A long, long time ago, my dad made the informed decision he could work for nobody but himself. He was the only one capable of being both the exact boss he wanted, and the perfect employee he wanted to employ. The more time rolls on, the more sense this makes. Isn’t that dynamic the secret ingredient to “winning”? Can you hold yourself accountable when shit hits the fan? Will you? Especially in those ridiculous times you’re the shit and the fan? And also the times you’re the innocent but opinionated bystander who’s really good at cleaning up shit and fixing fans? Still with me? I get it, Dad. When you write for no one, you get to be the talent and the boss + the sassy bystander. What a gift!

Without fail, if I haven’t written anything by mid-month, Writer Me lights the white flag in a Hail Mary toss to the Boss. You’re up, kid. Boss Me keeps the flag burning, kickstarts a buckle-down, organizes squirrel thoughts, identifies our main stream-of-conscience and cracks the whip of structure: What’s on your mind? Wait. You don’t knooow or…actually nothing? Don’t you need to process something? Aren’t you thinking deeply about anything? What have you been doing with our time? Not judging, just curious…

The Boss scours the calendar for reduction opportunities, sifting through pen scribbles ending with question marks, deftly prioritizing what we can miss, what we can’t. Could’ve used you earlier Boss Lady, not sure how these tiny boxes filled up with all this chicken scratch.

Worry, it’s like paying a debt you don’t owe, yet it’s my preferred MO every month. Writer Me successfully figured it out 36 times in the past 34 months straight, so technically I’m over-achieving? But you know…you can’t tell me nothing.

I think I actually like panic mode. Might be kind of necessary? Part of the process. My process, anyway. Writer Me high-fives Boss Lady as we swap positions in the tiny room upstairs. I’m not leaving, just popping to the loo. I need a fizzy water. A break, a stretch, a shakeup, whatever. Do your thing Boss Lady, sort a little more of that puzzle. We’re on the same team.

Together, we get shit done. We can do hard things! Learn complex systems! Make the impossible a dream come true! As a harsh self-critic with imposter syndrome whom other people tend to believe in way before I do, sometimes I need an external reminder I’ve got muscles to flex, especially if I haven’t flexed them in a while. Hibernation is a Me-mode, too.

Toot toot? Maybe. But I need a good toot right now. I’m in a weird place. Like find a sticker on the ground and uproot your entire life, weird place. That place right before you run away to Finland, swapping swarms of people for packs of dogs. Is this it? Is this all there is? That place when walking in the woods for too many months resembles an extra heart, a full battery, saving the princess, a life raft.

Yet I’m here. Stuck in a perpetual state of thought. Not quite sad nor depressive, just (as I framed it for my sister) disenchanted. Standing a bit farther back from the edge of possibility, in my cozy pocket of paradise, lightly pondering all the things I could be doing, but also admitting how much I like doing exactly what I’m doing right now. Complacency is complicating my ability to wander too far from my own little masterpiece.

But I know I need to. I know what happens when I don’t.

Sometimes I think I start to feel this way when I’m winning too much. I hear how that sounds, so now might be a good time to remind you I’ve been walking around without a front tooth for five+ months, so our ideas of winning might not match up. But yeah, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream. Flowing free and easy, gentle and kind, without interruption (outside of the hole the periodontist just drilled in my skull. Just like, three more months of toothless tosha). It’s possible I simply don’t have that many needs or wants, but I’m not in need and I don’t desire more of anything, except possibly dogs. Life seems settled.

Maybe that’s the source of my disenchantment? When you live in a dream, do you forget to keep dreaming? To dream…bigger? I live comfortably amongst a beautiful smorgasbord of humans who ebb and flow and grow, and who make me believe we’ve all lived a thousand lives. I have perfectly designed outlets in which to direct my weirdness, creativity and bursts of physical prowess. I’m wandering down the yellow brick road with pocketfuls of what sometimes feels like too much time.

But what if my pockets have holes?

Time is Time. She do what she wants when she wants with whomever she pleases. Just ask The Woman. You know the one.

She told me I was gonna die at 60, but I heard her whisper to the lady next to her that actually? It’s 50, but shhh we don’t have to tell her that. Her voice was deep but high-pitched, couple packs a day hoarse, scratchy, mesmerizing. Perfect for someone telling you you’re gonna die young. Well not young-young, I’m already 44, which is rather ancient for an unwed childless lady, an old maid really. But 6 years? That all I got?

My hand also revealed to her my parent’s divorce and my three children, neither of which are facts in this reality. (Strangers been telling me about my future children my entire life. I assure you, there will be no children.) Throw in a couple more red flags mixed with some orangey-yellow ones, all of which I dismissed in favor of laser focusing on the death piece.

Because I’m just enough woo-woo to wonder.

I used to fly a lot. Whenever I got a window seat, I did this thing where I’d look out the tiny oval imagining 1 of 8 million ways the plane might go down and ask my tiny faint reflection in the sky: would you be okay if you died today? It became a ritual. A check-in of sorts. You good? Living the way you want? I always opted for the window seat. I haven’t flown in a hot minute, so this lady was rather overdue.

We met that morning. She seemed normal (normal, winning, it’s all relative), telling stories of ridding oneself of ailments as one does (ask me about shin splints on the AT); by nightfall she had transformed into a woman of witchy wonders. I didn’t solicit her for a reading, she just happened to be in Flower Joe’s camp hollering at me when I mentioned my partner. 

BAH you’re a LONE WOLF!

Internal Me: Girrrll hush, I’ve already worked through that shit. External Me: Uh..good eye. But just cuz I’m a lone wolf, don’t meant I don’t need my pack.”

Jury’s still out on how she got ahold of my hand, but there it was, close to her face, telling her all about my three kids, divorced parents and early death.

Death used to consume me. Like, all out occupy the empty space, invade every thought, pop up outta nowhere, plant weeds in my flower garden. I had to fix it. So I slappity-tapped my face in the mirror one late night sitting in the tiny bathroom sink of Volkman Street, looked Adolescent Tosh in the eyes and saw Little Boss Tosh looking back. Her advice: Well it’s definitely gonna happen, you can’t really avoid it. YOU ARE GOING TO DIE. YOU are going to die. You’re gonna die. You gotta find a way to live with that.

It worked. Kind of. A few years ago I realized my fear of death had just been replaced by a new one, one I had trouble articulating before I heard Arthur yell it at Miranda in Station Eleven:

I don’t want to live the wrong life, then die.

I feel you, Arthur.
I’m not afraid of dying.
I’m afraid of not living.

Thanks witchy woman.
*dusts off shoulders*
Needed that.