I didn’t know that all the therapy and journaling and meditation and “work on myself” I did would eventually start to pay off, and that after a lifetime of worrying that people might not like me, I would learn to love and trust myself enough that it would finally stop mattering so much what strangers thought and I could FREAKING RELAX.

10

I didn’t know I could actually change .

What is both really irritating and really beautiful about life’s good surprises is we can’t know what they’re going to be or when they’ll show up. When I’m in a depressed or anxious place, which I sometimes am because work-in-progress, the hardest part is feeling like things will suck forever. That I know what life will bring and it will all be TERRIBLE AND HARD! But this is a lie.

For the times when I feel this way, I keep a list of all the wonderful things in my life that I could never have predicted or imagined, so I can pull it out and see the evidence that it’s just as safe to trust the future as it is to fear it. The truth is we don’t know. We don’t know! And that’s okay, and not only is it okay, but there’s actually beauty in not knowing, because it gives us the opportunity to be astonished.

Life also came at me this year with some shitty things like a brain tumor and autoimmune problems and a bunch of other garbage and is that fun? No. It is not.

When the hard things happen, I allow space to feel sadness, anger, fear; pushing away the bad feelings or trying to cover them up with bright-siding or gratitude is not helpful.

But I also try to remember that the story isn’t over, and I can’t know, today, what will be “bad” and what will be “good” in the end, nor can I predict what the future holds. Sometimes, when one door closes, it just closes. But sometimes, while you’re standing there banging on the same old stupid door, the best surprises climb in through the window behind you.

And when I’m tempted to future-trip on brain surgery and all kinds of horrible what-ifs, I remember the versions of myself who existed before, who even in a pandemic, even with the diagnoses, even with the uncertainty that permeates everything around us, couldn’t begin to imagine the beauty to come.

Thanks for being here.

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1

Also the host of the beloved “Terrible, Thanks for Asking” podcast, the author of five books, TED talker, and live event storyteller, and yes I’m biased because she’s also my friend, but if you’re not familiar with her work: check it out.

2

This would be hard in 2023, but in 1982 it was REALLY REALLY hard.

3

30 years, max

4

I felt vindicated, but I also had cancer, so my victory was anticlimactic at best.

5

By now, I’ve also experienced many hard things that I never even thought to worry about, and I now know that worrying about them in advance wouldn’t have made them easier.

6

Tools I’ve used: cognitive-behavioral therapy, mindfulness/meditation, breathwork, somatic therapy, journaling

7

Literally the only necklace I’d ever made

8

The answer was no; the truth was I was working as a temp in my alma mater’s development office, calling alumni and asking for money.

9

I did this for two years, pre-Etsy, pre-online shopping, receiving orders from stores via fax, until I got bored stringing beads all day and applied to portfolio school.

10

TBH I think part of this can be credited to menopause.

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