the candles going. I got a tea tree oil product to add to my moisturizer morning and night (aromatherapy). 

The solutions are as mystical and mysterious and endless as the questions, right? Something to be grateful for.  Now, here’s the problematic thing (about me), getting in the way. I’m impatient about solutions, which is incorrect, which means nothing has started working yet so I keep coming up with more.

I’ll never know what is necessary and what is not. This is the worst science ever.

I’m going to add some St-Germain to my gin and tonic, I’m going to eat a bite of a gummy, I’m going to turn off all the lights except the string lights and lie on the floor and listen to Mazzy Star in the dimness. 

If it doesn’t feel romantic unless you force it, I guess you should force it. Romance is not overrated. 

I’ll check back in soon, hopefully with news of lots of tiny joys.