Livin' on the air in Cincinnati, or an Unbearable Lightness of Being

I flew to Cincinnati against my agoraphobia's better judgment, expecting freezing rain and windchill factors of zero in both weather and critique. Two things happened that I was not expecting: the weather was relatively mild, and Writer's Digest editor Jane Friedman did not beat the hell out of my little darling. Instead, she compiled a list of agents I should send it to. (Yes, yes: "to whom I should send it.") I kept thinking, wait, does she think I'm someone else? Is this somebody's idea of a mean joke? Am I still rehearsing this session in my dream the night before? (I decided it could not be the latter, as my dreams run more toward, "This is the worst piece of tripe I have ever seen! What makes you think you have any business writing? Give me your keyboard: I'm cutting it in half!")

But Nelson Muntz did not pop out and say "HA, ha!" and I still had the piece of paper with all of the agent names on it when I went back to my hotel room. (And the little smiley in the margin of my manuscript where Jane liked my silly ZuZu's petals joke between the demons after the angel gets her wings.)

I was walking on air for several days afterward. Finally, some validation that maybe what I'm writing would be of interest to more than just a handful of my friends. Maybe, finally, I had something. And then the other pole of my bipolar head swung back around with a nauseating lurch, and the Shakespeare quotation that I have above my computer came back to me: "Expectation is the root of all heartache."

I recognize that this is chemical, that I have been staying inside my very dark, scaffolding-shrouded house for too long writing, and the Seasonal Affective Disorder is raging out of control. Still, I cannot convince myself that the upswing in my mood was not a total, helium-filled delusion, a Hindenburg awaiting a spark. The agent I queried on referral hasn't replied. Normally, I wouldn't expect a quick response, but I don't really know how it works when it's a referral, and I'm now trying to figure out if I've done something wrong. Yes, it's the holiday season, and I should take a step back and not worry about it right now; people are busy. Yes, I have other agents to query and a few more referrals. I think about that list of referrals and I'm a bit giddy for an instant. Still, I am gripped by self-doubt and self-hatred, as if the price for feeling good, for hope, is an equal amount of despair.

It's the Solstice, the time for lights in the darkness, the time to look into the leafless trees for the dancing snegurochka syla—but here I sit with an unbearable feeling of detachment and insubstantiality, a fear that like my mother, I am close to the end at the age of 43. I read of others for whom it comes so easy, who attain their goals so young, and I have been trying for so long, but it's always out of reach.

I pondered whether I should write this post. All that talk of building a platform, and the best I can do is blurt out my anxiety and paranoia for all the world to see like a stain of emotional incontinence. This is one of the reasons I've resisted the "public presence." I am all too familiar with my mood swings. Yet if I keep it to myself, it feels worse, and if I don't write when I feel like this, I don't write. I guess I'll take comfort in the fact that no one is yet following this blog, and apologize to my future followers should they ever happen across it.

In the meantime, I'm going to try to get myself to go outside and get a Solstice tree. After all, it will be up in plenty of time for the Russian Orthodox Christmas and New Year. Maybe the lights will work their terrestrial magic. As my leather demon Belphagor once said, it's why we fall.