I'm A Derelict and a Dumpster Fire and Generally Just Really Sorry

CW: pet death, mental health talk, job loss

I’ve had some version of this post in drafts for a while, where it’s been keeping company with more than a dozen other drafts I’ve had too much doubt to hit “publish” on. Part of my hesitation is that this website is platforming Nazis and TERFs and I’m feeling guilty about driving any traffic here. I also had writer’s block and felt like everything I was writing was the hottest garbage on Earth—I’m talking Death Valley, CA temps in this dumpster.

Then, I lost my job three times in four months (it’s a helluva time to be a federal civil servant, please support federal workers, y’all) and I was so consumed with how the judge in my case was going to rule and whether I would still have health insurance and whether I could find another job in an oversaturated job market as a disabled, burned out, recovering trial attorney who physically can’t litigate anymore that focusing on anything that wasn’t the job search felt frivolous.

Meanwhile, my parents sold my childhood home (where I was living) to move out-of-state, so I decided to finally move to my brother’s house and be more than just a part-time caretaker of his home. On the eve of my parents’ move, we celebrated my dog’s eighteenth birthday. That’s right, my dog, who the vet said would need to be put to sleep in February, turned eighteen in early May.

Between February and May, we had plenty of adventures, even though we didn’t walk as far or as fast as we used to. Every time the vet checked in, she admitted it was surprising, but he seemed fine and happy, and unless I noticed he was having a hard time or suffering in any way, I could keep spoiling him.

I took him to a nearby farm to meet some retired horses. Then I took him on a kayak to see the intercoastal where he was very taken with the seabirds. I fed him all the red meat I had the budget for despite my dwindling assets (and reaped my reward in the form of the most noxious dog farts you can imagine). I let him stop to say hi to anyone he wanted to greet on our walks, which, it turns out, was absolutely everybody. I bought him special stairs to help him get on and off my bed so we could spoon. I woke up in the middle of the night to take him out to pee and more than once, cleaned up a different kind of mess in the house because he hadn’t woken either of us up in time to make it to the yard. When there were messes, I’d comfort him and tell him it was okay. I’d remind him that it wasn’t his fault. Then I’d turn his heating pad on and we’d snuggle again.

On the day of my parents’ move, he was noticeably slower and sleepier. I told them when I got back to my brother’s house in a few days, I’d have the vet put him to sleep in his favorite sunning spot in the yard because I didn’t want him to struggle or suffer. As my dog and I followed my parents to the new place, I heard a sound from his cozy spot in the backseat that worried me. When I pulled over to check on him, I knew instantly that something was wrong. He had contralateral paralysis—a classic stroke symptom.

Twenty minutes later, my sister met us at some random urgent care in some random shopping plaza in some random town. She brought short rib in a Ziploc bag and, together, we fed chunks of the fatty, aromatic beef into one side of his mouth, which he happily gulped down despite his enervated tongue flopping out the other side. We told him all the things we loved about him and would miss about him. And less than an hour later, we hugged him and kissed him and stroked his downy ears for the last time as a random vet stopped his heart. For a moment, it felt like my heart had been stopped too.

In that time, I’ve acclimated to life without my stinky dog, even if my days and my heart still feel desperately empty. At the start of June, I got into a gym routine for the first time since I caught Covid. (The competitive gym rat sprinting on the running wheel in my brain says it’s only twenty minutes of lifting the cast iron equivalent of water bottles and soup cans four days a week, but the woman who lived through having to learn how to swallow again and being unable to walk to the end of the block knows that’s eighty more minutes and four more days each week than I was able to manage any year since 2021. It feels like an achievement and I’m going to celebrate it as such.)

Around the same time, a bunch of neighbors ferreted out that I’m a reliable arts-and-crafts house and invited themselves over to make signs for the big protest. I handed out facemasks, invited an EMT to teach some basic first aid, and gave a primer on what to do if you’ve been arrested. (Repeat after me, “I won’t say anything until I’ve had the chance to talk to my lawyer.”)

And, oh yeah, I started a new job in the private sector.

I also talked myself into a number of panic attacks, convinced that I’d lose this private sector job to Long Covid just like I lost the last one. The worst of the panic attacks happened while I was on a walk. I was so dissociated that I didn’t notice a friend waving at me, her worried questions, or her gentle ministrations. I partially came-to after she convinced me to sit down and splashed some ice water on my neck.

I have a vague recollection of her searching my fanny pack (I am a fashion icon, thankyouverymuch) for my KN95, carefully feeding the loops around my ears, and making sure the fit was snug before loading me into the car her husband had brought around to drive us home. I also remember her making me dinner, waiting while I took a shower, and tucking me into bed. The next day she drove to my house and rang my doorbell five times and called my phone at least twice as many until I finally opened the door, red-faced and mortified that someone I had only known a few months had witnessed one of the worst mental health episodes of my adult life. She surprised me by throwing her arms around me and telling me she loved me and that because she loved me I needed to get my ass back in therapy and this time, I needed to try EMDR. Then she pressed a list into my palm of practitioners who could see me remotely and would take my insurance. My very rational response was to shower her with messy, snotty tears. And gratitude. Apparently this didn’t scare her away because she invited me to her game night to meet her best friends. A few weeks later, she invited me to her birthday party.

And all the while, so much time went by without posting that I felt like a grifter who had taken people’s money and run. It made the writer’s block worse.

In between shooting furtive, guarded glances at the pile of half-written essays and lists upon lists of writing ideas; avoiding looking directly at the corner of the room where my laptop lives; and generally feeling queasy when anyone asked about my writing, I restarted therapy and began EMDR. I carved out decompression time for myself, which has included liveblogging my viewings of classic movies that are either new to me or that I haven’t seen in a really long time. So far, I’ve posted about Jaws, Alien, and Jurassic Park on BlueSky. It felt really good to write about fictional characters, cinema, storytelling, and media literacy—so good, in fact, that I got on my own case about avoiding it for the past five months. When I talked about this with my therapist, she asked me why I’m always so hard on myself. We spent three sessions unpacking the answer to that question.

Last week, I had a Zoom call with a friend who lovingly convinced me to start writing again—whether I chose to explain my absence or not, whether I chose to migrate my newsletter to a different platform or not, whether I chose to publish my drafts or not, and whether I decided to change the focus of the newsletter or not. So here I am, writing this quasi-update, quasi-apology, quasi-request.

The update, you’ve read. Now time for the apology.

I’m sorry I’ve been MIA. I’m even more sorry to all the paid subscribers who put their money behind this newsletter only to get zilch, squat, bupkis. I feel like a huge asshole and I’d like to figure out how to reimburse you. It’s going to take me a bit, so if you don’t see an update right away, I haven’t forgotten. I’m just not technologically savvy. And I have ADHD.

As for the request: I’m ready to start writing again, but I want to make sure I’m doing it on a platform that isn’t up to some serious fuckshit from an ethics perspective and offers some modicum of discoverability. I’m looking for (and struggling to find) an alternative to Substack that fits the bill. If you wanted to come along for the ride, I’d love to have you, but the first step is finding a new home. So if you have any recommendations, ideas, or thoughts, please please please let me know.

Yours, despite the passage of time,

Hype