How to Find Out What You're Made Of

The upside to being pushed to the edge of my limits.

My “office” two weeks ago, aka a pull-out cot in my mom’s hospital room.

There’s a version of this post where I confess to workaholism and catalog all the ways it’s negatively affecting me and indicative of gaping holes in my self esteem, etc. All true! Yes, work is my #1 drug of choice, and lately, due in part to unforeseen circumstances (mainly my mom’s recent illnesses), I’ve been hoovering a heroic dose.

But this is not that post. There’s more complexity to this picture than meets the eye, and I feel inclined to look at the situation from some other angles. Maybe it’s the workahol talking, but right now I’m feeling grateful and happy, and proud of what I’ve recently learned I’m able to achieve, on multiple fronts.

To begin with, I love what I’m doing at Botton, Ink., and I feel fortunate to get to do it week after week—especially without the added burden of having to pitch each thing I’m posting in

Oldster Magazine

and

Memoir Land

to fickle gatekeepers who’d prefer to publish things like the chaotic, star-fucker-y musings of rich It Girls anyway.

I don’t miss those freelance years filled with rejection and editors ghosting me—when I could get one article or essay accepted, have it do really well, but then rarely or never land another with the same otherwise pleased editor and publication. I came to assume my ideas just weren’t good enough—that I wasn’t good enough. But now I’ve created my own publications, and they’ve attracted sizable, growing audiences who frankly love what I’m doing and are willing to pay to support it.

While I’d love to still occasionally write for mainstream publications, by and large I do not miss the middleman. And there are definitely moments when I look at my editorial calendar for my two “magazines” and freak out, but there are more where I think, “Wow, I get to do this!”

Okay, sorry, I guess I’m going to do a little of that cataloging after all:

My self-esteem was badly affected by all that rejection and ghosting, not to mention the big shitty thing that happened at a major publication in the mid-90s. (To recap: I’ve since learned from someone’s 2020 recovery memoir that they were responsible for shit I got blamed for, which led to my exiting that job, and magazines in general, with my tail between my legs. Despite massively fucking up again and again, that person just kept failing upwards from one plum opportunity to the next, because a higher-up had a crush on him, or saw him as the son he’d never had, or…something that had nothing to do with his performance, because his performance was consistently shitty. Sometimes I think, Why I am even still thinking about this? Other times I think, This is a huge deal! It was a meteor that upended your career at a key time! Of course you’re not over it! You only just had your worst suspicions confirmed a few years ago…)

All of that fueled some already deeply-entrenched self-doubt, which, unfortunately, I bring to every single thing I do. It’s what drives me toward over-working, over-performing, over-doing everything.

But there’s been an upside to this recent period of even more pronounced overwork, in that it showed me I’m much more capable than I knew. (I mean, I should have fucking known. I have a really good track record of producing good work as a writer and editor! But alas.) It also showed me my limits, which I now need to find a way to heed.

***

Before all the chaos around my mom’s health in the past month, I was offered, and accepted, an assignment I was excited about but afraid I’d fuck up, because apparently abject self-doubt is just part of my writing process. I was already panicking and betting against myself when, at the end of May, Mom suddenly fell ill again after she’d been doing better, requiring me to drop everything.

I thew some clothes and my laptop in a bag, jumped in my car, raced down the Thruway, and once I got to her, realized she needed to be hospitalized again. On the way out of her building she fell, and I badly sprained my hip trying to lift her from the ground. I could do nothing about my hip pain for the next five days while tending to her.

We spent 24 hours in the ER, where I shared her gurney overnight and got two hours of sleep with my hip throbbing.

saribotton

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Then she was given a private room upstairs with no roommate because she was contagious (ugh, c. diff). The room had an incredibly uncomfortable pull-out cot in it, where I slept for the next four nights, hip sprain be damned. I figure they put these cots in the c. diff isolation rooms because only a family member would provide the kind of intimate, utterly disgusting care those patients need around the clock. (I’ll spare you.)

Because of the c. diff, I was not allowed to share her bathroom (although I did help her in that bathroom like 30 times a day/night, wearing gloves and a mask). I had to use a public toilet down the hall—which was frequently out of order, forcing me to take the elevator in the middle of the night to other floors, dressed in my nightgown and those yellow nubby hospital socks, my sleep mask pushed on top of my head. I’m shocked none of the hospital staff I passed along the way questioned or stopped me.

***

My first thought in the ER was that I should push back all my Oldster and Memoir Land posts by a week. But then I realized I have posts scheduled for both magazines through September, and it would be a whole other demanding task just dealing with pushing it all back, emailing all the contributors. So I had to just get it all done, while also doing another job, that of full-time caretaking.

When I stopped panicking, I sort of autonomically shifted into robotic productivity mode. I went to work from my temporary “office,” aka my cot, in every moment that I wasn’t fully occupied helping my mom. Ditto the hospital cafeteria when she was napping.

And you know what? Working in a focused way through all of that helped me keep my wits about me. It helped me keep myself upright through the experience of being worried about my mom, and being more needed by another human being than I’ve ever been in my life. Above all, it helped me quiet my fears and self-doubt. All the attendant anxiety bullshit that regularly gets me stopped up flew out the window.

In the middle of it all, when I took a break to go back to Mom’s apartment to get some things for her and take a shower, the first draft of that piece I’d been assigned almost effortlessly poured out of me. I suddenly knew what I wanted to say and how to say it. I got it done and handed it in early. It was accepted, and well received.

***

I hope I never have to do so much all at once ever again, but you know what? I have aging parents, and I just might. Now I know I can do it—although I can barely recall doing it. I reflect on those five days in the hospital with Mom and it’s all a big blur.

Not only did I learn that I can handle my current workload under extreme duress, I discovered I’m more capable as a daughter and caretaker and human being than I’ve been led to believe by a culture that paints non-moms like me as cold and selfish.

Yes, I have to still work on the self-doubt and the workaholism, and I need to keep trying to streamline my workflow in ways that lighten the load. (And I’ve got my hip sprain to deal with! Thank the goddesses for steroids.) But for the moment I’m feeling capable and proud and grateful for the opportunity to do so much work I love.

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Related,

jenn romolini

’s Ambition Monster is as good as everyone says. I couldn’t put it down—I read it in like two sittings—and I related to so much of it.

Also, she and

Kim France

apparently still have some tickets left for their Everything Is Fine “Monsters of Ambition” show tomorrow at 5pm at Caveat on the LES. I’ll be there. I went to the last one and loved it. Highly recommend. (Being interviewed on their podcast was a big thrill for me!)