Tough Titties, Tough Decisions, And When You Feel Lonely.
I Did A Scary Thing. Also: An Invitation To Play With Me* On Saturday, What We Can And Cannot Afford & Becoming A Substack Bestseller.
Photo by my baby, Henry Czerny (best photographer and actor in the world), of course.
I started to write tough decisions and my fingers typed titties instead of tough. So, there you have it: tough titties. A both/and situation.
Sometimes, life’s just some tough titties.
*Also, get your mind out of the gutter if you read the part of the subtitle that says an invitation to play with me with any pervy stuff. (Maybe it’s just me that has gutter mind. Probably.)
It’s an invite to this party. Come on, party people.
This one’s a freebie for everyone. Whether you are a paid subscriber or not. If you read on, you’ll see a poem I wrote for you today. If you are able, please consider becoming one or a founding member. Founding members provide even extra support. I felt like not putting a paywall today, so please enjoy. Pay it forward. :) I also wanted to say THANK YOU for making this happen:
I’m going to try and make this short (lol yea right, JP.) I have an unimaginable amount of work to do on my book and a fast approaching deadline. I mentioned in my last essay (are these essays? what are they? does it matter? Oh, the endless dread of naming things and finding where they fit in) that I was doing my best to avoid landing back in the familiar Land of Overwhelm.
Friends, I am here to report: I FAILED. I did not avert nor avoid. I am here in said Land Of Overwhelm.
Before you have to sit through all my ramblings I want to share that I made the HARD choice to cancel my upcoming in-person retreat to Ojai in May. If you are not going to read this whole thing (why do you hate me? are you mad at me?) I want to invite you, however, this Saturday, to a different sort of retreat. One that is equally as magic, just virtual. ALLOW.
Come? I need your energy, weirdos. Big time.
(Oh yea, if you are a paid subscriber you get a discount. Go look at older posts or email me if you’re in that camp or if you need financial support.) It’s so good. You don’t need to be a “good” writer or “good” anything. (Just don’t be like a murderer, okay?)
Good is dumb.
I am writing to you from the town center in TLOO (The Land of Overwhelm) where it’s very hot and very loud. Even for a deaf ass like me.
In fact, I just got off a zoom with my lawyer (Divorce Hell) and he said, Jen, you’re a little hot today. (I was. I am! )
When I get scared, I panic. My breath gets short, my face and neck blotchy, red. I shuffle papers on my desk, put my coffee in the microwave then forget about it and make a second coffee then remember the one in microwave, drink neither, look for a can of sparkling water and then get angry at the refrigerator that there isn’t any more as if it’s to blame for my tendency of opening cans and drinking only half before opening another. (Well, someone has to take the blame for my behavior and habits, don’t they? And it sure as shit won’t be me.)
Of course, it’ll be me.
I accept responsibility. Just not for all of it.
For example: the dissolution of my marriage. Not all on me. My father’s death. Not on me, although I always believed it was my fault. That I killed him. (Didn’t.) Earthquake while Charlie and I were in NYC? Nope. Not my doing. Picking up the wrong luggage at LAX even after my son asked if I checked if it was mine? On me, entirely. Did it make me a no good bad rotten person? Nah. Just a very tired one, who luckily still managed to have a sense of humor as Charlie and I walkran 19 million miles of LAX Hell back to terminal 3 to return said luggage and claim my own. Saying yes to things I don’t have the bandwith for and then resenting I said yes or having to cancel? Me, me, me. Anyway, you get it.
It’s like everything’s coming at me at once and ain’t that always the way?
All I have to do is remember to breathe.
Why is it so hard to remember to breathe sometimes? It’s the most important and primal thing we do. We don’t have to think to do it and yet I find myself having to remind myself to like I have to remind myself Mondays are the days to put the trash and recycling bins out. (I remembered and did it last night!)
I need to breathe. Deeply and fully, and also, look around at all the beauty surrounding me and all that keeps showing up in my life.
Stand by for a sec while I do that, k?
That’s a lot of beauty. May I never stop looking.
Truth is, I’m afraid.
There’s a lot I can’t share because my divorce is not finalized and it’s private. I’m in a very complicated situation. I have a small child, which makes navigating all of this tenderly precarious. The financial burden on me is immense and as an artist, as someone without a real job (you know what I mean), I have nothing steady, so to speak. As someone who historically resisted change at all costs to stay feeling safe, I feel very unsafe right now.
I also know: I have a lot of support. I have a divine kid, deep friendships, a man I love and who loves me, a beautiful community, my family, my hearing aids, my anti-depressants, my painting.
Both/and/all the things.
I know how to ask for help and receive it so when I feel like I’m drowning or I can’t do this or I am going to end up on the streets (ancient fears surfacing like slimy ex-boyfriends), I allow myself to lean on my people. That is what being an I Got YOU person is/does. Sometimes we are the one gotting, other times we are the ones being gotten. Sometimes it is both at once.
A couple weeks away, my friend Tiffany Lonsdale-Hands (wonderful actress-check her out) sat on my couch at my apartment and leaned towards to me.
She said, Something is coming up for me about you right now. I want to remind you that you are not in survival any more.
I am so grateful for our people who will do that for us: tell us what is so rather than what we are believing to be so. Who will remind us who we are when we forget. Who will show us that we are loved when we feel we aren’t.
(I love you.)
May we always have friends who remind us of such things.
Thank you, Tiffany.
It’s easy (for me) to fall into default mode, meaning an old way of being where I feel like I am in survival mode and just trying to stay afloat. Where there isn’t enough and never will be.
When I have people around me who notice me making the descent, they reach a hand down (no pun on Tifafny’s last name) and say I got you and that is just not the case any longer. You are safe.
I hope you have those people, too. If you feel you don’t, I guarantee you this: they are there. In fact, there are here in this community. (Come on Saturday and you will see.)
I am so stinking proud of the community. I didn’t do it alone but I did build the foundation for it and I nurture it like it matters because it does. It matters so so much.
I have an upcoming virtual creativity/writing/connection workshop called ALLOW this coming Saturday April 20th. The greatest part of it is the connections.
It is magic. You know this if you’ve attended. Come again. Come play. It’s astounding what happens in a few short hours over there. You have to be willing to suck though. If you think you need to be perfect or “good” or published or outgoing or “cool” (ewww) or any nonsense like that, you’re in for an awakening. You just have to be your weirdo self.
If money is an issue, just email me.
I made that big for you, ya knucklehead.
I do my best to make my stuff accessible (having said that, I need your support to do that, so if you are able to, please pay full price and/or donate or gift a subscription here, etc. It keeps the ecosystem going.)
It’s this Saturday at 11 am pst-2 p pst and it’s the last thing I will be doing for a while as I finish Proof Of Life, my next book.
That brings me to hard decisions.
I love leading my retreats. They make me come alive and inspire me. I pinch myself that I get to do it for a job. I love my work. What a thing to be able to feel!
I decided, however, a while back I would do them less. They take a lot out of me (and of course, energize me as well.) They take me away from my son for too long though (when they are not in Ojai.) The effort I have to exert in order to hear people and to simply keep up, due to my deafness, is utterly exhausting and draining.
I don’t know if you can even begin to imagine unless you too have hearing loss and a job based in listening (ha, the irony! The beauty!) I find myself sleeping so much. Working to hear all the time is so tiring.
The hustle of promoting felt like it was slowly killing me. It was. It made me want to barf in my mouth and eat worms.
I want to do them yet not have to rely on them solely for my mortgage and to feed my family and pay for my health insurance bla bla. It makes more sense to make the bulk of my income with my speaking gigs (they do not require me to promote or fill the room, they pay A LOT, and, it’s in and out,) virtual writing workshops, my own writing, coaching, my art (I mean, who knew? I have been selling my paintings and it’s just about the greatest unexpected tickle ever.)
I was done with the constant travel, the endless promoting, the social media bullshit. I was about ready to stab myself in the eye. (man, I’m violent today.) So, I got to the place where I do 2/3 retreats a year, as I’d declared. I have never been happier. The retreats were always special, but they become even more so when they became so infrequent and rare.
I just did one here in Ojai in February that was life-changing. Charlie even participated in most of it. The gift of him growing up in this environment and community is one that will inform his entire life and I am never not in awe watching how it’s shaped him.
What We Can And Cannot Afford
I had another retreat scheduled May 24-27th, and, as I mentioned in the opening of this short (I lied, but not on purpose) letter, I am in TLOO so every time I thought about the upcoming retreat I got a blotch of red on my chest and I’d start to obsess on all the dental work I needed and then pick off my fake fingernails.
Please remember how much I love leading this retreat.
This was my body’s way of going Nope. No, you do not have the bandwith for this retreat right now. You do not have the energy to give everything creatively to your book as well as promote a retreat and spend four days away from the book. Nope, you are no longer in survival mode and you will not die if you don’t do this one.
Thing is, I put down a large deposit and I will lose it. But, I sat quietly and breathed until It’s going to be okay emerged and I pulled the trigger with that knowing, and cancelled. Money will come back to me. It always does. I will be okay with the divorce and the money I will have to pay (California, baby) and all the things on my plate right now too.
As long as I stay grounded and connected to abundance rather than lack. (This is often very difficult for me because: habit and history.) I can always recommit though, as Katie Hendricks taught me.
I recommit to my writing practice, to my dedication to completing my book, to my connection to abundance, to listening to my body and saying no when it’s a no.
What about you? What do you want to recommit to? Care to share? And, do you have anyone to support you in accountability? That helps a lot. Like, pssst, you’re not in survival mode anymore.
I wrote a poem this morning before my call with my lawyer. Hey poem, be right back, I’m gonna go get divorced real quick. I just wrote it and it’s not edited or anything but I want to share it in case it helps you a little. And if you pee your pants sometimes, it’s okay.
For When You Feel Lonely
Open the window and scream.
When no one screams back don’t go See?
as if silence is evidence
that you’re alone in the world.
Your mouth might tend toward S, the smile see forces
but you can’t use that quiet as proof
of your forsakenness.
There’s no one outside the window, is all.
Look for evidence of something else instead.
Carve your name with a tiny fork on a secret spot on the wall,
hidden from sight, a place only you know exists.
There, something to touch
when you need to remember
you are here, that you were there.
Then, begin to sing and sing until birds land on the sill,
flowers begin to bloom, until your voice goes hoarse,
until you piss yourself with delight
at how off key you are, at made up lyrics,
at positively absolutely nothing at all, the best delight.
Until you cry with laughter, which makes you pee more,
Then sing even louder
until someone sings back,
and still, even then.
I didn’t even see cancelling the retreat as an option. Isn’t it amazing the corners we paint ourselves into? The possibilities we don’t allow ourselves to see?
I didn’t think I could cancel because A) I couldn’t afford to lose the deposit (I can’t but what I can’t afford even more is the stress, the distraction, the time taken away from my priority: my book.) B) I wouldn’t survive without the income from the retreat. C) Just because. (The dumbest one.)
I just can’t.
Why?
I don’t know.
I just can’t.
Do you ever do that?
Cling to something or someone or a belief, only to realize that you don’t even know what it is that you are holding onto? Then, you open your hands at whatever it was you were gripping and there’s nothing there, just air.
I am also recommitting also: trust. I trust that everything will indeed be okay. I trust that by listening to my body I made the right (even though it feels scary) choice. I trust that it is safe for me to have financial freedom. (Someone gave me that mantra when I was about to buy my house and I use it all the time because I need to use it all the time, as well as remember.)
I love the words it is safe for me to _____. What would you put in there? I have a couple others that help me. It is safe for me to make changes in my life. It is safe for me to feel my feelings. Please borrow as needed.
I cannot afford to take away any focus from my book. I cannot afford the feeling of stress planning the retreat was giving me. I cannot afford to not listen to my body/my own knowing.
I cannot afford living from/in/with fear.
I can afford to cancel this retreat, get a divorce, live a great big beautiful life filled with awe and wonder, play more, rest. I can, right? It’s going to be okay, right?
I am writing to you, not only to tell you I cancelled my retreat next month, (I do still have Italy September 14-21, fyi), but to kind of hear myself say It’s going to be okay as a kind of question and pray that someone is listening and will answer back, in the affirmative It Is! No question about it.
I guess that’s the not so silent prayer of mine right now.
So yea, sing. Even then.
I’m just over here singing because I’m tired of screaming.
For a long time, I did use the lack of response to my call as proof that I wasn’t gotten, that no one cared. Until I realized I was screaming into the abyss and my scream wasn’t making any sound at all. I was simply shovelling back down inside. The abyss our bodies can become.
Oh, I know a thing or two about that.
I stopped.
I stopped looking for evidence that I sucked by chasing people who weren’t reciprocating and using their apathy as the arbiter of my worth.
I stopped trying to do it all alone by denying help and then bemoaning I have to do it all alone.
I stopped pretending call and response was a solo activity. Your call can’t be answered if there is no one there to hear it. Before you cry that you’ve got no one because when you open the window and scream no one says shit back, just check to see if there is anyone there in the first place, you ding dong. Unless you want to stay stuck in the story that you’re all alone and no one cares. If so, I’ll go get you (and me) the world’s tiniest violin and we can play sad, sad songs.
Or, we can sing. Even then.
If you’d like to support me as I finish my book and deal with the immense financial pressure that I’m doing my best (sometimes failing miserably) to not panic over, you can become a paid subscriber here, or better yet: a founding member.
You can send a donation in to my Venmo/Paypal. Venmo is jennifer-pastiloff (4 digits 0172) and PP is jenniferpastiloffinfo@gmail.com.
Most timely as it is this weekend: Sign up for ALLOW or sponsor someone.
I’d be so grateful if you spread word about ALLOW as it’s my last thing for a long time.
I will share another post with more paintings. This piece is beloved to me. She’s called ABUNDANCE. She is $2,500.
Share this Substack or any of the things. It all helps.
But mostly: stay in community. Keep being an I Got You. Keep reminding each other that we aren’t alone. Keep doing love. It all comes back in a circle.
We are contagious so let’s keep catching love from each other.
Love, me
Notice all the stuff about finding your voice.?
I’m telling you, we are here to sing!
Other tidbits:
Chosen family. (Who’s yours?)
Today is my ride or die Alicia’s (Ace) birthday and I gifted her this painting. She wept and became speechless and I’ll tell you, I have never had a reaction like that. It was worth all the money in the world. It means so much. Look, it is her. She’s called She found Her Way. Can you see where it says that on the painting?
I received a book in the mail (I told you I get them every day from authors and publishers) and this one knocked my socks off. A book of poems by
called Instructions For Travelling West. Check my instagram because we did an Instagram Live the other day. I love the book and want to eat the book and also want to have written it. It lives in me now.
Your words are just delicious, Jen. It's food for the soul. I love soulfood and I love you.
Bloody hell I took this so personally because I am a weirdo with social anxiety who has socially isolated myself so bad that at Age 55 I have no family, one friend. I even moved to the country so I could get away from the city. From overcrowded train rides. I didn’t know it at the time but I was suffering from ANXIETY (caps intended) but I had taught myself to push through it. It made me “high functioning”. I was the girl they would all come to at work when a report needed writing or a presentation written before a big pitch.
I am WIRED this way. WIRED get it. Also awake from 1:30am and I’m writing this at 4:56am because I sent an email a week ago asking for a scholarship to do the ALLOW workshop and didn’t get a response.
And maybe it’s because my email went missing. But I made it mean this:
(Hold on tight, I’m taking you for a wild ride through how my PTSD brain works …)
Me: you got a scholarship to the last one
Also Me: yes but it was so good for me. I had to get up at 4am to do it and I almost missed it because I was awake the entire night before and fell asleep only an hour before it was due to start.
But I made it. Embarrassed because I looked like I had just got out of bed, I had. But I KNEW I NEEDED SOCIAL CONNECTION. And I reached for it.
And I revelled in it. In awe of the latent other people had to express themselves.
I was stuck in trauma responses at the time and what I had convinced myself were feelings of having literally shit myself. Where is Mum to change my nappy?
I was SHOCKED by what I wrote at that last workshop.
I even read it aloud (ALLOWED), my voice shook but I got through it. It was the first time I had been able to write about “feeling” neglected.
Thing is, I don’t have evidence my mother had post natal depression, it wasn’t even a “known thing” in 1968 FFS!
My cries alarmed her rather than told her what to do. She was very angry with me all of the time and would get enraged at me and would sometimes deliberately hurt me.
I buried this deep. Real deep. A mother hurting her child is a headfuck to me. It has been all my life. But my mother was scared of me. So I had to soothe her, comfort her, take care of her, say things to make her feel better and calm down, help her to focus during a conversation and not get upset.
Maybe I want to label her behaviour? Maybe she had a mental health disorder like bipolar or borderline personality or Narcissistic personality disorder?
Maybe. It’s 55 year old me who has the Masters Degree in psycho social dynamics that allows me to delve into my own experience as DATA.
But DATA is just that. It is not PROOF. It is not EVIDENCE. I spent my WHOLE LIFE BELIEVING there was something wrong with me mentally.
So when my mother left me at 7 with my father who didn’t know how to ever feel his feelings (any wonder they both would get so loud and my Mother would get violent towards him. To provoke something? In physical defence of the words he was saying?
I would do the same at age 17. I would get physical with myself over the words I had spoken to myself since I was 3. I saw my Daddy catch fire in our kitchen.
I was happy until then. I think. Or maybe it’s just because this was my earliest memory.
Anyway, I’m broke as shit but I do have a brand new credit card and I’m going to use it to pay for the workshop RIGHT NOW and will see you Saturday.
Because I had completely lost my abundance mindset as I haven’t been able to function due to my PTSD being triggered. And that shit gets stuck on a loop of a shit show and fucks with my blood pressure, anxiety, sleep patterns (what sleep?!). Sleeping tablets DID WORK for 15 years! BUT. They would make me feel “foggy” and I would get cotton wool brain and my work performance would suffer. But if I didn’t take them I would be awake or night OR WORSE. When I did take them (like tonight) and didn’t sleep and am so tired and exhausted from holding so much anxiety and trying to speak to other people and not sound crazy.
Why I can’t answer a simple email without it triggering something of experienced trauma right now. the shit out of each other when they would argue) I was sexually molested age 11, my fault, degree, a semester I have had to defer from or multipolar or maybe