It’s a warm evening in May, and the air is rich with the smell of wildflowers after rain and twice as vibrant with color, and I’m sitting on a plastic chair in the audience of a rehearsal space, laughing.
It’s a dark evening in November, the hour barely past 6 p.m., and I am desperately trying to distract myself from my nightly anxiety spiral, clinging to a mobile puzzle game like a life preserver.
It’s a sleepy May afternoon, and I’m writing this post while cuddling with an equally sleepy puppy that my partner’s family just adopted.
Some things are really good in my life right now. I wrote a comedic play that got selected to be performed locally, and watching the rehearsals unfold was a rewarding and incredibly fun process. On Thursday, my partner and I got the keys to a new apartment we’re moving into together, and we’ve been excitedly showing friends the beautiful kitchen windows, the fun historic light switch, and the surprise attic. Next week, I have a trip planned with some friends, a yearly get-together that’s sure to bring hours of conversation that I wish could go on for weeks. This winter, I was in a neverending fog, and the clear skies and sun have brought back some morsels of bliss.
In the past, I might have woven this into a narrative about how things work out in the end if you just persevere, but I haven’t felt comfortable with a story like that in years. I know that so much in life is random, ricocheting between going right or wrong faster than a ping-pong ball, and this knowledge makes me brace myself. While my experience of the pandemic was not nearly as difficult as some people’s, being much safer and less affected by death, it did leave a trail of superstition in its wake. So many new sources of joy and creativity were cancelled that year that it began to feel dangerous to feel too attached to any creative project. Additionally, the intense OCD episode I was dealing with at the time made me cautious about my emotions in the years to come. Maybe, if I grew too excited or too despondent or too any-big-emotion, those same feelings would arrive again. So, I tried to keep my emotions in check. I tried not to feel too joyful at good news or too attached to upcoming opportunities.
My brain wants so desperately to be safe and to know that the things that are precious in my life will stay. “I can’t wait for this weekend,” I say, and I knock on wood. “This production is going to be so great,” someone says, and I’m already desperately searching for a way to tamper their words and not tempt fate.
I wrote about a similar feeling in November 2023, the last time I moved apartments. Moving always brings out the superstition in me, as someone terrified of change and new neighbors and not being able to feel at home. It’s scary to simply let myself be excited about a new space, to show family members around without adding a million “what ifs.” But maybe it’s being worn down to the truth that never letting myself be fully happy doesn’t keep the bad moments from arriving, or maybe it’s experiencing another OCD episode like the one I’d been fearing and surviving it, but I am trying to allow myself to be joyful.
I am teaching myself to bask again.
I wrote a play, how cool is that? I spent a day laughing with old friends as a bridesmaid in my high school friend’s wedding. I am giggling with my family and drinking a delicious milkshake, and isn’t the sky so beautiful tonight?.
Maybe it’s selfish to write about happiness at a time like this in America. After all, my partner and I are excitedly planning where to put furniture in our new space at the same time that I’m being recommended YouTube videos about why trans people like them should be leaving the US for safety. I am afraid of looking back on this post through tear-clouded eyes, but this winter has made me desperate for joy, and I know depriving myself of the feeling will not stitch the world back together.
In April of 2023, I was intensely lonely and sobbing over cancelled plans, and last night, I hugged old friends and new and thanked them for being there. In August of last year, I watched clouds roll past with a quiet mind, and in December, I was desperately trying to drown out my own thoughts. I can see these events stretched out in my mind and feel their closeness in my gut, to the point where sometimes it feels like I am living each moment simultaneously. I know that the joy I am feeling now will not last. But today, it feels so good to celebrate.
Hannah McNulty graduated from Calvin in 2021 and stuck around Grand Rapids, against all odds. She has spent her last few years singing in choir, teaching herself to love reading again, and trying to learn every fiber art simultaneously. She currently works at Eerdmans Publishing, where you can find her burying her nose in old paperwork and forcing anyone within earshot to listen to her bad puns.
