Not Crazy (Or Writing), After All These Years

I spent the morning reading through some of my old humor columns for Her Nashville Magazine (a few of which I've linked here, here, and here). I was curious to see how the humor holds up. (Verdict: mixed.) I was also looking for clues about how in the world I managed to write a monthly humor column and thrice-weekly blog while working full time and raising two little guys, when these days I'm happy if I can crank out a quarterly reading roundup.

What struck me in reading my old work is how perpetually rattled I sounded, like my entire personality was modeled on Edvard Munch's The Scream.

My floors are dirty! GAHHHHHHHH

Crossing guards are mean! SCRAAHHHHHHH

When I started writing the column, I was very much in the deep end of working motherhood, building my career (in what turned out to be a deeply toxic workplace). The boys were just two and four and still made entirely out of pastry dough.

Man, what I wouldn't give to go back and give these two munchkins a ginormous squeeze. And a mother with a regulated nervous system.

But alas. We do what we can with the tools we have at the time. And my tools were boxed wine, long distance running, and hammering out shouty, unhinged paragraphs in all caps about HOW LONELY IT IS TO BE THE ONLY PERSON IN MY FAMILY WHO KNOWS HOW TO OPERATE A CLOTHES HANGER.

I was cute in print. Composed in public. And off my mother-fucking nut at home, behind closed doors. If I could even CLOSE the doors, what with everyone's CLOTHES STREWN EVERYWHERE, MY GOD. *Bursts into tears. Writes about wrinkled pants.*

I wasn't crying and hyperventilating all the time, but it could go that way at any time, without notice. Everything felt overwhelming. Relaxing was impossible. Larry would suggest I take a nap, and I would stare at him like, are you insane? How can I sleep with the sound of my heart trying to Shawshank its way out of my chest? Tomorrow is BOOK CHARACTER DAY.

At one point my doctor prescribed Xanax "to keep in my purse", which worked in an emotional pinch (and makes me sound like a repressed 1950s housewife); but the occasional Xanax was no match for the steady thrum of agitation I referred to as "being awake." Talk therapy was a non-starter, because I knew talking would result in crying. And crying was the thing I was trying to do less of. Hence, my signature move of mining every mundane misery for comedy gold.

Eventually, at a routine checkup, my beloved nurse practitioner asked me a question that would alter the course of my adult life (and demolish my odds of publishing anything for pleasure):

How are you doing?

My response was like Rayna's death on season five of Nashville; neither of us saw it coming.

You know that scene in Steel Magnolias, after Jack Jr. is born, when Truvy is giving Shelby that god-awful elf haircut, and Shelby is ugly-crying because cutting off her long, beautiful hair is symbolic of leaving her pre-motherhood self behind (but really she could have just as easily been crying because literally what the fuck was up with that haircut)? That was me.

The quivery lips.

The sniffly snots.

The vocal cords--squeaky and constricted.

And so. many. tears.

My nurse practitioner was like, oh, damn, okay ... I see that you are not, you know what? HERE IS SOME ZOLOFT, and just this once we're gonna crush it all up and let you snort it through a straw.

She did not actually say that.

But that was the vibe.

The bottom line? Zoloft (the generic version, as prescribed, never crushed) really (really) worked for me. Almost immediately. And ever since. Like the sun came out over both my cerebral hemispheres.

If you are a person with zero chill, that's probably because I took it.

Yes, sure, the occasional storm clouds roll in from time to time, but they're clouds--not catastrophes. My reactions to life's ups and downs feel (mostly) proportionate. Which brings me to the moral of this story, which is SSRIs KILLED MY BLOG DEAD and I may never write anything funny again. Oh well!

I used to think I had a book in me, but now it feels easier to have a book on me--and to write about the books I read so that other people might read them too. I'll keep doing that. But what else might this space be good for? I just don't know.

Do you read blogs anymore?

Do you subscribe to Substacks? Which ones?

What topics are you obsessed with at the moment?

Which thinkers and writers do you follow? And on what platforms?

How does personal writing even work anymore if you're interested in everything and don't want to pick a lane?

Calmly inquiring minds want to know.