You can always tell in a TV show when someone is getting treated like shit. It’s easy to see from a viewer’s perspective. Or when they’re in danger. You as the audience know the killer is in the basement but as much as you yell at the screen, this is the small blonde girl’s journey. She’ll find out he’s down there eventually when she’s getting murdered.
The following is not a note on murder. Sometimes we don’t die, we just feel bad. In the words of the late Chris Cuomo, let’s get after it.
The first person to go on record as “feeling like shit” was Eve. She ate that apple and then got a stomach ache because she wasn’t supposed to eat it and now there’s a permanent wage gap.
It’s hard to tell when everyone around you is feeling like shit, because they certainly aren’t going to tell you. This is not a movie. Your friends are posting cute photo dumps on Instagram of carefree dinner parties and recently developed film from a stroll in the park. They’re dancing at a concert but one of the songs reminded them of something they’d rather not remember. But look at that outfit! And who are you to know?
Scientists are still working on the cure for feeling blue. There’s medicine, called “SSRI’s” or serotonin something somethings. How it works is, you take one pill every night, and then you are happy. It’s amazing. Only it’s not exactly like that. When you take this medicine, you still need to do things that make you feel good. And be around people that energize you, not deplete you. And you need to sleep because that’s when all the funky dreams happen. Antidepressants are to depression as a microwave is to butter. Once you put the butter in the microwave, it melts. It’s still there, it’s still butter, but it’s easier to spread around. It’s easier to deal with in its new, molten form. It’s not as hard anymore. But it’s still butter.
Your brain is just a part of your body that needs some chemical help every once in a while. Besides, no topic is too touchy here on Substack. There are an infinite amount of ideas to explore and see and try and fail at and nothing is off limits. Besides Holocaust jokes unless they’re really good.
Feeling like shit is a vital part of the human lived experience. Without it, we’d have nothing to ground feeling amazing. Getting treated like shit only illuminates the times when you’re treated well. Treated so well you think something must be coming. Like there must be a killer in the basement.
All states are temporary. Nausea, fear, loneliness, Wyoming, just when you think it will never end, it eventually does. When you have a cold and can’t breathe through your nose, it’s hard to remember a time when you ever could. A distant, faraway land of clear nasal passages. Nothing can feel like everything, it can feel like the only thing. (This essay waffles between points of view of “we” and “you” because the writer is trying to hone in on her voice. Give it a little time.)
Remember that if it’s possible to feel bad, it’s also possible to feel good. Because shit doesn’t stay forever. If it does, call your plumber.
The best thing I ate this week:
was the lukewarm matzo ball soup that just got delivered to my house. It’s from a deli nearby that’s part of the pantheon of restaurants that love to call themselves “Jew-ish” or “Jewish inspired.” I understand not wanting to fully hitch your wagon to the tribe. Besides, a restaurant can never be fully Jewish unless there’s a woman hunched over when you walk in, sitting down peeling potatoes and yelling that Katie Couric was a better Today Show host. It would’ve been better if the soup was hot but I don’t have a microwave yet (no room) and I didn’t want to heat it up in a pan (no energy.) I ate my warm soup and felt grateful that in the greatest city in the world, a man can bring you soup and you don’t even have to kiss him. You just give him money.