June 2016, I had lost it.
I didn’t know what it was. But it had fled.
My path. My passion. My purpose.
My juju. My life force. Whatever.
Gone.
Nothing had happened, per se. Life was kosher.
I was fine.
I was fine!
I was a fine person, relatively speaking too.
I tried to be good and kind to friend and stranger alike. I recycled and donated a bit above the norm. I passed as a middling successful food writer and lifestyle podcast host. I spent time with my family and supported my friends. I managed my work/life schedule from the comfort of my uptown Manhattan apartment. (Well, way uptown. The hood Lin-Manuel Miranda sang about long before Hamilton.)
I didn’t have a closet of Manolos or anything. But life was fine.
I should have been happy.
Period.
But I was . . . happy?
Question mark?
Memory’s a funny thing. Now, way out of my comfort zone as I process and condense this sliver of my life, I think back and clearly see how I spent years justifying happy? by doing what we’re told to do and obsessively recounting blessings: I have work that brings creative satisfaction. I have a safe apartment with a compatible roommate and a desk by a window with a view of street and sky. I have a family I enjoy and love. I have Mitra, the best soulmate dog who ever fetched. I have devoted friends. I am healthy enough to hold my job.
Yes. At the start of this story, I wanted happy. period.
But complacency muddled how things in my life were so very bad.
Career stumbling blocks had shriveled my creative confidence. Although overworking to increase my income, I kept falling further into debt. Hosting a dating podcast should have had me at the front of the pack, yet I hadn’t shared deep romantic love in years. And despite decades of investment in my health, my chronic illness kept worsening and I couldn’t seem to stop it.
I couldn’t seem to better any of it.
I’d overhauled my career in workshops and networking groups.
I’d put my physical faith in doctors and alternative practices.
I’d dropped dreams and dollars, harvesting happy.
And still, I wandered in a fog I couldn’t identify or outmaneuver.
At night, I’d slowly pace Riverside Drive, alone but for Mitra, oblivious with her nose to the ground. The romantic haze of orange streetlamps cast shadows from tall stone buildings down on to the wide expanse of street. Night after night I ambled, up and down, my songwriter friend Robbie Gil’s voice on repeat in my ears, underscoring like a soundtrack:
“I think I’m happy. Or otherwise distracted . . .”
And then one day, I cracked.