In April I take things apart

I’m writing this now because I have no choice. In the aftermath of a rushed, since-deleted statement. Dragged publicly into a reality I wasn’t ready to accept. What’s an announcement to nearly half a million people on Instagram when I haven’t yet been able to say it out loud to my mother?

You’d think I’d be well practiced at extending grace for the decisions people make when they are in pain. Grace has been thrust on me since I was a child, and it’s less beautiful when you are constantly on assignment, when it’s routine and not miraculous.

But now, there’s a 170lb, 6ft obstacle in the way of my work. It’s preventing me from getting a chapter to my literary agent, to do the only thing that I’ve wanted my entire life. Should I be grateful that he’s still there? That I won’t feel him on top of me or beside me, but I can keep him a little bit longer, as a problem. I’m going to enjoy his gravity as long as I can; his pull will inevitably dissipate.

It’s preventing me from making myself a blank slate for brands. My job is to be aspirational. I am a mess of unremarkable accomplishments, like getting out of bed and moving laundry from the washer to the dryer before it starts to stink and taking 48 hours to gather the strength to unclog a toilet and scrub my 7-year-old’s dry poo flakes off the bowl.

I am tasked with selling people my life, but today I was daydreaming (is there a word for daynightmaring?) after I dropped the kids at school, when I almost rear-ended a semi. As I swerved to the shoulder, I thought, “Oh, that would have been nice.” To be fair, that’s not entirely new.