June 2, 2025

A Brilliant Economy of Dissatisfaction

Dear Reader,

Today is my 37th birthday, a day closer to 40, a day that marks the late thirties.

People love to say they love aging, and I’ll be honest—I don’t exactly feel that way. But maybe loving aging isn’t really about loving aging. Maybe it’s about being open to change. Sometimes the changes are rapid, like the way my stomach now meets my hips. Other times they’re slow and quiet, like the soft unfolding of my hands. I’m in awe of how I’m no longer who I was ten years ago, even three years ago—in the physical sense, the spiritual sense, and the emotional one. There’s something holy in this shift. Something sobering. Something tender I’m learning to stay with, even when it startles me.

Before I took meds for my brain I had washboard abs. Then when I started taking meds for my brain they slowly disappeared. A six pack I didn't know would ever fade started to disappear and a soft rolly stomach emerged. It has taken me the last three years to accept this new form. Not as beautiful or good, but as mine.

The other day I sent my girlfriend a picture of me and my belly rolls were included and I had never done that before. I always hide them, giving the illusion of what is left of the six pack. The four pack. The two pack. Alas, it was the first time I thought : this is cute too, this is soft and I like this.

I’m not exactly sure what changed—perhaps simply the passage of time. I haven’t done any targeted work in therapy or with a coach around my relationship to my shifting body. Maybe having someone else love it so deeply offered an unexpected kind of support. Or maybe it was just the act of documenting it, noticing it, and thinking: yes, this is beautiful. I’ve always found these same features striking—charming, and sexy—on other people. So why not extend that same gentleness to myself?

I am always amazed at the systems that teach us to hate ourselves—so that we buy more products, take more exercise classes, chase after some distant version of beauty that keeps changing just out of reach. It’s a brilliant economy of dissatisfaction. We learn to mistrust the natural rhythms of our bodies, to fear softness, to see aging not as a passage but as a problem to fix. I didn’t realize how much I had internalized this until I caught myself hesitating to take a photo, or tugging at my clothes in the mirror. Not because I felt bad, exactly—but because I’d been taught to believe I should.

This is a slow unlearning. A daily practice of noticing where those voices come from, and choosing to listen to something else. Something quieter. Something kinder.

I’m learning that softness is not the opposite of strength. That change doesn’t always have to be dramatic to be meaningful. I’m not trying to love everything about aging, but I am trying to be honest with myself—and kinder, too.

So here I am: 37. Still becoming. Still learning what it means to stay with myself as I change. There’s grief in it, sure. But there’s also relief. A quiet joy. A new kind of beauty that doesn’t need to be earned, just noticed.

The next class I am teaching is SYSTEMS FOR ARTISTS : Creative Infrastructure Without Burnout.

Making art, writing, and creating is a blessing but what about the behind the scenes systems that keep us distracted by their messy containers.

In this class we will self design project organization tools that help us stay on track, complete the projects we’ve started, and move on the the things that matter most to us.

Things of Note :

🌼 Starting this week the amazing Sky Fusco (Lord Cowboy) will be hosting Landscapes for the month of June : A writing club for all genres of writing and co-working. Landscapes is sliding scale $33-77/mo and NOTAFLOF. We have full and partial scholarships available as well. Inquire by responding to this email.

🌼 I will be spending every Tuesday morning in June on my mat with Queer Body Pilates starting tomorrow - join us!

CLASSIFIEDS : 

My business isn’t working. So I’m rebuilding it in real time and in public. Follow along! 

❤️‍🔥 What’s your burning question? Affirming, precise astrologer, poet, & filmmaker ⛲️ KP Kaszubowski🧃Sessions priced for regular care: kpkaszu.com

And lastly to celebrate my birthday : Take 30% off classifieds ads! No code necessary - discount applied at checkout making it $52.50 :)

Want to place an ad in next week’s newsletter? Read all about it here

Instagram : @codycookparrott @personalpractice
Email : info@codycookparrott.com
Website : https://www.codycookparrott.com
Writing Group : Landscapes

Want to read May’s installment for paid subscribers : Check out A Devastated Heart, a Return to the iPhone, and a Pilates shed