FML (but embrace it too)

I read an article recently about a woman who got bored during Covid and found an old box of antique jewelry pieces in her closet, which she assembled into new jewelry and put up on Etsy. She sold them within minutes. Then she made more, and sold more. Even sold a few pieces to celebrities. Now this woman runs a jewelry boutique and is wildly successful. All because she got bored.

Some people have that, you know. An extra oomph, a Midas touch that turns everything to gold. They can pick up a thing and it explodes into confetti and rainbows overnight. Me? I have the opposite.

The shit that happens to me is often so messed up that people are in awe of it. I received this comment recently - a few days ago in fact - after explaining why I needed a day off to deal with the ever-expanding array of bullshit that is my life.

Now, I won’t lie. That article irritated me. Because of the curse factor I seem to carry into every endeavor. I don’t have the gene that gives me the confidence to think whatever I take up in this life will be so awesome it must be shared. I have a completed novel that I absolutely love and it resides in its proper folder in my filing cabinet.

Nothing has been easy for me. I only learn the hard damn way and every inch of success I fought for, and fought hard. Tooth and nail, blood and tears.

It occurred to me recently during a standard session of bill pay that it’s so easy for that mundane nothingness to consume us. That feeling of getting to the next day, the next thing, the next and next and next. And I thought about how no one sees that struggle, the inbetween-ness of you. No one cares that Walt Disney declared bankruptcy, only that he created the happiest place on earth. Or that Oprah was once fired from her job as a news anchor, because it doesn’t much matter now that she’s fucking Oprah.

So I was thinking, maybe it’s time to take some stuff out of the drawer, and for a moment pretend I’m like that jewelry chick. That the world desperately needs this shit I did one day when I got bored. Or more accurately, what I created over years of turmoil and hardship and endurance in the plague of nothing is ever good enough.

I recently finished a season of my favorite show only to be let down by its writers, who were obviously cutting corners to satisfy the Netflix gods. I started writing my own version, and it came out like a faucet. No writer’s block and no second guessing. I just knew what that character deserved and I intended to give it. Then I put it out there, not caring if it ever explodes into anything. It’s a fanfic, after all, so what reason do I have to take it too seriously?

Maybe life is like that too. And if you’re out there and you’re reading this from a corner you cleared for yourself somewhere in a drawer, just know that you’re not the only one. I feel all of that. But also, it doesn’t hurt to get out of there. Pull up a chair next to the jewelry chick. Fake it if you have to. Fail. Fuck it all up. But don’t wait for that next thing. It’s probably more bills, anyway.