Finding the Present

Trying to find my ground between the past and the future.

Over the past few months I have sat down to write at least a dozen different times. At some point in each of those sessions, I found myself frustrated with the somber tone or lack of focus in my writing. Sometimes both. Writing my memoir, Self-portraits, was a lot easier to write in the sense that those challenges already happened. I have talked about most of those events in therapy and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Most of those stories were fully processed and I found my way out of active addiction, so the happy ending wrote itself. Writing about my present day is a lot more challenging because of the moving parts.

Last week I wrote an entire draft of an essay about how much I am struggling as a caregiver. I vented about how Grandma talks down to me and bosses me around in a way that I have never heard one person make demands of another. Then she got sick again and I felt bad airing our dirty laundry on the internet, so I scrapped that essay and started a new one.

The new draft was an essay as to why I planned to enroll in a course to earn my personal trainer certification. Despite essentially having written an entire persuasive essay, I was dissuaded to follow through. I have commitment issues with jobs and getting that certificate on a whim seems like a pattern that I can easily avoid. I haven’t even finished my Yoga Teaching Training course that I started last summer. I haven’t had a formal job in over a year. My aunt slips me a few hundred bucks here and there as a thank you for taking care of her mom, but other than that, I am living off my savings that I had set aside for my eventual move to Portland. I know that I need to get a job, but I am afraid to settle.

Although I have made very little money in the last year, I have been quite prolific with the art that I have been creating. I published my first book and produced my first album. These are two of the things in this life that I am most proud of. I am afraid of getting a job and never finding the time to make that second book or a sophomore album. Beyond that, my brain is shot. I am in a state of burnout that I have never before reached. It is a combination of caregiver burnout and neurodivergent burnout.

Grandma has been so ill lately that I haven’t been able to do the things that nourish my body and replenish my soul. I have been missing AA meetings, skipping the gym, and rarely even going out to the studio to write. She’s in the hospital now and my aunt is with her. My two aunts decided to take turns sitting with her today so that I could have a day off. That worked out well because I stayed up all night making a music video for my song, “There’s Someone at the Front Door (Another Version).” The song is about a psychotic episode that I had after Grandma unknowingly put my cat in the dryer. To balance the dark roots of the song, I made a quirky little video. I also improvised a little bit of acting in the intro and outro. Ever since landing a small role in Loïc Pichot’s short film, “Distressed,” I have been eager to act again. I don’t know how to make that happen, but I would like it to.

While I was sitting in the Emergency Room with Grandma yesterday, I sent an application to a modeling agency in San Francisco, but I doubt they will bite; I may have aged out of that field. I do think that is one job I could enjoy though. And it could help me get exposure as an artist.

I am just in a weird place right now, stuck between the past and the future - I guess you could call it the present, but I hardly feel like I am present. I am eager to move on with my life, but I can’t leave Grandma alone. When I moved into her house in 2019, I thought it was going to be for a year. Next month I’ll have been here for six. There are things that I appreciate about this life, but it hurts my heart to stand still this long. I want to be able to leave the house for more than a couple hours at a time. I want to be able to cook my breakfast naked. I want to be able to listen to the music I like in the living room. I want to be able to move the furniture in a way that makes sense to me. (I can write an entire essay, maybe even a book, on Grandma’s furniture and her incapacity for any level of change).

For now, I try to find things that bring me joy and I hold on to those. Even if I am the only person who listens to it, I really enjoy making music. I enjoy taking and editing photographs. I enjoy reading about psychology. I am enjoying studying Yoga and do truly hope to teach classes someday. And I recently pulled my watercolor set out of storage; getting back into watercolor has been nice. Maybe finding joy in the little things is all that life is about. Maybe this chapter is challenging so the next one can be fulfilling. Maybe the universe is trying to hold me still so that I can prepare to run. Maybe there are big things in store for me. Maybe…

Watch below: “There’s Someone at the Front Door (Another Version)”

Order below: Self-portraits: A Collection of Memoir Essays

Listen below: Matty