Happy Pride! I had the honor this year of being asked to write a letter to my younger self for the Seattle Stranger’s Pride month issue. It’s worth reading the issue in full but I want to share my contribution all with you here:
You came home today doubled over with the kind of side stitch you solve by heading straight for your couch and cracking a beer. “I just need a few minutes,” you told your girlfriend, “and then I’ll get dinner started.” You picked up a PlayStation controller and left your body and your apartment and your boring job. Hours passed.
Last time you asked a doctor for help, he’d told you to Google prebiotic foods, took a seat in front of the door to the tiny exam room, and asked why you were wearing nail polish. When you got back on the subject of your health, he said that your latest blood work indicated issues with your liver. “How much,” he asked, “have you been drinking?”
You quit the company softball team when you could no longer tolerate your teammates’ exasperation when another fly ball bounced from your mitt. You gave yoga a try before writing off your body as miserably inflexible. Your girlfriend keeps coming up with reasons to eat takeout at the office. Drinking, that’s how you pass the valley between work and sleep.
You live in your head and your computer and, once a year, on your balcony as you sweat over the alley above a Whole Foods dumpster while the Pride parade beats down the street on the other side of the LaTrobe apartment building. You will live here, in your body, in a house in the trees between the mountain and the Sound.
Someday you’ll wake up in silk, blonde strays and mascara stains on your pillow, raindrops and cedar needles out your window, gold and diamond sparkle on your finger. Your partner is there. “Good morning, pretty lady,” are her first words to you. You’ll bring her coffee with a little oat milk, and then roll out your yoga mat.
The reason you cannot touch your toes with your back and legs straight is that your hamstrings are too tight; to do it right, you’ll need to bend your knees and practice every day. You won’t mind, you’ll get there eventually. Everything is connected and the pain will get so much worse before it gets better. You’ll know that the reason you could never catch a fly ball is that you were somewhere else. You’ll know that you were here.
Hope everyone has a nice weekend!