forget thanksgiving its time for fearsharing
a new holiday (year two)
Today’s Both Are True is brought to you by Duckbill which is “an executive assistant for your personal life.” They lemme give it a whirl and I gotta say, it’s pretty dope! The “ducks,” a name I have not yet pitched to the company but I feel like is perfect, helped me:
plan Lauren’s birthday date night
set up doc appts w docs that take my insurance
researched baby seats to find the most safe ones
made a meal plan for me and then ordered the groceries at a store for me to pick up.
Is this dystopian? A little! But it saves time and helps me get shit done that my brain literally refuses to do, so I say it’s a win! To get 50% off your first two months, sign up with this link. And if you’re not sure sign up anyways so Duckbill thinks I did a good job and pays me more money yay.
In a couple of days, everyone is gonna be all ‘i’m grateful for you’ and ‘i am thankful for this casserole’ and while all that is well AND good, it has dawned upon me, like a sun in the west, that we need some counterprogramming.
Yes, that’s right, I’m talking about the new holiday:
FEARSHARING
It is a simple holiday with humble beginnings. It all started like two paragraphs above one year ago when I wrote the first edition of this post. Then I did a dumb intro, introduced the holiday, a year passed, and now we’re here.
What is Fearsharing??
omg so glad you asked thank you.
Fearsharing is a holiday where we all sit around and instead of saying all the shit we’re thankful for, we share all of the stuff we’re afraid of. Fun, right?
I’ll start.
A sharing of my fears on this fearsharing holiday
I am afraid of…
fewer people like this post than last year, a clear sign that my cultural significance is not waxing but, indeed, waning.
how this list is gonna be just as whiny and sad as last years - have I learned nothing?
that I can’t seem to shake neither this feeling of insecurity nor the belief that perhaps this whole self-loathing thing is a character I am playing - the guy who does not like himself - for comedic effect.
that when faced with the choice of ‘effect’ and ‘affect’ i will choose the wrong one.
that i am doomed to always choose the wrong one, like when I sold my 8 and a half shares of Zoom stock before the pandemic.
losing the few right choices I have made - Lauren, the kids,
Is there really nothing else on that list?
my friends, but we moved away from them, was that a mistake?
never writing a book.
this list being so damn selfish it might as well be full of clams.
the world ending, which I know is like saying ‘i’m afraid of dying’ bc it’s just a true thing, it is happening, slowly, but maybe eventually all at once?
Trump’s second term.
feeling like an idiot for being too afraid of Trump’s second term if everything ends up ‘okay’ which maybe it will for me as a white man who lives in privilege village.
how often I can disappear into the feeling that things are okay when they are, in fact, very much not. Take for example the aftermath of hurricane Helene here in Asheville. That shit was really hard but now it feels like things are more or less…back to normal (for me) while, at the same time, less than a mile from my house, there’s this:
that I’m not doing enough to help.
that I’m not doing enough.
that, in trying to do too much, I’m missing the best stuff right in front of me.
that my kids won’t ever get to see their dad with a six pack.
that i eat too much cottage cheese which, while healthy, just can’t be good for you when you eat this much I’m talking like 80% of my meals but it really is the food of the decade mark my words.
not feeling bad enough about things I should.
feeling way too bad about things I shouldn’t.
missing out.
not missing out.
this post being a little too serious like where are all the jokes.
trying too hard to be funny and people being like, ‘dang Alex is really out here trying to be funny poor guy i hope he’s okay.’
getting in trouble for falling asleep yesterday at the coworking space because this is the second time, and after the first time I got this actual email
of being the problem.
that thinking that I am the problem prevents me from seeing the solution.
dualistic binary thinking that forgets, again and again, that both things are true.
never figuring out a way to get paid every time someone, myself included, says ‘both are true.’
people being mad at me and me not knowing it.
are you mad at me?
being a hack.
never becoming a hacker.
my world getting smaller instead of bigger and whether that means I now enter the stage of life that is singed with regret.
if singed was the right word there feels like it wasn’t but fuck it words aren’t real.
of admitting that i’m actually having a great time writing this post.
that this ‘happy light’ I bought (big ups to BAT head Madeline for the rex) won’t, in fact, make me happy.
never realizing how happy I am.
making my parents mad.
not making my parents mad.
how numb I often feel and whether that’s the problem.
always making myself the problem.
never becoming a detective.
Emma June crying which she’s doing right now even though its only 520am and she should sleep for another hour forty minutes at least.
never smoking weed again cuz i miss it and feel like it’d solve all my problems even though i know that isn’t true it feels true and isn’t something feeling true the definition of truth?
being on too many antidepressants and never being able to go do ahayuasca.
believing that my problems would be solved with drugs.
never becoming a successful standup comedian.
becoming a successful stand up comedian.
change.
change (loose).
how the other day when I was playing basketball at the YMCA and some guy who I’d played with several times kept calling me Lucio and I just sorta let it happen until someone finally corrected him and he said “Oh shit Alex!” and I said with real words from my mouth, “doesn’t matter Lucio’s fine!”
or how yesterday at pre-k drop off I said “good night” to the lady who grabbed Wilder from the car.
that it’s 817am now and I’m back after bumbling around with EJ for a while watching Miss Rachel and Norm MacDonald good stuff from both of them today.
that life is so fucking good right now and still, still, I can’t see it, a lush forest of joy and good that I am missing for a few dinky stinky trees that are crooked or branchless or have leaves shaped like butts.
that I’m also missing how the weird dinky trees are themselves what life is about, the good stuff in the bad, the sanity inside the madness, the truth inside the falsehood, etc inside the etc.
Last year’s list was 51 items which is effecting me and making me think this list should be the same but i have nothing really I mean I’m sure I could think of a few more things.
that I’m repeating myself.
the page in ‘goodnight moon’ when it says ‘goodnight nobody.’
that I’m repeating myself.
not sharing the most haunting thing that just happened to me yesterday.
Ok fine I’lll admit it: I was just hanging on the internet yesterday scrolling my face off when, lo, beho, a headline on the screen that said, “This Seinfeld star’s strange journey back to health after the show” and you know what I did? I clicked it. I clicked one of those god damn ads at the bottom of the screen that are usually about which actors got surgeries like these below. They’re called “chumbox ads’’ and upon clicking on your first, one enters the stage of life known as “no longer young” which sucks but its true and here i am and ya know what I am no longer afraid besides I’ve got a bunch of pictures that prove Russia is the weirdest place on earth to look at.
My friends and I have a thing where if we’re doing too many bits (goofs, jokes) we say “bruce” to indicate that everything that comes after is not a joke so…
bruce.
Thanks y’all. A lot of writers come to Subtack with a big ol’ audience but not this guy. If I ever become a successful lil guy writer, it will be largely because of y’all. I mean that.
/bruce.
Comments
What is on your fearsharing list? No for real take 30 seconds and write out a lil list it feels great and is healing like the word ‘balm’ just say that word out loud what a word!
love u for real
1. i'm afraid my freelance business is starting to die and i'll have to get a Real Job which I desperately don't want to do
2. i'm afraid of not being able to get a Real Job
3. i'm afraid of not receiving the support I need to do life
4. i'm afraid I won't be able to find the GF cornbread recipe for thanksgiving that everyone loved so much last year, seriously I can't find it and everyone is expecting the same cornbread bc it was such a smash hit and what if I can't deliver!! wow the more I write this one the more it feels like a metaphor
5. i'm afraid no one has my back (sensing a pattern, making a note to talk to my therapist about this...)
Good news, many of us already think of you as a hacker, so I think you can cross that fear off.
My fear is that you are a hacker and will be put in jail for illegal downloading things like the 'Barbie' movie and Reese Witherspoon's 'Wild'. Bc if you are in jail, that makes it even harder for the kids to eventually see your six pack abs.