What’s really been happening with me, over these past couple of months, is that my wife and I are separating. We celebrated our ten-year wedding anniversary this past October. Our first date was in 2009. We have two kids together; they are six and nine years old. We own a house together, and until recently we shared a Spotify “duo” account, and each of us has a change of clothes stashed at the other’s childhood home. And over the holidays we began the process of uncoupling our respective lives.
It’s a mess, obviously, and by “it” I guess I mean “I.” This relationship was the foundation upon which basically my entire life was built, and as I’ve moved through the world this past few months I’ve had the distinct sense of being untethered, of not walking but floating through the city, floating through my own emotions, ping-ponging around manically, leaving little (and not-so-little) splashes of emotion behind every time I collide with someone or something. Unexpectedly, this has felt good. It’s been sad, and confusing, and (as previously mentioned) quite messy. But it’s also been good, and beautiful, and healthy. And I’m pretty sure that it’s the right thing to be happening to me right now.
I think I’ve learned some things in the process, and I’m working on learning some more things. One thing I’ve learned is that I can increase my emotional surface area well beyond what I previously thought was possible. I can expose my feelings more deeply, and to more people, and instead of turning away they almost always listen, and empathize, and then turn around and share parts of themselves with me, and I really do believe that we all walk away better, and stronger, and healthier for having shared, and listened, and empathized. I still haven’t found the limit to this process. Maybe it can go on forever, ending only in my own transcendence; my love, and my hurt, and all of the rest of my feelings, expanding outward until they touch everything that is.
Here is another thing I’ve learned: Basically everything can be renegotiated, including things that you might think of as facts of life or hard, physical limits. Perhaps I can be more specific: I had not considered, until a week or two ago, that I could cook broccoli rabe as part of my midweek lunch-for-one, or that I might only eat half of the broccoli rabe for lunch, and leave the rest in the pot, on the stove, and then eat it as part of my dinner-for-one later that evening. I had not considered that I, a single, forty-two-year-old man, might smile to myself as I put a bouquet of tulips on my kitchen counter on a Saturday morning, even though I don’t have a spouse, or kids around on Saturdays, to admire and appreciate the gesture. I had not considered that the acts of vacuuming and then wet mopping the entire house might grow to be sources of real personal catharsis, tasks that I’d look forward to doing on Mondays, and also sometimes on Fridays. I had not considered that I might listen to the same song on repeat for two solo days as I walk around the city, getting drinks, and talking with people about how much I’ve been crying, and then coming home to my empty apartment, and putting that same song on repeat again, and sitting in my recently-redecorated living room, and writing about my feelings for hours into the night. I had not considered that I might allow myself to make extended eye contact with strangers on the train. I had not considered that I might tell my kids to stop asking me whether they can have another cookie; the pantry is right there, and they can make their own decisions about how many cookies are appropriate on a Wednesday afternoon. I had not considered that my roles as a romantic partner, and as a parent, and as a homeowner might actually be distinct from one another. I had not considered that parenting might feel as easy and rewarding, or as impossibly challenging, as it has recently. I had not considered that one could cry this much, or this hard, or be brought to tears by such a wide range of things. I had not considered that I could feel so overwhelmingly happy in (at least some of) the moments in which I am crying. I had not considered that I would feel so optimistic and excited while struggling through what will undoubtedly be one of the biggest personal crises in my life.
I am now considering all of these possibilities, these realities. The act of considering them is affecting my work. It’s affecting my entire life, of course, but the effect it’s having on my work is one of the reasons I’m sharing any of this with you today. In person, I’ve been quite explicit about the shift: “I write about my feelings for a living,” I’ve begun telling people, and while I go on to explain that I do so from the perspective of someone who’s interested in, you know, engineering or manufacturing or construction or whatever, still the reality is that the things I’m writing at the moment are all on some level about the emotional experiences I’m having, and the ones I’ve had in the past. I am using my writing to increase my emotional surface area. This is, if I’m being totally honest, something I’ve been trying to do for a long time. Still I find it unexpected, and challenging, and stressful, and rewarding.
So, what are the other reasons why I’m sharing all of this with you today? In theory I’d like to offer you some idea of what you can expect from me in the months to come, but what that is I can’t really say. I suppose I also want your empathy, but actually I’ve been realizing recently that it is my own empathy that is the most sustaining and ultimately necessary for my survival. Partly I just want to send these words out into the world, and then take a step back, and read them again, and notice that they’re true.
But I think that the real reason I’m sharing all of this is the one I mentioned earlier: I can expand my emotional surface area, and doing so feels genuinely good, and I’ve yet to find a reason not to continue doing it.
So there it is. That’s what’s really been happening with me.
Love you, guys 💞
