When the Worst Happens

A moment of grief for the small, selfish losses

A few months ago, in one of her truly excellent newsletters, V.E. Schwab articulated something that has haunted me for years. She said that after publishing Addie LaRue, she wondered if she’d ever be able to write anything that would live up to that book, and that her friends all assured her that of course she would.

But that’s not what she needed to hear, she writes. What she needed was for them to tell her that if that happened, she would still be okay. 

And I thought – yes. That’s it. 

That was the root of my frustration after I finished my undergrad degree in music and wondered aloud if I would actually be able to work as a professional singer (I wasn’t).

And after I graduated from library school and spent an entire year severely underemployed wondering if I’d ever get a full time library job (I did). 

In both cases, people told me Of course you will! You’re smart and talented and it will happen for you! 

And I wanted to scream. It’s not an of course. It’s never an of course. The world doesn’t work that way.

I needed them to tell me that even if the worst happened, that I would still find a way forward. That the future might not be what I want it to be, but that I could still make it mine.

Like all of you (I’m assuming, if you’re reading my very gay little newsletter), I am full of grief today. The rage hasn’t hit me yet, I think because I am just so. Fucking. Tired. 

I am sad and terrified, but I am not surprised. I have seen first hand as a queer person in the world and in my public service job, just how angry and hateful people regularly are. So much more openly than they used to be.

Even the mostly liberal base of patrons who visit my library have no problem yelling at us or physically pushing me aside to exit the door I’m trying to block because it’s fucking broken. Everyone is at the end of their rope. Everyone is full of despair and blame and anger.

I see, all the time, in so many tiny moments around me, the unfathomable depth of hatred this country has toward women, POC, and queer and trans folks. The ways we’ve refused to take care of each other. The ways we’ve decided some people deserve to be sick, deserve to be homeless, deserve to be miserable, deserve to die. And it’s not only in red states, or conservative communities. It’s everywhere.

Yesterday I spent a not inconsiderable amount of time looking into jobs I might be qualified for if the government eliminates public libraries altogether. Thinking about what I will do if my library career and pension and relative security are ripped out from underneath me. 

Thinking about how many people have already had their lives ripped out from underneath them. How many people have suffered and died and will continue to do so in ways that might never touch me.

And I also had the very small, very selfish thought - Well, no one will ever publish my extremely queer books now. It’s hard enough to debut under the best of circumstances, and these circumstances are far from good.

I had hopes and dreams for my book out on sub, and for the book I’m writing, and for my career. For a while, it seemed like it might be possible, too. Like this might be the thing I was born to do, as we are so fond of saying in this country. 

Now, I feel only the grief of being born at the wrong time in the wrong place. Of coming to writing too late. Of missing my window. Like I’ve missed so many windows before. 

We romanticize those in history who died before their work was known. How sad and tragic that they’d never know how their paintings, their writing, would affect others for generations. But do we really let ourselves feel that pain? Can we truly understand what that feels like, when we know that the story ultimately has a happy ending? 

I’ve been thinking about this a lot in stories in general. How the deaths and pain of minor characters serve the story, serve the hero. It’s how stories work. But the victim at the beginning of the police procedural was a person. The unnamed characters who go down with the first volley of shots in a movie are people.

We’ve been so trained in this country to view ourselves as the main character of the story, I wonder if we ever fully internalize that the horrible acts we study in history or dramatize in books and movies can absolutely happen to us. 

They are happening to us. Right now. We’re the ones living through it. And most of us will not be the main character of the story. Not even close.

There are many people who are smarter than me talking about the larger work that there is to do. I fully acknowledge that people’s lives and safety and so many things are more important than me having or not having a book with my name on the cover.

And also, right now, I’m processing my small, selfish little loss. And maybe you’re processing small, selfish little losses too. And maybe this will help. I don’t know. But I’m a writer so I write. 

Last night, I had a cello lesson, and afterwards I felt a little better. Still sad, still afraid, but my brain had stopped spinning because I had given it a puzzle to work on in the form of a tricky piece of music, so for a while it couldn’t spin nightmare scenarios or crush me with despair. 

And it gave me time and space to ponder the following thought – what if I fully accept that my life means nothing in the larger scheme of things? That I will leave no lingering trace behind when I leave this planet? That I won’t be published or remembered or biographed? What if I embrace that instead of running from it? What then?

What would I do with the remaining hours of my life, if I knew that the only person who would ever care how I spent those hours was me?

Because seriously, how much time do we spend in our lives performing for other people’s approval? 

How many decisions do we make based on other people’s thoughts and opinions and values? 

How much of ourselves do we willingly give away to humans who would never give us a second thought?

I don’t want to live like that anymore. I’m done.

I’m just… done.

So, I pondered this and I thought – if no one ever heard me, I would still play my cello. Because it makes me feel good and calm and sane amidst so much insanity. Music is what pulled me through a chaotic childhood. It’s what keeps my brain from spinning out of control. So even if no one ever cared what I did, I would still play my cello.

And I would still knit sweaters, because I love the feeling of them in my hands and against my skin. And I would make food that I loved to eat for the pleasure of a full stomach and a connection to the people I loved who taught me the recipe. And I would cuddle my cat for as long as I could for as many mornings as she has left. 

And I would still want to be a teen services librarian for as long as this job exists. I would still listen to my teens when they told me about their day, and I would still answer honestly when they ask me questions. And I would read books and watch tv that make me feel feelings, and I would make small, beautiful things sometimes, when I wanted to.

I’m seeing a lot of my writer friends asking themselves what the point of writing anything is, right now? When publishing was already pretty fucked and is just going to get worse, and aren’t there bigger things to worry about?

It’s a fair question. And, for me, I can’t answer it with platitudes about how art matters most in times of crisis, or how the kids need your words, even as I think that both those things are true.

In this moment, I’m not thinking about Art with a capital A or how I might change the world or any of that.

I’m asking myself a small, selfish question:

If I knew… if I know … if I fully embrace that nothing I write will ever be published, that it will never live on a shelf, that no one will ever read it – in other words, if the worst¹ should happen – do I still want to keep writing? Is that how I want to spend my one wild and precious life?

And for now, at least, the answer is yes. I would. I do. I will. 

Because these people, these characters, live in my head now. They’re real to me. And I want to see them through this adventure. Because there is something in me that I’m trying to puzzle out and the only way I can do it is by writing this book. Because the act of creating reminds me that I’m human, that you’re human, and that everyone else out there is human too. And it gives me hope that even if I don’t live to see the end of this chapter in history, that the arc of the universe bends toward justice. That the side characters with no lines still matter simply for existing.

If I really, truly am living my life for no one but me, then I choose to fill it with as much beauty and heart and hope as I can for as long as I can. I choose to love as fiercely as possible, and care as deeply as I can about people I may never meet, even if no one will ever remember. To fight in the ways I fight best, and support others who fight in different ways than me.

And to rest when I can; when I need to. To find joy in a small, insignificant life.

Because when the worst happens, you still have to find a way forward. 

I hope you find your way forward, too. 

1. ‘worst’ being an extremely relative thing in grand scheme of things, but again - small selfish losses are still losses