For a Minute There, I Lost Myself

I recently gave myself permission to take a break. 

The concept of “recent,” of course, is relative now. In this case, I'm referring to 2019, the last "normal" year, when I took a step back from my job as a literary agent. I focused only on existing clients, I stopped checking my work email at night, and did no work at all on weekends. In other words, I reclaimed my time.

Taking a break meant balance; it meant clarity. And, for me, it meant realizing I didn’t want to be an agent anymore, that I was mostly doing it out of a belief that, without that job title, I had no other identity. So, by the end of that year, I left. In 2020, I began freelance editing full-time. It suited my skill set, my passions, my work style. It was, and remains, the right move. 

Then the pandemic hit. And do I really need to tell you how the rest of 2020 went from there? That is an essay (a novel? a documentary?) for another time, and by someone far more qualified to unpack it all than I. 

At the very least, I could feel grateful I got to skip the “adjusting to work from home” part of pandemic life. But, for the past two years – nearly my entire time working as a full-time editor – my work/life balance has meant the person I work next to everyday is also my only companion after work, and is the same person I meal-plan with, sleep next to, and wake up with to do it all over again. 

I’m a fairly solitary creature. My boyfriend and I are both introverts. Non-introverts tend to think that means we don’t like being around people, which is not true. I needed the café I worked from, the shared grins or eye-rolls with other New Yorkers on the subway; I needed my friends, our regular bars and restaurants, date nights with the person I was now with constantly. 

My energy depletes after being around people, even people I love, so I conserve it whenever I can. When I can’t recharge, I become more prone to depression. My anxiety ramps us. Takes over, even. I don’t sleep well, which then perpetuates the cycle of depression. It’s not fun. My boyfriend and I know these things about each other, but empathy only goes so far. It wasn’t a replacement for what we truly needed: solitude.  

The pandemic became an event that exposed many inconvenient truths people used to distract themselves from. On a much smaller scale, nearly a year into isolation, I realized there were truths about my own life that had nowhere left to hide. I had started losing myself, I realized, and so soon after I had found myself again.

I missed who that person was. 

She was getting awfully close to 40 now, so is this self-reflection actually a mid-life crisis on top of the pandemic/political upheaval/civil rights reckoning turducken? Maybe. 

What I do know is that writing makes me feel like myself, so this is where I’m starting. 

Last summer, I checked myself into a hotel in Manhattan, the first place I called home as an adult, and gave myself a writer’s retreat. My boyfriend stayed in Brooklyn for his own blissful introvert recovery weekend. Meanwhile, I added about 10,000 words to a novel I all but abandoned in 2018 and it felt really, really good. 

So, I thought maybe it was finally time to get a newsletter. I’m always about five years behind the times with any technology trend, so this, too, is on brand.

If you’re joining me, hello and welcome! And if I’m only talking to myself, well, that’s OK too.