Being alive
Want something
Sob story
When I was in London in February, I saw the musical Company for the first time. If you’re unfamiliar, the Stephen Sondheim classic centers around 35-year-old Bobby being pestered by all of his married friends to get married himself. (In the production I saw, featuring Patti LuPone as thrice-married Joanne—she’ll be in the 2020 production on Broadway, too—Bobby was a 35-year-old woman, which makes so much more sense for a modern telling of this story. Imagine a bunch of New Yorkers feeling sorry for a single 35-year-old man?) Each couple pushing Bobby to wed faces its own challenges—lies, divorce, fear of commitment, not wanting to lose your love but also daydreaming of life without them. Bobby’s friends tell him to want something. Want something! In the finale, Bobby belts out “Being Alive,” ready to find a reason to live: someone to experience true intimacy with, in all its guts and glory.
After watching Adam Driver sing “Being Alive” in Marriage Story, I revisited the song. I’ve listened to it dozens of times, sung by Patti LuPone, and Bernadette Peters, and even the cast of Glee. Sunday my friends and I gathered to watch a 2006 recording of Company on Broadway that my friend Shadi found on Reddit (these are my people), and we watched Raul Esparza sing “Being Alive” with rising chests and wet eyes.
Somebody, hold me too close,
Somebody, hurt me too deep,
Somebody, sit in my chair
And ruin my sleep
And make me aware
Of being alive,
Being alive.
Somebody, need me too much,
Somebody, know me too well,
Somebody, pull me up short
And put me through hell
And give me support
For being alive,
Make me alive.
Make me confused,
Mock me with praise,
Let me be used,
Vary my days.
But alone is alone, not alive.
Somebody, crowd me with love,
Somebody, force me to care,
Somebody, make me come through,
I'll always be there,
As frightened as you,
To help us survive
Being alive,
Being alive,
Being alive!
In my first weeks with a freshly shattered heart, I texted my friends, “I can’t keep doing this every few years for the rest of my life. I just can’t.” But if I must, I can, and I will. I will love and lose as many times as I’m able to—as I’m privileged to. I’ll open and close my arms again and again, and surround myself with my someones. I will meet people who fill my lungs with stardust, then crush me to bits and send my tears streaming through the universe. I already have.
I don’t know if I have anything useful to say about the dualities of life and love that hasn’t already been said by Aristotle, and Shakespeare, and Pema Chödrön, and bell hooks, and Sondheim. Or by all of those motivational phrases your aunt posts on Facebook. (The journey is the reward.) But bury me in their earnestness and universal appeal. May we all find a love that makes us say, “Love is a single soul inhabiting two bodies,” and mean it. May saccharine words continue to drip from my lips as long as being alive continues to be the greatest cliche of them all.
I’m reading
Ask Polly’s holiday survival guide by Heather Havrilesky in The Cut
Katie Hawkins-Gaar on the most wonderful* (*conflicting) time of the year at her newsletter, My Sweet Dumb Brain
37 self-care tips for anyone who is kind of not OK RN by Anna Borges and Rachel Wilkerson Miller at Buzzfeed
The fraught culture of online mourning by Rachel Vorona Cote at Longreads
The need for kindness at the Book of Life
The true reason why it matters boils down to a thought that we may resist for a long time: because we are alarmingly, and almost limitlessly, sensitive, by which is meant, hugely unconvinced of our own value, of our right to exist, of our legitimacy, of our claims on love, of our decency and of our capacity to interest anyone in our pains and in our ultimate fate. We need kindness so desperately – even its tiniest increments (a door held open, a compliment on a biscuit, a birthday remembered) – because we are, first and foremost, permanently teetering over a precipice of despair and self-loathing. The impression of grown-up self-assurance is a sham; inside, just beneath a layer of competence, we are terrified and lost, unsure and unreassured – and ready to cling avidly on to any sign, however small, that we deserve to continue.
I’m listening to:
“Call Your Mom” from The Cut on Tuesdays
I’m thinking about lessons for my professional and personal lives:
How to feel like you have enough by Christine Garvey at The Creative Independent
You accomplished something great. So now what? by A.C. Shilton in The New York Times
I’m learning:
An obvious gift-wrap tip that blew my simple mind
How to better deal with anxiety from this Twitter thread:
Support I got that you might need to hear
Questionable self-care advice
Minerva moment
This cheered me up
Decorating my apartment for the holidays. And so early in December too! My home is merry and bright, and I’m looking forward to spending Christmas in New York, a first for me.
Anthem of the week
Mood
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You are not alone!