Je suis à Paris. J’adore Paris. Yesterday I sat in the reading room of Shakespeare and Company, wrote in my notebook, and pretended to be A Writer. (I am a writer. But I am A Reader.)
I’m grieving dooce by going through her archives and reading this post while I am in Paris is extra beautiful. I was cranky and tired and in pain the day we got here, and even so as soon as I stepped out of the train station into the city, it took my breath away. I’ve always suspected Paris would be my heart’s true home (I was born on Bastille Day) and it’s lovely to have it confirmed.
Content Warning: Suicide
There’s an AP news piece confirming what I suspected when I first saw Manton’s post about Heather Armstrong’s death.
Heather Armstrong, also known as dooce, was a prolific personal blogger, called “queen of the mommy bloggers,” a writer of books, a person who lived with depression and alcoholism. She was an early and high-profile example of someone who lost her job because of her blog. Her episode of The Hilarious World of Depression is one of my favorites. I didn’t read her blog consistently at all but I definitely read it both in some of its earliest days and in the past couple of years. She has been an influence on me without me even realizing it.
Armstrong leaves behind two children.
A little over sixteen years ago, my friend Sherrie died by suicide. It sent me into a big anxious spiral. Sherrie left behind a four-year-old son.
When my brother was a baby or toddler and I was fourteen or fifteen (and my sister was eight or nine), my mom had untreated hypothyroidism, pernicious anemia, and depression. She had suicidal ideations. She later told me that she didn’t act on them because my brother needed her. She believed my sister and I would have been fine.
We would not have been fine.
Even though I know that she was listening to the lies depression tells, I felt angry hearing that we were not enough to stay alive for.
Depression makes me so angry. Suicide makes me so angry.
I, too, live with depression. It’s usually in remission.
Every day, I choose to live. Most of all for my son, but also for myself, for the rest of the family. I think about how angry I am when I hear someone has died by suicide. I think about how I don’t want the people I love to feel that anger. I think about how I don’t want them to be angry at me.
I don’t have a strong conclusion for this post. Depression is bullshit and I wish nobody ever had to deal with it.
Starting Season 7 in my rewatch of Star Trek: The Next Generation, finding myself very glad there’s so much other Trek media including TNG tie-ins so I basically never have to say goodbye to my Enterprise D friends. 🖖🏻📺
Want to read: The Witch of Woodland by Laurel Snyder 📚
🔖📝 Read My Commitment to Wellness as a Lifelong Writer by Yolande House — Breathing Space Creative
I’ve learned that honouring my needs each and every day is a part of what loving myself looks like. When I finally learned how to love myself, I learned it’s not a goal with an end. Rather, it’s a process of committing and being true to myself each and every day, even when (and especially when) it’s hard.
Over the past week, I’ve worked through Esmé Weijun Wang’s workshop, Building a Writing Habit While Living with Limitations. In the workshop, we assess our limitations, set writing goals, inventory our resources, explore how we can make the most of our 24 hours. Highly recommend, $117. 📝
🔖📚 Read BookTok encourages reading as an aesthetic and no one is safe from its gaze by Elena Cavender (Mashable).
Insightful piece about how limiting our reading to a particular aesthetic connects with our attention being commodified.
Finished reading: Mr. & Mrs. Witch by Gwenda Bond 📚
Loved it. Scorchingly hot, fun secret agent hijinks. Highly recommend.
I am reading Gwenda Bond’s Mr. & Mrs. Witch right now and one of the 🔥 scenes actually made me cry because it was so beautiful and made me so happy. 📚