Present Over Perfect

And then somewhere along the way that frantic energy
translated itself into work, that same manic devotion to
keeping things moving, but this time not on the dance floor.
I learned a long time ago that if I hustle fast enough, the
emptiness will never catch up with me. First I outran it by
traveling and dancing and drinking two-for-one whiskey
sours at Calypso on State Street in Santa Barbara. Then I
outran it by lining up writing deadlines like train tracks and
clicking over them one by one. Then I outran it by running
laps around my living room, picking up toys and folding
blankets, as recently as yesterday.
You can make a drug—a way to anesthetize yourself—
out of anything: working out, binge-watching TV, working,
having sex, shopping, volunteering, cleaning, dieting. Any
of those things can keep you from feeling pain for a while—
that’s what drugs do. And, used like a drug, over time,
shopping or TV or work or whatever will make you less and
less able to connect to the things that matter, like your own
heart and the people you love. That’s another thing drugs
do: they isolate you.
Most of us have a handful of these drugs, and it’s
terrifying to think of living without them. It is terrifying:
wildly unprotected, vulnerable, staring our wounds right in
the face. But this is where we grow, where we learn, where
our lives actually begin to change.