As has become tradition (and by tradition I mean it only happened once before), I’m interrupting our regularly scheduled programming for a reflection during the penitential season, as I did back in Lent. “What penitential season” you, a heathen, ask? Advent, of course—the four weeks preceding Christmas, during which we’re called to do penance. “But why penance? Isn’t Christmas a happy occasion?” Uh… have you met the Catholic Church? She does not miss a chance to sneak penance into things, regardless of the mood.
Traditionally, I give up fast food for Lent and smoking for Advent. During Lent, I reflected on the ways I use those things to drown anxiety; this time I wanted to reflect on what’s left in my life when I remove those coping mechanisms. Recently, I had the groundbreaking realization (which I’ve had many times before—I suffer emotional amnesia) that it’s very hard for me to be in the present. I answer emails in my mind while doing yoga, have fictional fights with my friends while I shower, and update my grocery list while I watch TV. To be in the moment feels daunting because: a) it’s often boring and b) it’s often painful. “Painful? How?” you ask, and I tell you to cool it with the questions because I’m trying to access some deep emotions and you keep interrupting.
Anyway, I’m reminded of a Grey’s Anatomy episode in which a patient has to choose, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much pain they’re feeling (which, as it turns out, is a tool developed by Big Pharma to push opioids—look it up!) The patient says 8, which of course is irrelevant because, like with every other patient issue, the resident doctors of Seattle Grace immediately make it about themselves. In the climax of the episode, Christina (the inimitable Sandra Oh) tells Derek that when it comes to his lover, Meredith, “she’s always at an 8,” emotionally speaking. That line struck me enough that I can remember it over a decade later. I couldn’t relate to Meredith’s specific circumstances, but the idea that she moved through her life carrying high-level pain resonated with me, even if I didn’t quite know why.
It would be years after watching that Grey’s episode before I actually sat down to try and answer that question. It took me moving to a different country (for the second time) and completely altering the course of my life: I was in New York City on a full scholarship for a prestigious MFA program, finally pursuing my dream of being a writer, and instead of being high on this life I never dared dream for myself, I was shitting my pants every single day (metaphorically, although I did literally shit my pants a few days after moving here, though thankfully I was at the AirBnb and didn’t suffer major social consequences). The dissonance between having everything I wanted and still being miserable finally pushed me to do the unthinkable for a young Latino man: I sought therapy.
NYU provided free counseling—which makes sense because their class registration system has scarred me for life—so I scheduled an appointment with the therapist who still treats me today, the one and only Dr. Francesco (yes, we basically have the same name… it’s a metaphor I’m too lazy to unravel). In our first session, he asked me “do you have any trauma?” trying to suss out how fucked up I was, and I said “not really, it’s not like my mom was shot in front of me or anything.” He patiently explained that trauma doesn’t always look like the plot of an Oscar bait-y movie, and that other forms of pain can be traumatic, so I said “well, then” and vomited out the bullying and isolation and physical violence that occurred during my childhood. He said “yeah, that counts.”
I’ve been seeing Dr. Francesco for five years now, but I still struggle with the idea that my pain has any merit—even in this very moment, as I write this. I feel embarrassed, imagining that many of you who are reading this have had experiences that I did not have, pain that I cannot relate to and that seems much worse than mine. Who am I to complain? Acknowledging pain is completely antithetical to the way I was raised: bring up an issue to my family and you will be told that it either doesn’t exist, or it does—but other people have it much worse and you have so much to be grateful for. And I really do; God has been so generous with me, surrounding me with so much love and with everything I need (and most things I want), that it can often feel impossible for me to express discontent.
Adding to that, the aforementioned bullying and violence made it VERY hard for me to be vulnerable. When Chester offers his belly up for rubs (which is always), I still get a twinge of “don’t do that, someone could stab you in the guts!” I, of course, pet him instead of stabbing him, but it’s hard for me to believe that other people won’t knife me when I show them my belly. I’ve often been told it’s intimidating to meet me, and while I wish people thought of me as a sweetheart, I also feel safe in knowing that strangers fear me—that certainly was not the case when I was a kid. But putting up walls is an effective defense mechanism (or at least it was in Age of Empires II) that comes with the unintended side effect of trapping you inside. I’ve walled myself off as well—I hear the screaming in the attic but I don’t go check out what’s happening, and instead drown it with fast food and cigarettes and sexting.
Giving up those vices for Our Lord and Savior presents me, then, with the uncomfortable question of what the fuck do I do instead? Go to the attic like a fucking chump, to be murdered by whatever is up there? The best case scenario is surviving the encounter and becoming a Final Girl, but if you’ve seen the latest Halloween movies, you know Final Girls don’t go on to live happy lives. They live at an 8, looking over their shoulders, building elaborate deathtraps in their homes, and saying weird stuff like “evil dies tonight” (spoiler alert: it doesn’t). Besides, I KNOW what’s up in the attic. I’ve been to therapy, I’ve talked about it with my friends, I’ve written a thousand thinly veiled scripts and short stories about it. My pain cannot be killed, as much as I fantasize that it can—maybe with a new pill, or meditation app, or something that Gwyneth Paltrow is selling in spite of repeated FDA warnings.
“Become friends with your pain,” you say, interrupting again. Well, aren’t you an insufferable know it all? Why don’t you become friends with YOUR pain? Oh, you have? Fuck off then. No, don’t, I’m joking—please read till the end so I can get those sweet completion analytics that trigger my validation center. The truth is, I have, or at least I think I have. I’ve accepted the things that have happened to me and I consciously work on not letting resentment form around them. But the reason evil doesn’t die tonight it’s that it’s a talented shapeshifter, always finding new things to attach to. Recently, in an effort to show gratitude (and brag), I looked back at all the projects I worked on during 2021, and instead of feeling happy, I felt sad. “Why,” my pain told me, “if you’ve busted your ass so hard, are you not making more money from your writing? Why are your plays not produced? Why are you not staffed on a TV show when so many people you know are? Why are you always having to prove to teachers and agents and artistic directors and the government of the United States that you are talented and hard working? Why don’t they take a chance on you, considering all you’ve done?”
I’m not gonna judge myself for the way my brain works. Do I wish I was the kind of person who effortlessly derives joy from the good things in my life? Absolutely. Do I wish that the trauma of my past didn’t feel so present ? Yes please! Do I wish that my anxiety didn’t wreck havoc on my physical health? Sign me up! But that’s not who I am. I am someone who has to actively work towards feeling good. Who, when caught in a lull between tasks, will feel overwhelmed by 8-level pain. Maybe someone else who went through exactly the same things I did would come away with no scars—but that’s not the way I’m wired, and I accept that. And I my wiring has some good stuff too! For example, I’m quite hopeful—which is not the same as being optimistic (a difference I only recently learned about). I don’t act as if everything is fine, or is going to be soon; I plan for the worst and hope for the best, and that hope is very real. It’s bizarre: I simultaneously sweat the day-to-day stuff compulsively and know everything will be fine long term. The fact that I have hope doesn’t mean I don’t constantly forget it and act as if I didn’t.
I do try to accept the things I cannot change and change the things I can, but progress is mind-bogglingly slow, to the point of often being unnoticeable. “I did the thing and nothing changed” is a common complaint of mine, to which the answer is usually and frustratingly “just keep doing the thing.” All I want for Christmas is enough hope to keep doing the thing.
And to smoke again.
Feliz Navidad, Próspero Año, y Felicidad!
Quick before I forget: I almost wrote a whole newsletter about why I’m worried about Succession, but I took to Twitter instead. Read it and be worried with me!
Advent Reflection
A perfect read for a Latino Christmas Eve 🖤 You’re always so good at these! Can’t wait to share a ciggy in the new year.
Nice holiday post, thanks. It reminds me of the meaning behind the comma placement in “God rest ye merry, gentlemen”—it’s not rest for the happy, it’s a happy rest for those who need one. Merry Christmas to a fellow anxiety-ridden playwright!