Writing My Way Out
💎 On love and life pivots: pressure makes diamonds, unless . . .
“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
—Khalil Gibran, On Joy and Sorrow in The Prophet
When I met my husband in 2016, my career was on the cusp of hitting a new stride, after several fallow years in ‘13, ‘14, and ‘15 writing my second book (yes, these intensely uncomfortable slow periods seem to be a pattern here).
Those years before I met him were gritty ones.
I was single, living alone, and in a way, I was writing for my life.
I was two weeks out from not being able to pay my rent, a situation that closely mirrors the one I’m in now. I had two weeks to either a) earn some money, b) give up on my nascent business and get a job, and/or c) move out of New York City.
When I landed on the idea for Pivot as a second book in 2013, I wrote a proposal that my literary agent said was nowhere near ready.
“You sound unhinged,” she said, as she circled the word in pencil at the top. “Come back to me when you have something clearer, and the publicly acknowledged expertise to back it up. I couldn’t sell this right now if I tried.”
She’s not one to mince words.
I didn’t return a second draft of that proposal until one year later. My life had to fall further apart first.
Once I started writing again, I did my best to channel something bigger than me. I have always felt my calling was to be a messenger for others feeling similarly lost, spiraling in self-doubt, and feeling overcome by delusion and despair.
Writing pulled me out of the pits back then, bootstrapping my life and business into an entirely new arena.
This project is the first one in years that shares those same energetic origin fingerprints.
These lyrics from the Hamilton song Wrote My Way Out (the Mix Tape version featuring Nas, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Aloe Blacc) say it well:
Runnin' on empty, there was nothin' left in me but doubt
I picked up a pen and "I wrote my way—" out
Pivot came out three months after I met Michael, as we were walking in opposite directions down Mott Street in Nolita, and the following year would be one of my best in business.
I dedicated more of my time and energy than I had in the past to seeing where this new relationship would take us. I earned more than I ever had, while working fewer hours, as I had finally wrapped my mind around scalable income streams (out of necessity for my mental and physical health).
Meeting Michael was a surprise, as for a decade I had been the perpetually single friend (save for a few unhealthy situationships sprinkled throughout), and was absolutely convinced I would never get married. I was single at every single wedding I attended in my twenties, never plus one.
I felt as if our relationship was divinely supported. I always have, and I still do. When we were just three months in, an inner voice whispered, “He’s family.”
At the end of 2018 we got married at City Hall, followed by a fabulous brunch at Sadelle’s in SoHo). He had just finished putting himself through school at SVA to get his masters in fine arts.
Shortly after that, I bought a 3BR/2BA apartment one month later that I had been saving up for and dreaming about for years.
All this was in parallel to starting my first semester at Union Theological Seminary, running my business when I wasn’t in class, and doing reading and writing essays on the weekends for school. I remember negotiating the apartment terms while sitting in Bible 101, failing to pretend I was paying rapt attention.
Things were busy but good! We had no idea what was coming.