THE SOLARIUM

As you could probably tell from my last Constellations post, as well as the fact that I haven’t posted anything in more than a month, my mental health has not been in a great place recently.

A relapse into anorexia. A descent into paranoia. Suffocating obsessions, choking compulsions.

At times like that, I imagine myself as a dying star, shedding its outer layers and collapsing to its white-hot core. I let go of all obligations but the most crucial, which burn brighter than ever in my blazing desperation.

I couldn’t keep up with this website. I couldn’t keep up with the shrieking hamster wheel of social media.

But I was able to write.

I wrote small things–outlines for short stories, song lyrics, scraps of poetry–and made progress on larger ones, like She Who Bleeds Stars. I drafted yet another first chapter of that novel, and, at least for the time being, I think it strikes a decent balance between establishing the world and its characters while also setting the plot in motion.

Will I change my mind in a week or two and start from scratch again? Hopefully not, but, knowing myself, I wouldn’t count it out.

I was also able to read. While food fuels my body, books fuel my mind. Their pages burn within me, sparking new ideas.

I’ve been on something of a nonfiction kick, seeking out books about diseases and disorders, memoirs by cult survivors, autobiographies of addicts. I’ve also made some tentative forays into horror, mostly through podcasts.

I’ve also read some of my own writing, and I’m not talking about revisions.

A little over a year ago, I had short personal piece published in Chatter Marks, the local museum’s quarterly journal. That piece, along with several others, were written as part of a community workshop dedicated to chronicling our experiences with the pandemic in response to various prompts.

This special issue of Chatter Marks was part of a much larger project by Julia O’Malley, the museum’s writer-in-residence. On March 1st, Julia held a reading to celebrate the physical launch of the pandemic issue. I was invited to take part.

Excited by the prospect, I agreed right away.

If I had remembered which piece of mine ended up being published, I might have answered differently.

“A Disease, But Not the Virus”, written in response to the prompt “what’s under the mask” describes my experience attending a friend’s memorial during the pandemic.

I wanted to do my piece justice. In some way, it felt like I owed it to the girl I had written it about. So, I practiced, reading the piece over and over until I could get through it without crying.

The day of the reading, I wore purple and turquoise, the same colors as the ribbon we were given at the memorial. After some hesitation, I wore the ribbon too.

For years, that ribbon remained pinned to the dress I wore to the memorial. Removing it felt like admitting defeat, accepting loss. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead, I hid the dress at the back of my closet and never wore it again. I never touched the ribbon.

Until March 1st.

I unpinned the ribbon from the black memorial dress and fastened it carefully to the turquoise dress I was going to wear to the reading. It felt like moving forward.

I felt ready to move forward with this site, too. Therapy and medication have loosened the red strings enough for me to breathe, and I’ve made some progress with my eating disorder, healing physically if not mentally.

Unfortunately, my plan to have the reading recorded fell through, so I didn’t have a video, however small, to post at the start of the month.

The strings are looser now, but that doesn’t meant they’re gone. I still have that pernicious drive for perfection, that unwillingness to accept anything less. I felt like if I couldn’t come back with a video, I shouldn’t come back at all.

More than a week later, I’m willing to accept that I won’t have a grand, triumphant return.

Renewal doesn’t have to look like a blaze of glory. Renewal can be slush in the streets and dogshit-stained dirt, the unpleasant thaw that preludes spring. Renewal can be an apology, a bid for forgiveness.

Renewal can be a post that’s not quite on schedule: an admission of failure, but not of defeat.

Renewal can be as simple as saying, “Hey, I’m still here.”

Hey. I’m still here.

***

I’m going to share “A Disease, But Not the Virus” in a separate post after I finish this one.

I’m going to post my review of Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex, possibly my favorite book in the series to discuss, on Wednesday.

I will do my best to get the long-promised John Green video out by the first Sunday in April. This next week is spring break for me, which should give me some much-needed time to finish the script and start filming.

You can also expect more music-related projects from me in the near future. I will be taking part in a songwriting-related podcast with my girlfriend, indie artist CsilloAlexandra Domingue, who is putting out an album soon.

You can listen to an older version of “Too Close”, a song I wrote for her that will be rerecorded for the album, on Spotify now.