sitting on the sofa eating bonbons

slow living or extreme laziness?

olá people,

i just turned 44 and spent part of the day at the emergency room with an intestinal parasite (thanks to telemedicine consult from s.y. - best doctor ever, thank you!!!).

it’s tots fine. for a parasite, it’s quite benign and common. the idea of the thing is far worse than the reality. so since my last letter i turned 44, found a parasite, got a part-time pay-the-bills (aka not art-related) gig, leaned hard on some friends, and asked for time from others. i'm still depressed, but not in the deep depths. i've got a few more rejections from literary mags but it's slowly getting normalized.

i’m drawing people now. ink sketch of the back of a seated model.

maintaining my mental health at mediocre + being a mom + being a partner = all the energy i have in a day. and it's got me thinking about the life i lead. and my overall identity crisis.

if you don't know, i was born in brasil and raised in the u.s. from the time i was 9 months old. i've lived in brasil for 12 years and speak with an accent. i'm basically fluent but nowhere near a native speaker. to give you an idea, my 8-year-old speaks better than i do.

hardly a day goes by that someone doesn't say, “you're not from here, are you?” it happened at the emergency room, for example.

i hate this statement. i don't sound like i'm from here and with my pasty white skin and white hair, i don't look like it. but actually, i am. i'm from both places, shaped by both cultures. but no one allows that.

i feel the same way about work.

sitting around doing nothing...ink sketch of seated model from front

i haven't been formally employed (what we call CLT here) since 2014. i've made it financially with support from my then-husband and mom and cashing out my roth ira. no one pays me for my writing or my art.

i now pay the bills with professional writing gigs and personal assistant stuff. but i'm rarely busy. i absolutely never hustle. i can do whatever i want almost every single day. i can attend to all of my daughter's needs, but i'm not a stay at home mom. i take all the classes i want but study nothing. and so many people tell me how lucky i am that i don't work or how sweet it is that i do nothing.

ahhhh. i really really don't like this. just like i really really don't like being told i'm not brazilian on the regular.

i don't work 9 to 5 or anything that comes close. i don't have a lifestyle like anyone else i know. it is true. but that doesn't not mean i do nothing.

i get defensive and sometimes get close to saying, “it's not like i'm on the sofa, watching soaps and eating bonbons.” and then i'm like, why not?

i hate capitalism. i hate the commodification of our time and being. i hate that quality of life is about consumption. i hate that individuality above all allows for collective destruction. i hate superficiality and performance.

so why aren't i proud that people consumed by the rat race and the need to acquire think i do nothing. in comparison to those fully immersed in capitalism, i actually do nothing!

i don't consume mindlessly because i can't afford to because i don't want to be able to afford to. i spend a lot of time thinking and learning and considering and pondering and that IS NOTHING in comparison to zoom meetings, sales calls, and data entry. i really like sofas and bonbons and reading mystery novels (my equivalent of soap operas) and have created a life that is more likely what i'm doing than hustling and boss bitching.

so why does it bother me that people say i do nothing and am so lucky?

because it isn't a fluke and i didn't luck in to it. i created this life, with sacrifice (no cool stamps in my passport, i wait 6 months for a mri from the public health system and have been sleeping on the floor for a year and a half because cannot afford to finish my remodel) and a whole lot of judgment from others.

i actively resist the pressure to make more and have more. to be a capitalist cog. to be unthinking in my consumption. i'm not lucky that i have a life that i can treat my depression with long walks and silent days, even though i can't afford professional intervention. i built my life for this. i live so intentionally and consciously that i resent it being disqualified as nothing.

but fuck it, it is nothing. and i think i have the best life of anyone i know. i wouldn't want it any other way.

i also don't judge people (well, most people. we remember my exceptions right? mitch, ted, and donald).

if you work 80 hours a week or have 1 million bucks, all the power to you. you do you.

i’m doing me. i’m not brazilian and i am. i do nothing and that’s wicked meaningful and something. maybe if we all respected self-identification and lifestyles we don't live we wouldn't be shitting all over trans existence and loneliness and suicide wouldn't be whack high.

but what's an old-depressed-underemployed-nut like me know?

beijooooos,

m