Welcome to Issue #032 of Zen in the Art of Fighting

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Five Things Worth Sharing

1. One Good Picture: "The End of An Era" (Read: "Selling the Subaru")

One road trip, many cities, and 53,635 miles later, we--bittersweetly--traded in the Subaru Forester that took us across America and back.

That car took me on the ride of a lifetime and, in many ways, drove me toward adulthood. Who I was when I first sat in the driver's seat in 2017 and who I was when I signed over the title and handed over the keys last Wednesday are two completely different people.

I get a little bit wistful knowing that someone else will buy the car and will never know how much I loved it, how far it ventured, and how many worthy memories were made in it. I can only hope the next owner appreciates this Subaru at much as I did and that my experience with the new RAV-4 is as meaningful and adventure-filled as my experience with the timeless, trusty Forester.

2. Something I'm Writing: I wrote a bit of a cheesy-inspirational social media post to go with the milestone of submitting my book proposal to a few agents last week. I put versions of the post both on Instagram and Linkedin, because I was feeling adequately sociable on social media. I wouldn't share it if it wasn't true, and if the strength of my belief didn't overcome the self-consciousness of being potentially cringeworthy.

It's easier to talk about in hindsight, but the truth is that I was in a pretty rough place, both mentally and financially, around this time last year. Because I had wanted to write for a living and have a book deal pay my bills, going back to tech last June felt simultaneously like giving up and selling out. Needing to go back to a corporate job to keep funding my writing had felt like a failure, but the stress of not making an income was preventing me from writing well. For those reasons, returning to the workforce was almost as much of an identity crisis as leaving the work force.

Ultimately, going back to a steady gig was the right call. Even though my writing schedule is continuously subject to being steamrolled by inane meetings, I will take my current situation over that of last May, when I was spending my days fretting over how much longer I could keep my bank account in the black. My job means I have to move more slowly on getting represented and getting to a second draft on this book, but it also means that I can afford a mortgage alongside my own peace of mind.

Even as the 9-5 saps my attention and causes some of my best words to get diverted into Slack instead of Scrivener, the stability of the job allows my creativity to flourish outside of it.

3. Something I'm Reading: The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intention by Jonathan Rosen​

If Mental Health Awareness month had a required reading list, I'd put this book on it, an ambitious memoir about friendship and schizophrenia that deserves every bit of the acclaim it's getting.

I don't talk about this terribly much, but my half-brother is schizophrenic, and to say that I wish I understood what goes on in his head is an understatement.

I spent a lot more time around him as a kid, seeing him at least twice a month for dinners down at the Jersey Shore, where he still lives. He was steadier with his medication back then, his personal grooming and his hygiene were more consistent, and my dad was very invested in trying to get his only son to have a semblance of a normal life.

As a kid, I did not fully grasp that my half-brother was mentally ill. I just thought that he had a particularly-eccentric love of the 80s and that explained his haircut, his way of dressing, the volume of the music in his apartment. I did not know that his love of the 80s and everything else that came with it was due to being frozen in time when his illness manifested.

The most recent interaction I can remember is from about a year ago, and it was equal parts odd, funny, scary, and unsettling. We met outside his apartment in a parking lot near a boardwalk. Face unshaven for at least a week, the stubbled hair growth looked like dark sand from the shoreline.

Our exchange couldn't have been for more than fifteen minutes, but it felt like a lifetime passed as we stood on the pavement, "we" being him, my mom, myself, and whoever else he believed to be with us.

"Don't tell them my father's dead," he repeated, part tic, part eerie refrain, eyes locking on me before darting upward and elsewhere. This was an improvement on the previous time I had seen him or spoken to him, when he had yet to realize that our father had died and had not showered in a significant amount of time.

Reading Rosen's book, which is making the rounds in interviews, articles, and more, is illuminating and gut-wrenching. It also gives me hope that one day I might well about my half-brother, something I've tried to do before but have found to be the only thing more daunting than writing about my dad.

4. Something I'm Listening To: "Here Comes The Rain Again" by Eurythmics

I saw Pitch Perfect show up in my Netflix queue, it led me down a rabbit hole of nostalgic thinking about my college a cappella group. This was one of the songs in our repertoire, and while our arrangement was haunting and beautiful, nothing beats the original. Annie Lennox is the 👑

5. Something I'm Watching: my match footage from the IBJJF Atlanta Open last weekend (check around the 6:50:00 mark if you're interested--consider yourself warned that my opponent and I look ridiculously similar)​

I only had one match, but I have enough to say about the experience of competing in the Atlanta Open this past weekend that it's worth writing about here.

I'm always a little on edge coming into a competition, but was more so coming into this one: the Atlanta Open was my first tournament in eight months, my first at Brown Belt, and my first since injuring my foot in November. Any of those things on their own would have been enough to make me nervous, but dealing with all three at once was especially nerve-racking.

Compounding the nerves, my matchup was against someone I know and for whom I have a lot of respect: she's a very frequent and experienced competitor who recently won my division at the Pan American Championships. She also had a massive crowd of fans on the sidelines cheering for her yesterday. Despite trusting in my own recovery and preparation, coming back to compete was intimidating given all the above.

I don't think this was my best performance by a long shot. I don't think it shows the true scope of my jiu-jitsu or is representative of what I now understand or am capable of doing on the mat. But I am proud of myself for not letting my opponent's competitive track record or the disproportionate show of support for her get to me. In the past, things like that would have defeated me before I even stepped onto the mat. I am also proud that the things I learned in my earliest days of white belt still work at brown belt. To quote a friend's text, "fundamentals are 🤌🤌🤌."

That's all I've got for this edition.

See you in two weeks,

EZ

PS: The real champion of the 2023 IBJJF Atlanta Spring International Open: Snickers, for not 💩-ing in the apartment while Bug and I were away at the competition on Saturday.