An interview published in The Paris Review’s spring edition caused me to go into a state of reflection. Author Rachel Cusk discussed many things in the article, namely going through a period of isolation when she was younger in which she cut off the world and wrote, the self-discovery that happened in that time, and the search for an authentic self.
Like ghosts stirring back to life, it resurrected susurrations from the two years I spent at rock bottom of my depression after ending my marriage. I’d wanted out, only to discover how much of myself I had tangled up in him, in our life, in something that was convenient so I didn’t have to face my trauma anymore. After years of therapy, I thought that was it. My happily ever after. A small, lovely wedding and a small, lovely life. At least, that’s what it should have been.
Rugs aren’t permanent. With time, they wear and fray and reveal the layers of dust and secrets beneath. It happens to relationships, too, when not nurtured, cared for and when two people are so caught up in their own struggles – addiction, mental illness, trauma, all three of which were present in my marriage – that even the frays crumble and there’s nothing left to mend. Just dust of a foundation that once meant something.
It wasn’t only the fallout of the marriage from which I was having to heal. It was also my mental illnesses and the rest of my trauma. The lack of knowing who I was beforehand, the nothingness in which I dwelt, left me desolate.
When Cusk describes sitting in her parents’ empty house for months on end, writing furiously, from the gut of some fiery passion, that’s what I longed for. Some spark of inspiration that would bring back what writing meant to me. It didn’t heal anymore. That anguish, the flood of emotions old and new being regurgitated never came. I simply shut down into numbness, barely functioning through work and coming home to a house I didn’t want to be in. Since I couldn’t bring myself to write, I partied and drank instead, which inevitably only made the spiral worse. Like – a bottle of rum a night. For consecutive nights. I was hungover at work often, existing in this soulless blur where the world made no sense and I no longer wanted to be here.
The ghosts grew louder, beckoning me to join them. I’d drive home from work and stare at a semi-truck’s oncoming headlights, wondering if the horrific impact would be enough. I’d gaze at a bottle of whatever pills I had at home, contemplating how many it would take. Or I’d pull out a knife and wonder if I was capable of it. If I could make it deep enough. These were the bleakest days where I thought I was hiding from the worst of it. But I was only drowning, and fast, convinced no one would even notice if I died. (I was incredibly wrong, of course.)
(Image by jonathan rossi from Pixabay)
I remember little between the summer of 2017 and late 2018. Those years may as well have not existed, because all I did was flap recklessly and desperately against the bars of a self-imposed prison cage, screaming silently but doing nothing to find a way out. I suffocated myself but never enough to make it the end. Some nights I’d end up broken down, crying, on my kitchen floor after looking at my dog and cats and knowing they’d forever wonder why I never came home. I couldn’t bring myself to abandon them.
I took on the challenge to go dry for January 2019. Once the withdrawal wore off, it gave me clarity and space to think, a fresher breath in stale air.
And I needed to write something, damn it.
I looked at my poor draft from “Edge of Glory”, the remnants of what had become a love/hate relationship with writing. It gutted me to face the truth: I had outgrown the story, and its characters. The me who wrote the original story was not who I was anymore. I wouldn’t shelf it completely until 2020, but crawling my way into 2019, sobering up, made me long to write something new. I had to prove to myself I could still do it – or else I really did have no will to keep living.
The basis of Alyssa’s character had been in my mind for many years, but starting “Beyond Dark” that January allowed me to truly focus on her and her story. I went down a completely new rabbit hole of writing crime fiction, which felt so liberating after all my years of obsessing over true crime. It brought me back to life, truly. Through Alyssa and her need for answers to her trauma, I came to further understand my own, and in her need to heal, I discovered the same for myself. “Belladonna” and it’s theme of reflections stems largely from the state I was in at the time. Looking not only at myself, but within myself and learning why I had gone down a darkened road of terrifying self-destruction, where headlights were a means to an end, not a light at the end of a tunnel.
Her journey of re-connecting with the world looks a lot like mine. The fear of meeting new people, the insecurity of socializing after being numb and so traumatized for so long. And how different the world looked when I returned from that road. I cut way back on drinking, started writing again, began going out to bars and socializing again. I dyed my hair, was redoing my entire wardrobe, truly delving into who I was going to be in this brave, brand new world I’d found where I was going to writing conferences, talking in front of people with confidence and making new friends and going to singles’ events and -
Then, COVID.
Watching the world shut down and devolve oddly into division and the disinformation of the far-right rhetoric, and even recently here in Canada with the spiteful protests and the hatred seeping through comment sections on social media, the toxicity and isolation feels awful. To be honest, there are times where I think, “I didn’t stay alive for this.”
But didn’t I? Didn’t I always hold out a tiny glimmer of hope that there is better in the world? That I could be better, give better, and find better? This pandemic has brought on another bout of identity crisis. Who am I now going to be after all this? It was during this pandemic that I published “Belladonna”, then wrote and am next month releasing “Martha Holmes Mysteries”. Two books that have shaped greatly my self-discovery in this bizarre time.
In Martha, I’ve begun unloading the unresolved feelings and pieces of my ended marriage, and the life that comes after it. I’ve sort of separated my childhood trauma and the need to process the marital fallout into these two characters. That wasn’t consciously done, but my brain has always automatically compartmentalized. Martha’s story started as me wanting to experiment with meshing a “Sex and the City” style women’s fiction storyline with mystery, but it quickly evolved into its own aesthetic. It became more about healing after betrayal and heartbreak, instead of jumping into the dating world again. It’s become about unshakable female friendships, that love doesn’t always have to be romantic, and about finding life after love. Her career as a private investigator shifts quickly from busting adulterous spouses to her and her best friend, Daisy, wanting to solve cold cases – a testament to the personal journey she undergoes, too.
Between Alyssa and Martha, I have discovered a sense of authenticity for myself. I’ve become content to be single, on my own, and lost the need to constantly be in a relationship. I’ve been single for almost four years after taking a weird and baffling venture into the online dating world (seriously, how do you people do it??). I deleted the apps and swore it off. Then, I kept writing.
All dark times come to an end. In the same way I saw an end to my suicidal period, this pandemic will end. The post-COVID world will look and be different, no doubt. But something else I’ve learned is that the ending of one period, one era, doesn’t have to be bad. Many systems in society are simply no longer sustainable. We’re realizing that on a mass scale. Many injustices, attitudes, and actions are not sustainable or acceptable, either. We can be the better in this aftermath. But what’s more important is this: if all you’ve done for the last two or three years is exist and survive through this, that’s okay. These periods don’t last forever. The time to thrive and rediscover the world is coming.
This wasn’t where I thought I was going with this post. But here it is. On a large scale during this pandemic, we’ve all gone through this huge identity crisis, be it personal or societal. And in a time where no one really knew what to do during lockdowns and isolations and during such a time of loss and devastation, many people turned to art, both in consuming and creating. Many found the healing it can bring, as well as the ability to find soulfulness and authenticity. It has continued my own journey into finding my authenticity. Who I will be after this pandemic will look differently from who I thought I was going to be before it began.
That’s not nearly as daunting as it was back in 2017. In fact, as we’re slowly able to tread back into the world, I anticipate meeting who I’m going to be this time. More confident? More assertive in her boundaries and what she wants? More driven, more focused on her writing career? Well-versed in her identity as a writer, making it simpler to find who she is personally and as a single woman?
Hello, world. It’s been a while.
The article, for those interested (behind a paywall but what is readable is really intriguing!)
(Image by Jackson David from Pixabay)