Jenny Lawson @TheBloggess has the coolest friends. It’s really not fair. I am belatedly reading/listening* Furiously Happy. First, she mentioned her friend Neil Gaiman @NeilGaiman helping her through her first audio book recording. And I’m like, no way?!. Then she name drops Brene Brown @BreneBrown, and I actually turn covetous, like an evil Disney queen. Now (in the book) she’s explaining the spoon theory her friend conceived. Seriously, life is cruelly unfair. To boot, she’s brilliant. Her mind whips through quirkily-joined ideas swiftly, taking blind curves at blistering speeds. It’s like she’s super-human. Then I remembered that I was listening to her at x1.75 speed. When I slowed it down to x1.0 speed, I felt just a wee bit better about myself.
*I thought I could squash together aurally reading to be aur-reading, but then that sounds like R-rating out loud. And most people hear oral when you say aural, so I’m stuck with reading/listening.
My brain so readily talks shit about myself. I never envisioned that I would end up a middle-aged analysts and obscure blogger. I thought that I’d be publishing by now. But then I remind myself about what my friend**, Anne Lamott, said about publishing versus writing in the introduction to Bird by Bird. Publishing isn’t all that it’s cut out to be. To write is the objective. Regardless of who reads it.
**Ok. She’s not my friend. She has no idea who I am. But she’s on my bucket list of people I’d love to name-drop as friends. Mostly, because my mom loves her. And her writing. I do, too, but my mom kicks ass, so if she loves someone’s writing then you know that they are good people.
So then I realize that for me it isn’t really about publishing. It’s about being heard/read. And finding people who get you and accept you. What I want of Jenny Lawson’s experience is not fame. It’s is the connections that she has made. So then I remind myself that I have more friends than I can tend. I have great friends. Really, I have the best friends. Let me tell you about just a few.
I have a dear friend who lost 100 pounds after gastric bypass surgery, now runs marathons, and has an instagram following that has inspired numerous post-bypass people to being running. How inspiring is that?
I have a friend who worked for the VA for years and now does private consulting on ethics. Yes. There are people and organizations still concerned about how we treat others.
I have a friend who organized a bunch of artists, created a zine, and hosted a pop-art showing of depictions based on variations on the word, pussy, to raise money for Planned Parenthood.
I have a friend who is an artistic, former scientist, now writing a book and to date has outlived a terminal diagnosis.
I have a friend who writes grant proposals to get tiny funds to then muck out into the San Francisco bay to plant natives and pull invading plants so that clapper-rails can continue to breed.
I have a friend who’s youngest son is currently winning the battle against cancer. She is among the strongest women I know.
I have friends who have published books, written comics, made movies, created Film Festivals out of thin air.
I have friends who live ordinary, stress-filled, parent and work oriented lives in spite of having chronic illnesses and being in constant pain.
I have a friend who is estranged from his family because he’s gay. It’s 2018 people. Surely we cannot still be disowning people?
I could go on and on. If I actually managed to send out a holiday greeting card each year to all the people I love, I would have to budget for it.
Honestly. I have the coolest friends.
I haven’t even mentioned family!
But that is all I needed to write to remind myself that I’ve a wonderful life.
*** I didn’t disclose the actual links or names of any of these friends because I don’t want to bother them at less 7 something AM.