#118: A Gray Day in New York

notes on a difficult transition <3

Disclaimer: this post is a bummer! If you’re feeling delicate today, maybe skip it. Or read on and commiserate. <3

I’m typing with a menstrual migraine having just bled through a cute new pair of underwear I got for Christmas. On Saturday my college laptop officially saw the light, crossed over, and left me frozen and garbled in a Zoom. On Sunday, I bought a brand new laptop in the shade starlight. I bought it in full. I wanted to do the 0% APR monthly payments but the salesgirl was sweet and thorough and Midwestern and she didn’t mention them and I didn’t want to ask and make her feel like she’d missed something. I don’t know what APR is. On Sunday, I lost my job. Well, most of my job. I’ve had a contract with a social media marketing agency for five years, and for the last two it has been responsible for the bulk of my freelance work. They cut the whole marketing team. The marketing agency did.

We’re in New York now. Did I mention that? We left LA and then the fires decimated the neighborhood next to ours. Or what used to be next to ours. Now we’re a continent away. Without a neighborhood yet.

I woke up from a panic attack I thought was food poisoning at 3am. I just kept thinking I have to call Erica and tell her we have food poisoning. She’s going to feel so sick. We had had dinner with Erica and Nolan the night before and Erica and I ordered the same stew. I didn’t have food poisoning though. It was a panic that rumbled me awake, belly first. I kneeled over the toilet and tried to hurl but the stew stayed put. I have never pulled trigg. This is a brag. Maybe a loaded one. I’m sorry about that. As I was kneeling over the toilet, which let’s be real, is enough to make me puke without poisoning or panic, I had this awful, dreadful feeling that something terrible was going to happen. And then I remembered that something terrible was happening. It just wasn’t happening to me. LA was burning. My friends’ homes. The rattlesnake we saw on a Will Rogers trail. I felt that way about Gaza. The adjacence to tragedy. But this time it felt closer. Even though it was no longer my home.

I called Papaw at 5am. I thought he would be awake. Mamaw answered. He wasn’t. But she didn’t say that. She just handed him the phone. He calmed me down as I choked and sobbed and blubbered. He told me he was proud of me. That he loved me. That I was alright. That bad things happen and they are terrible and sad. But that LA would be alright too. I didn’t realize Mamaw was sitting awake in bed worried sick, waiting to hear what happened. I forgot being sick with worry is contagious. We talked for an hour and twelve minutes, until I felt calmed enough to go back to sleep, stew sitting softly in my gut.

This is all out of order, as is my mind. I feel limbotic, which isn’t a word. I mean I feel in limbo. Perhaps I feel limbic, on edge, the edge of the emotional center in my brain. Teetering there limbotically. I just feel between, unsettled, insecure. The first four days in New York City, it was 28 degrees outside, and inside we didn’t have heat. Every part of my body was taut with the effort of staying warm. We were perpetually exhausted, freezing while LA burned. Then I got sick. A nasty cold that threw me to the ground in aches. I stayed horizontal for days. Except when touring. We saw 19 apartments in two weeks. We found one, eventually. After much trial and tribulation. A rent-stabilized place in Chelsea, $700 under our budget. The metropolitan gods smiled upon us.

But now back to the present. I have a bulbous pussing zit on my Adam’s apple. I lost my job. I’m worried about money, of which I have little and even less coming in. Growing up my parents always worried about money. The whole world is always worrying about money. Today, tomorrow, for all time. I don’t want to trade the price of eggs for my reproductive rights or my family’s marriages or birthright or healthcare or pissing in a public restroom, but obviously I also want a goddamn omelette. It was never an either or anyway. It’s never a fair trade. Everything feels bad. I feel bad. And I’m sorry.

Did I mention I’ve been crying all morning? It’s 4pm. I’ve been crying all morning and afternoon then. The typing is helping with the crying because I have to blink away the glisten to read the text. My phone is in black and white mode which is helping with my dopamine addiction but perhaps is also causing withdrawals. Maybe that’s contributing to the crying, too.

Sometimes I feel fine. Optimistic. Excited. Thrilled, even, for this new adventure. But today I feel bad. And usually I try to suck this shit up. But today I wanted to share it with you. There are much bigger problems in the world, some of which I incoherently mentioned above, but these are the ones sitting elephant-style on my chest today. I don’t know why it would, but I hope seeing my elephant makes your own feel a little more feather-light.

Please consider donating mutual aid to those recovering from the LA fires.

And if you know anyone looking for a copywriter (preferably remote, freelance, or in NYC), please let me know.

ily bye,

Ariana

P.S. I wrote this yesterday after a particularly difficult string of days. Already, I feel better. More hopeful, regulated, and optimistic. But yesterday when I felt called to write this, the feelings lodged in this post were visceral and real. I don’t want to sanitize my experience. Change is hard. I am okay. I’m doing better already, but it feels important to share the difficult bits along with the heartening ones.

P.P.S. I’ve missed you! Happy New Year! It’s good to be back. <3