“I need some time alone so I can appreciate you someday when you’re gone.”
Boundaries, what are boundaries?
Greetings from NYC where I am so thrilled to be. The city has always felt like a national park to me, the scale and thrum is comfortably humbling in the same way it feels to stand in a grove of towering redwoods or at the edge of the Grand Canyon. I can’t wait to roam the streets. In the meantime, I hope you find the below helpful.
This week’s prompts are inspired by a question a friend asked me this week: “How do you have boundaries with people you love when you know you’re going to lose them sooner rather than later?” This could be aging parents or other family members, people you are caregiving for or not, a partner or friend with whom you know time is short. I answered with a wiscrack: “Just tell them you need some time alone now so that you can appreciate them one day when they’re gone.” But also, I was serious!
In 2020, and the long seemingly endless middle of the pandemic, me and my family were living in a construction zone, washing dishes in the shower, while I was trying to keep my mom from dying of Covid so she could die from pancreatic cancer. It was a dark time punctuated by moments of extreme beauty. I was full of anticipatory grief for what was coming. That is, I knew I’d miss her terribly, horrifically, forever and also, I couldn’t sit in that realization the whole day long because it was like swallowing lava. I needed to take breaks from all that precious time to watch Indian Matchmaker and eat salt and vinegar chips alone in my bed and ignore text messages. I suppose you could call this “boundaries” or “self care” but those words have always annoyed and confused me. I would call it “numbing out because otherwise I will suffocate” or “life support streaming time” or “what you have to do to survive another day without murdering someone who’s probably dying anyway or saying something you’ll regret and then spend years feeling guilty about.”
So this week we are going to give ourselves a little gift. It’s the only kind of self-care I believe in:
FORGIVENESS
For you.
Though once you give it to yourself, you tend to share it with others too.
These prompts are meant to inspire you— not limit or intimidate you. To that end, put your phone in airplane mode if you can and set a timer for 7 minutes. You can always write (or think) for longer if you so choose, but I find 7 minutes to be kind of magical. Second, tell yourself that you are already excellent, perfect even—if only for 7 minutes (you have the rest of your life to criticize yourself). Third, whenever you get stuck, choose a sensation to describe (a taste, sound, sight, smell, noise, etc). Let me know how it goes! If you’d like, you can post your response in the comments section or on Instagram by tagging @laurel_braitman.
You walk into a magical elevator with a single button that says forgiveness. You have 7 min, the amount of time you’re in the elevator to write down every single thing you’d like to be forgiven for. Anything you write will be forgiven by the time the door opens. Go.
You are suddenly able to travel backwards in time but not as yourself. You can only choose to be someone else who deserves your forgiveness. Describe a moment in this person’s or other being’s life, but as them, using the first person and also present tense. Try to engage all your senses and feel free to use dialogue.
If you’d like, you can post your response(s) in the comments section or on Instagram by tagging @laurel_braitman and I’ll find them.
Until recently I hadn’t been to Disneyland since I was 12 years old. It feels ungodly expensive now and there is an app you have to learn to navigate and so many Disney tip boards and websites dedicated to helping you understand the park that it’s all a little overwhelming…but omg we went a few weeks ago in honor of my nephew’s 9th birthday and watching him and my other nephews gaze at fake elephants in a fake forest with real joy was a happiness that I’m taking to the grave. What I thought would feel like ground zero of American capitalism and a gross commercialization of childhood felt like the opposite of that. Or rather, that exists too…right alongside the delight and the exquisite detail of the rides and grounds and the deliciousness of the caramel apples. I was blown away by how much I love it.
Another unexpectedly delightful thing has been MEETING YOU IN PERSON. I am still in somewhat of a fugue state after seeing so many of you in Ojai, Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco. Hearing your stories about your own lost loved ones (human and nonhuman), your own floods and wildfires, your dating travails, and your own epic journeys and broken/mending/mended hearts has been an honor of a lifetime. Thank you.
One person who came out in Portland and introduced herself is the poet Joy Sullivan. Following her on IG is like medicine for your feed, I swear it.
New York City! Tomorrow night, April 7th I will be in chatting with the amazing Maria Popova of Brainpickings/the Marginalian at PandT Knitwear. Info here.
Stanford University! On April 15th I’ll be giving the keynote lecture at the Medical Humanities and the Arts Symposium at the Stanford School of Medicine. Info here.
Los Angeles! June 14th I will be in conversation with the wonderful Hope Edelman (bestselling author of Motherless Daughters, Motherless Mothers and much more) at Zibby’s Bookshop. Info here.
If you don’t happen to be in those places, or if you’re looking for writing workshops and not book events, do not fret. We have a number of upcoming workshops right here!
Just discovered the Dark Horse by checking in with the marvelous Ms. Mac's Grownups Drawing Together class . Having gone through my own dark journeys for awhile now, I think this will be cathartic for me. So Thank you Laurel B. I just went to my local library to request they get a copy or more of Ishita Jain's new SEARCHING FOR SUNSHINE and thought to check out your name--they have both of yours and not too long of a wait......Some folk are sharper than I am about new books, but i am learning.
by the way, wendy mac has lost a few pounds, due to that nasty covid--so enough loss where it's noticeable. i am down to 95 now due to, in my case, cancer in 2020, the exact same month as the covid--talk about a dark place---everything shut down and here am I completely ignorant of CANCER except now I know a lot more. Bless Ruth Bader Ginsberg---she had it more than once whereas I am in remission (from the chemo-Nasty and the Radiation--not as Nasty but still bad news). Dark Place is an understatement.
Tell your pal, my favorite teacher to go get something to eat---I will send food to get her up to snuff, if I have to. Every time I open her GUT class and begin to read, within minutes she has me weeping with what I have decoded as a combination of sadness, humility, but joy, gratitude and a kind of love of the universe through the kind and jubilant words of wendy mac.
The same feeling I get when I started to read Maria POPOVER, a remarkable and inspired writer, who is relatively new to me as a reader. I suspect you will bring about the same kind of joy so you are more than welcome. I think we all could use more light in our life, Too much gloom n' doom. Here is to the wise women or crones wearing the crown of life celebrating being alone or together, whatever whatever we want it to be.
. Laurel, the first comment-tee on this page says it all..." Sadly funny and beautiful. just enough strength and awe to be heartbroken anew." Amazes me how there are so many words to describes that spirit that seems to infiltrate one's consciousness in the oddest, most way-ward, wilding way.
you are all marvelous!!! jmr
Laurel! So sadly funny and beautiful. Perfect for this season of renewal that gives just enough strength and awe to be heartbroken anew.