Oh Messy Life # 9: The vows
Plus, a review of Longlegs, Joe is engaged, LC BNM, a Proper Chune courtesy Culture Club, and so much more.
VANCOUVER – Alex and I are drinking light beers in the after-work sun when he poses the question.
“What is it about the vows that gets you so emotional?”
He’s asking because I told him I got misty-eyed writing my vows on the bus, that I expect to be “weepy” for most of the weekend. He wants to know why.
I sip my beer and struggle to meet his eyeline. The sun is hanging low in the western sky, leaving Library Square awash in dusk and shadow. My sunglasses are sitting on the table. There’s nowhere for me to hide.
“She just makes me feel… seen” I reply.
It’s the honest truth but it feels insufficient. It could be clearer, cleaner.
Last year, I created a zine for the newsletter called This Is Not An Exit. Some people read it. Many more didn’t. There are a lot of reasons why that might be. That it wasn’t marketed well, say, or was too niche. Maybe it was simply too powerful.
At the time, I saw it as an attempt at world-building. At building a brand around a cast of real-life characters. But now I see it more as an act of preservation. Of crystallizing a particular chapter of life, and my feelings at the time.
The heart of the zine was a short essay about loving and being loved. It’s the reason why my vows make me so emotional. Here’s an excerpt:
Before everything changed, before our friend group splintered off in different directions, before he moved to New Zealand, Dan discovered a new party trick. We were drinking Long Island Iced teas around a sticky table at the Copper Tank and he realized he could get me to cry on command. All he had to do was get me talking about Leah, who was sitting right next to me. To be what he called “a sweet boy”.
For a long time, I struggled to be seen by the world in any meaningful way. I would talk and feel like no one really understood what I was trying to communicate. Or, worse, that people would misconstrue what I was saying. So I looked for other ways to express myself. Ways that I could control. Music, photography, writing. All of the healthiest relationships of my life have involved these things.
Even then, the feeling lingered.
Over time, I’ve come to realize that this feeling was just regular anxiety. “Feeling unseen” was my way of communicating that I felt like I wasn’t living up to some imaginary standard. That I felt some a sort of internal pressure to be something more than I was. To be the platonic ideal of myself. More normal, more successful, more perfect. I spent a lot of time imagining a different life for myself, and even more time waiting for someone to come along and give me permission to persue it. I don’t regret much, but I wish I could get that time back. That I would’ve started my life - my actual life - sooner.
If feeling unseen is just a form of anxiety, then I think feeling seen is really just self-confidence. The ability to show up for yourself and the people around you. To shine your light in all directions. Ideally, you feel comfortable doing this on your own. But sometimes another person’s light is enough to spark your filmament.
In that dark bar on West Broadway, I explained to Dan that Leah was the first person I ever felt truly seen by. Other people caught glimmers over the years. But I felt like she was the first person I could truly be unguarded with… What I didn’t say, couldn’t say, was how if you’re lucky, being loved unconditionally by another person teaches you how to love yourself and others unconditionally. How it allows you to create worlds rosier than your own.
Oh Messy Life
In other nuptial news, friend of the program Joe Perri is now engaged. Congrats to the happy couple!
We caught the 7 p.m. showing of Longlegs with Alex & Kate last night and, dear reader, it was not good. Without spoiling too much, the movie’s tension evaporates in Act III, and Nicolas Cage’s prosthetic nose looks a little too MJ for my taste. I did, however, enjoy its use of the colour red.
It was nice seeing on the front page of Tom Breihan’s Stereogum recently. I need to add Faulkner to my reading list…
“Can we all calm the fuck down”:
new album, All Hell, got BNM in Pitchfork. It’s currently my AOTY. Listen here.And went camera on for an episode of The Creator Podcast. If you’re not subscribed to Embedded are you even online???
Proper Chune
The newsletter will be quiet for a week or so as Leah and I escape to the Gulf Islands to get married. If anyone needs me I’ll be the guy in the tuxedo shuffling to “Karma Chameleon”.
This is so lovely. (Did I tear up??? Maybe!!) Congratulations and have a beautiful/memorable/teary-in-the-best-way wedding week.
Loved this. We love a tender man.